Yesterday, I discussed the dishonesty of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) when reporting on the ill-conceived “transgender” policy at East Aurora High School in Aurora, Illinois and the school board’s dissolution of the ad hoc committee that included five deviant sexuality activists from outside the community. Anyone who naively believes the dissolution of this unelected committee due to community opposition is the definitive end to this story should read the email below that was sent by one of the activists to the other ad hoc committee members. It reveals the  presumptuousness, self-righteousness, and tenacity of “LGBT”-affirming activists: 

Dear Members of the Ad Hoc Committee: 

For myself and the hundreds of supporters of transgender students and their families in the East Aurora Schools, I was extremely disappointed to learn that the District 131 school board dissolved the Ad Hoc Committee.  I learned this, not as a courtesy from anyone at the district, but from the news media.  Learning secondhand about the decision sends a clear message that the district does not value the many exhausting hours members have volunteered and that the work we have done has been for nothing.  Notwithstanding recent events, we know that we have been a part of a critical conversation that must continue for the health and safety of East Aurora youth and families. 

Dissolving the Ad Hoc Committee fails the community and the district.  The dialogue beginning to develop presented an important opportunity for education and agreement on the best approach for the district to support a population of its students.  The difficult nature of the dialogue reveals just how critical it is that we have it.  The fact is that there are transgender students in East Aurora Schools (and all schools) and it is the district’s obligation to support and protect them.  Quitting the work now leaves unaddressed the damage done and a community divided.  Not to mention the liability incurred in recognizing the need for the work and then walking away. 

The work we’ve started is simply too important to abandon and the young people to whom we and the district are beholden deserve our thoughtful attention.  Thus, I propose that we continue the discussion with or without the official stamp of the school board. 

Please let me know whether you are available to meet on Wednesday, January 9 at 6p or Wednesday, January 16 at 6p to discuss how to move forward.  Location will be determined. 

You may reach me at sarah@illinoissafeschools.org or at 312-368-9070 ex. 323.

A few points in response:

• Since it is the mission of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance to foist their beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality and gender confusion on public schools, why does Sarah Schriber claim that her “exhausting hours” were volunteer hours? And if she so deeply resents the rejection by the school board and community of her “volunteer” contributions, why is she initiating the continuation of her “volunteer” work?
• Schriber’s implicit claim about wanting to “dialogue” is laughable. Neither her organization nor any other “LGBT” advocacy organization seeks to “dialogue” with conservatives on how to think about issues related to same-sex attraction or gender-confusion. They will tolerate no other conceptualizations of homosexuality and gender-confusion than their own. Anyone who disagrees with their non-factual, subjective, unproven assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexual acts, cross-dressing, elective amputations of healthy body parts, “same-sex marriage,” or “same-sex adoption” are deemed ignorant hateful bigots. For evidence of that, just read the email sent by another member of the former ad hoc committee, the gender-confused Mr. Joanie Wimmer.
• Schriber’s declaration that she intends to continue to meet even “without the official stamp of the school board” reveals not merely how presumptuous she is, but how tenacious. Aurora community members need to be even more tenacious.

And Illinoisans in other communities need to be prepared to be equally tenacious because advocates like Schriber are coming to your schools–including your elementary schools. Unfortunately, many are employed in your schools even now, working behind the scenes to create policy and exploit curricula in their efforts to transform the beliefs and values of your children.

Anyone who’s concerned about the increasing involvement of deviant sexuality activists in our public schools should pay close attention to recent events in Aurora, Illinois—events that may unfold further. Those who believe the issue is over do not understand the obsessive fervor with which these activists pursue their dystopian vision, including corrupting the hearts and minds of our children. 

To review, an administrator (Christine Aird) in East Aurora School District 131 worked behind the scenes last summer with an activist from the “LGBT”-affirming organization, ironically named the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, to come up with an unnecessary school policy that would have permitted gender-confused students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of opposite sex students. This administrator then misled the school board into thinking that such policy was required by state law. Public opposition to the policy resulted in the school board rescinding the policy four days later. 

