Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn asserts that the “stench of history” lingers in the air following the cancellation of a high school prom in Mississippi. It isn’t the “stench of history” but rather the stench of Zorn’s ignorance that hangs over his diatribe and pollutes both thought and discourse.

By suggesting that the virulent racism of the South in the 1960’s is morally equivalent to societal disapproval of homosexuality, Zorn perpetuates the ludicrous and offensive assumption that race is ontologically (i.e. by nature) equivalent to homosexuality. Zorn conveniently omits any discussion of this unproven assumption upon which his analogy depends. By omitting any such discussion, he frees himself from the burden of providing evidence or justification for the proposition that homosexuality is by nature analogous to race or for the proposition that disapproval of homosexuality is analogous to racism.

The only thing racism shares in common with the belief that volitional homosexual acts are immoral is that Zorn hates both. If that’s all that’s required for Zorn to see equivalence, then I guess in Zorn’s strange moral universe, disapproval of polyamory, adult consensual incest, or paraphilias is equivalent to racism, which in turn would make polyamory, adult consensual incest, and paraphilias ontologically equivalent to race. In reality, race or skin color is ontologically equivalent to biological sex–not to homosexuality.

The racist belief that African Americans were inferior and ought not to have interacted socially with whites was a malignant falsehood that needed to be exposed and eradicated. In contrast, the belief that boys ought not to have sex with boys or girls with girls is true and should be both publicly expressed and affirmed. This moral belief has nothing whatsoever to do with ignorance, bigotry, or hatred.

There are, broadly speaking, two categories of conditions: immutable conditions with no behavioral or moral implications, like race and sex; and conditions that are centrally defined by behaviors that are legitimate objects of moral assessment even if biological factors influence impulses. Such conditions would include polyamory, promiscuity, selfishness, drug use, aggression, pedophilia, Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Gender Identity Disorder, and homosexuality. From the behavioral/moral category, Zorn has plucked out homosexuality and decided to treat it like conditions from the immutable, non-behavioral category with no justification for doing so.

Implying an analogy between traditional beliefs on homosexuality and racism is specious in that the latter reflects negative judgments based on 100% heritable, immutable conditions that carry no behavioral implications. In contrast, it is widely debated, even within the homosexual community, whether homosexuality is immutable. Indeed, “queer theory” holds that sexuality is a fluid social construction. In addition, there is no research proving that homosexual attraction is biologically determined. Finally, homosexuality inherently involves acts that can be justifiably deemed immoral. Such moral conclusions do not constitute hatred of persons or bigotry.

Zorn errs not merely in assuming without proof that homosexuality is ontologically analogous to race, but in suggesting that the racist act of secretly relocating a prom in Birmingham, Alabama in 1965 in order to exclude an African American girl is analogous to openly canceling a prom because one student sought to violate morally legitimate policy regarding homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors.

Zorn concludes his commentary by deeming school policy that prohibits homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors as hatred of persons. Even identifying people as “homosexual” reveals ontological and moral assumptions. For those who share Zorn’s unproven assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality, identifying someone as homosexual means not only that same-sex desire and homosexual acts are experienced, but that they are central to and affirmed in his or her life.

In contrast, for those who hold conservative assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality, stating that someone is homosexual would mean only that someone experiences same-sex attraction and perhaps engages in homosexual acts. Traditional ontological and moral assumptions about homosexuality would not, however, suggest that those attractions are central to identity or worthy of affirmation.

Most people believe that polyamorous attractions, though unchosen and likely shaped by biology, should not be considered either central to identity or worthy of affirmation. And just as it would not constitute hatred of persons to prohibit polyamorous behavior at a school dance, it does not constitute hatred to prohibit homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors at a school dance.

The Illinois General Assembly is winding up its work for this Spring session, and will try to adjourn for the summer by Friday of this week. That means that things will be moving very quickly this week. We will try to keep you posted on the issues that concern you and your family. (As a result, you may get multiple email alerts this week.)

One of those bills that we are working hard to see passed is a common sense bill that would create school choice for parents of grade school children in Chicago’s worst 49 schools. SB 2494 would allow families enrolled in one of these schools to receive a school voucher to cover qualified education expenses at a non-government school.

This bill has already passed the Illinois State Senate (33-20-3) and the Illinois House Executive Committee (10-1). We must get 60 votes to pass it on the House floor before it can be sent to Gov. Patrick Quinn for his signature to become law.

But as you can imagine, government bureaucrats, the Chicago Teacher’s Unions and the ACLU are fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their power over public schools despite what is in the best interest of the children! We can succeed if we have an outpouring of grassroots support. Our state lawmakers will have no choice but to pass the Illinois School Choice law.

We are making thousands of robo-calls to Illinois voters in an attempt to elicit a strong grassroots response. You can help by sending an email, fax or by making a phone call to your state representative today!

Take ACTION:  Contact your state representative to ask him/her to support or even co-sponsor this common sense piece of legislation. You can always call IFI’s office for your elected official’s name and phone number – 708-781-9328.