Subsequently, the board formed an unelected, ad hoc committee to revisit policy for gender-confused students. On this committee sat two homosexual activists from outside Aurora, an activist from the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance who does not live in Aurora, and two cross-dressing men who do not live in Aurora. 

Well over 100 Aurora community members, most of whom were Hispanic, showed up at ad hoc committee and school board meetings to express their strong opposition to any policy that would allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms of opposite sex students. They also expressed opposition to non-community members serving on any committee that was creating policy for the district. As a result primarily of community involvement, the school board disbanded the ad hoc committee after just two meetings. 

In reporting on this story, Nathan Smith, public policy associate for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) managed to accomplish what I thought was impossible: diminish my view of GLSEN. His GLSEN blog post about this entire debacle was dishonest in two significant ways. 

First and most important, Smith attributed the decision of the East Aurora High School Board of Education to dissolve the ad hoc committee solely to the Illinois Family Institute. Although IFI appreciates Smith’s assessment of our influence, his assertion is untrue, likely deliberately deceitful, and unfair to the scores of Aurora citizens who were most responsible for the decision of their school board to dissolve the ad hoc committee. 

His assertion that IFI was responsible reflects either journalistic incompetence or deliberate dishonesty or both. The article I wrote in which I urged Illinoisans, particularly Aurora community members, to contact the board of education was published before the ad hoc committee had even formed. 

It was the Aurora community members who showed up at the second meeting of the ad hoc committee and a subsequent school board meeting who were responsible for the school board’s decision to dissolve the committee, and yet Smith never said a word about their attendance at these meetings and their vocal opposition to the controversial policy.  It’s mind-boggling that anyone reporting on this event would fail to mention that over 100 community members attended the meeting and opposed both the policy and the composition of the ad hoc committee.

It’s obvious why Smith would omit these inconvenient truths from his blog post. It serves GLSEN’s strategic purposes to conceal community opposition to the perverse goals of deviant sexuality advocates—goals that GLSEN relentlessly promotes. It also serves GLSEN not only to distract the public’s attention from the effectiveness of community involvement but to drum up hatred against IFI. Although, I understand Smith’s strategic reasons for his startling omissions, I would hope that a commitment to truth and accuracy would supersede GLSEN’s strategic interests. 

Second, Smith erroneously claims that the East Aurora School Board disbanded “efforts to protect” gender-confused students. What the school board did was disband the committee on which multiple activists who were not Aurora community members were serving and which the community opposed. Smith assumes that the only way to protect students who suffer from gender confusion is to maintain a committee composed of unelected, non-community members; to accept his ontological and moral presuppositions about gender confusion; and to enact policy with which he agrees. In a diverse world, however, there are multiple, competing visions of how best to respond to and protect those who experience gender confusion. 

One final point, unlike the “progressive” activists who actually served on the ad hoc committee while not living in Aurora, I only wrote about the story, as did homosexual and gender-confused activists all over the country. No IFI employee even attended a meeting of the school board or ad hoc committee.

Today, Monday, December 19, 2011, the Chicago Tribune included not one, but three articles (click HERE,HERE, and HERE) on “transgenderism” by Rex Huppke, their designated proselyte for “progressive” views of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (GID). (In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association uses the term Gender Identity Disorder to designate the phenomenon that Huppke refers to as “transgender issues.”)

In response to these articles, I sent this brief letter to Mr. Huppke and to the Tribune editorial board:

Dear Mr. Huppke,

Once again, you’ve written an editorial masquerading as a news story. Your lengthy article (or three articles) on “transgender” issues includes one mention of American Family Association’s dissenting views on Gender Identity Disorder and one quote from Focus on the Family’s position statement on Gender Identity Disorder.

Apparently, you didn’t solicit any comments from either public policy organizations or mental health professionals who hold different views on the nature of Gender Identity Disorder, the morality of cross-dressing, or the ethics of “sex reassignment” surgery. The absence of any substantive exposition of dissenting views is particularly notable in light of two articles written by psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow that lit up the blogosphere, particularly among those who identify as homosexual and transgender. (Read Dr. Ablow’s articles HERE and HERE.)

It would have been illuminating to interview some theologians and philosophers on the nature of reality. For example, is “reality” merely a construct of our minds or our subjective feelings, or does an objective reality exist?

Another interesting question concerns allowing people to change their birth certificates: Does such an act make the state complicit in fraud?

Or, what evidence do you have for your clear implication that “discrimination” is the cause of the the increased risk of suicidal ideation among those who experience Gender Identity Disorder. And what do you mean when you use the word “discrimination”? Do all expressions of moral disapproval of behavior constitute illegitimate “discrimination” or just those with which you disagree?

But alas, it’s abundantly clear that your mission is not to report or discuss, but to exploit your position as a journalist to write an extended apologetic for your personal moral, philosophical, and political views, painted over with a rhetorical patina of neutrality.

What is equally troubling is that your bosses find this acceptable.

Sincerely,

Laurie Higgins
IFI Cultural Analyst

Take ACTION: Chicago Tribune reporter Rex Huppke continues to write pro-homosexual opinion pieces, presenting them as “new” articles.

Send email complaints to the Tribune editorial board about Mr. Huppke’s lack of balance and failure to present views from mental health professionals who hold different views on the nature of Gender Identity Disorder, the morality of cross-dressing, or the ethics of “sex reassignment” surgery.

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

Phone: (708) 781-9328
Fax: (708) 781-9376

Evil men don’t understand the importance of justice,
but those who follow the Lord are much concerned about it.
~Proverbs 28:5

Decades ago, summer was the time that necessitated increased parental vigilance. School was the safe place. But the times they have a’changed. Self-righteous “agents of change” stand ready at the schoolhouse door to mold other people’s children into ideological replicas of themselves. So now the school year has become the time that necessitates increased parental vigilance.

One organization that warrants particular attention is “Teaching Tolerance,” which is laughingly called an “educational project,” but is, in reality, the pernicious propaganda project of the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the organization that has listed the Illinois Family Institute, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association as “hate groups.”

The propagandists — I mean educators — at Teaching Tolerance are taking full advantage of the propensity of parents to remain blissfully unaware of what their children are being taught. These “tolerance teachers” count on parents remaining ignorant of their goal to undermine conservative moral and political beliefs.

Here is the newest resource spawned by the manipulators of children at the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance of which parents should be aware:

Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers 2011-2012

This handbook for teachers begins with a quote from the Brazilian Marxist, Paulo Freire, who is the guru for “social justice teachers” and wrote their bible, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The introduction makes clear that liberation from oppression supersedes sound, apolitical education:

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for teachers who believe their students can create meaningful social change. It is the product of a collaboration between two education networks — the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Education for Liberation Network — and is published in partnership with Rethinking Schools. The information and ideas featured on its pages come from teachers, college students and activists who, like you, struggle daily to put their values into practice. As educators, our vision of teaching for liberation often gets buried under the everyday realities of teaching. Bombarded with paperwork, tests, curriculum mandates, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed, alone.

…Planning to Change the World is packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events, words of wisdom from visionary leaders, lesson plans, resources, social justice education happenings and more. [Emphases added]

The planning book includes quotes from radical historical revisionist Howard Zinn, homosexual activist Staceyann Chinn, and controversial labor leader Cesar Chavez. It also includes dozens of resources for teachers, most of which are extreme leftwing resources, including resources that promote far leftist assumptions about homosexuality, economics, religion, and American “imperialism.”

Here are some of the historical events honored just in November by the SPLC’s “educators” from Teaching Tolerance:

• Transgender Day of Remembrance
• The 50th anniversary of the first openly gay person to run for public office
• Eid al-Adha: an Islamic holiday
• Muharram, the first day of the Islamic calendar
• The 170th anniversary of the Creole revolt
• First day of Native American Heritage Month
• 80th anniversary of the beginning of the removal of the Choctaw Indians from their lands
• Thanksgiving: Teaching Tolerance recommends that teachers use resources from the anti-American organization, Oyate, about which I have previously written.

Teaching Tolerance also recommends an activity they created called Thanksgiving Mourning:

[S]tudents will review two written works by Native American authors. The first — a speech written by Wamsutta James in 1970 — gave birth to the National Day of Mourning, which is observed on Thanksgiving by some indigenous people. To them, Thanksgiving is ‘a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.’ The Day of Mourning, on the other hand, is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest of the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to experience.”

I wonder if Teaching Tolerance would revise their list of important “social justice” historical events to include mention of Joseph Scheidler, father of the pro-life movement. He is the indefatigable pursuer of social justice for the most vulnerable in America: babies in utero, whose developmental immaturity or imperfections put them at risk of legalized extermination.

As I’ve written before, “teaching for social justice” is, in a nutshell:

repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Its other dominant features pertain to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation/ identity/ expression. Social justice theory as I’m describing it encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which group constitutes the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The problem with social justice theory is that it promotes the idea that “institutional racism,” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice theorists cultivate the racist, sexist, heterophobic stereotype that whites, males, and heterosexuals are oppressors. This is an offensive, prejudiced stereotype that robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lots in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through an appropriate degree of self-flagellation on the parts of the purported oppressors. It cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of whites, or men, or heterosexuals.

Finally, social justice theory is distinctly anti-American and hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings. Social justice theory diminishes or ignores the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

To learn more about the ethically and intellectually bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center’s deeply troubling ideology, goals, and tactics, click HERE (this is a very recent and important article from an immigration reform organization on the SPLC’s “phony claims”), and HERE.

When you’re done, email your children’s teachers, some of whom likely subscribe to Teaching Tolerance’s free online newsletter for educators, asking whether they will be using any resources or activities from Teaching Tolerance. Then make it clear that should they decide to use any resources created by, or recommended by Teaching Tolerance, you want to be notified so you can opt your child out.

This should be a Saturday Night Live skit, but, oh no, this is real life in the mixed up, muddled up, shook up world of “Lola” and Cook County.

Chicago’s homosexual newspaper the Windy City Times reports the following:

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced that Cook County Jail has instituted a policy for housing transgender detainees based on their gender identity, rather than birth sex.

The policy became effective on March 21. It is thought to be the first of its kind in the United States.

Particularly with this issue, we wanted to do it right,” Dart told Windy City Times, adding that “medical and sociological” concerns for transgender people “even superseded security issues.”

The seven-page policy mandates that transgender detainees be allowed to consult with a “Gender Identity Panel” of physicians and therapists before being placed into male or female housing. It also directs correctional staff to allow transgender people to wear clothing/ own hygiene products consistent with their gender identity. Further, it requires that corrections staff, physicians, and therapists undergo gender-related sensitivity training administered by the sheriff’s department….

[T]he new policy includes clinical information on gender identity disorder, a glossary of terms and, most significantly, a recommendation that transgender people be placed in accordance with their identity (as opposed to genitalia). Dart hopes the policy will be adopted elsewhere and said it will be featured on the Department of Justice website… .

So who, pray tell, is footing the bill for the “Gender Identity Panel” with whom the gender-confused detainees get to consult? And who is footing the bill for the mandatory sensitivity training administered to corrections staff, physicians, and therapists?

Here’s another pragmatic thought: Does anyone actually believe that women who wish they were men will want to be detained in the men’s facility at Cook County Jail? Doubtful. What we’re really talking about then is housing men who wish they were women in the women’s facility at Cook County Jail. Men who wear women’s cosmetics and women’s clothing are, in reality, men. Even men who take female hormones and have their penises amputated are, in reality, men. Why should female detainees have to room with seriously confused men?

Owen Daniel-McCarter, attorney with the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois, objects to the use of the term “Gender Identity Disorder” in the new policy, arguing that it is offensive to label “transgender people has (sic) having a disorder,” even though this is the clinical designation assigned by the American Psychiatric Association. No matter. To radicals like Daniel-McCarter, doctrinaire ideology takes precedence over reality and truth. Sexual anarchists seek to manipulate language in an attempt to convince the public that cross-dressing and elective amputations of healthy body parts are not signs of disordered thinking. These rhetorical stratagems must be opposed at every turn, whether they occur in anti-discrimination and anti-bullying laws and policies, comprehensive sex ed, or fatuous, costly jail policies.