Read more:

Controversial Chicago School Voucher Bill to Be Voted on This Week
by Tera Williams, FOX Chicago News

Chicago – Four Republicans, one Democrat. Party lines aside, they all prayed together Sunday over a controversial bill that goes up for a vote this week.

School choice is such an important issue to Suburban Republican Legislators, Ed Sullivan, Mike Connelly, Dan Cronin, Matt Murphy and Dan Duffy, they spent their Sunday on Chicago’s Southside at the House of Hope. That’s the church of Democratic Senator, Reverend James Meeks. Meeks calls the school voucher bill his brainchild.

I think it’s going to be the best thing for failing schools that we have thought of in a long time.” Meeks, who was originally against the voucher program said he changed his mind on the issue last year. “I was an advocate of more school funding but it seems as if that is slow in coming.”

Here’s how the proposed voucher program would work. Kindergarten through 8th grade students in Chicago’s most overcrowded schools and poorest neighborhoods could get up to $3,700.00 in vouchers to help pay for tuition at their parents choice of a participating private or parochial school. The bill would apply to about 22,000 students.

If passed, the program would start next year. There is bi-partisan support for the bill, but there are major concerns too.

27th District Senator Matt Murphy says, “People are concerned that it will siphon money away from the current school system. Again, if the school system is producing 6 out of 100 college grads, that’s not good enough.”

The ACLU and the Chicago Teacher’s Union are against the bill. The CTU calls it unconstitutional and warns the program could rack up $100 million in new state costs, cause schools to close and teachers to lose their jobs.

CPS is staying neutral on the bill. It already passed the Senate and the House Executive Committee. The full House will vote on it this week, most likely on Tuesday. It’s expected to be very close.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the Sexual Identity Therapy (SIT) Framework co-developed by Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton and Regent University professor Mark Yarhouse. This week, I’m going to take a stab at unpacking Dr. Yarhouse’s defense of the SIT Framework.

I will acknowledge the obvious from the get-go: I am not a trained mental health professional. I am an ordinary person trying to sift through what seems to me to be murky, abstract, intellectualized jargon that doesn’t quite conceal the anti-biblical ideas embedded in it.

I will also acknowledge that I’m critiquing these guidelines based on the assumptions that Drs. Throckmorton and Yarhouse hold orthodox theological views of homosexuality and that they believe that Christians are to submit their hearts, minds, and wills to Christ. I assume they believe that the Christian walk is not a hobby practiced in the evenings and on the weekends, and that we owe God both our leisure time and our professional lives. And further, I assume they believe it would be a sin of the gravest order to affirm in or to others that which God–whom they believe is an objective, transcendent, eternal reality–deems abominable.

Throckmorton and Yarhouse’s SIT Framework states the following:

The emergence of a gay identity for persons struggling with value conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations…some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options …. Clinicians should assist clients to clarify their values in order to determine their preferred course of action. Therapists should be open to the possibility that a same-sex identity is the least dissonant course.

For a secular therapist this approach would be understandable, but how can a Christian even in the service of mental or psychological consonance be open to a client assuming a same-sex identity when this therapist knows that consonance comes at the cost of his or her client’s eternal life? Is temporal dissonance a more serious problem than eternal damnation? Is it compassionate to facilitate the appropriation of the “least dissonant course” when that course is one which God hates? And can a follower of Christ be complicit in any way of facilitating the pursuit of such a course?

It strikes me that the life of all Christians is a life of dissonance. Our temporal lives are necessarily characterized by a dissonance between our fallen, depraved natures and our new natures that are being sanctified through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us that “You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image–in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.” Isn’t the term “dissonance” as used in the SIT Framework merely secularized jargon to describe the painful struggle all humans experience in trying to oppose our sin natures while living for Christ?

Believers, including those who are mental health professionals, owe our very lives to Christ, including our professional lives. We owe those who struggle with seemingly intractable, persistent sin–which is all of us–comfort, support, prayer, fellowship, and wise counsel that reflects truth, for it is only the truth of Christ that can set people free from bondage to sin. Those Christians who counsel men and women who suffer from unbidden same-sex attraction have no right or authority as Christians to “provide therapy recommendations” that “respect” the “option” of modifying religious beliefs in such a way to make possible “the integration of same-sex eroticism within a valued identity.”

The SIT Framework also states that “in sexual identity therapy, the focus is on sexual identity as a construct that incorporates the person’s assessment of sexual orientation, emotional preferences and inclinations to engage in sexual activities.”

SIT states that “We believe that the therapist should not attempt to persuade clients about how to value these dimensions but can assist clients to determine their own valuations.” How can a Christian, who is a Christian first, “assist” clients in determining that they “value” homosexual practice. If the professional standards dictate that therapists may not attempt to persuade clients how to “value” their same-sex attractions, then I would argue that Christian therapists ought to choose not to counsel clients who find little or nothing morally problematic with acting on same-sex impulses.

Let’s imagine that age of consent laws are someday overturned. And imagine a client experiences pedophiliac impulses. Or, imagine a client who experiences zoophilia, that is, a sexual attraction to animals. Could a serious follower of Christ be part of any process that results in a client determining that they value and will integrate pedophilia or zoophilia into their lives?

Clearly, those clients who enter therapy with some kind of dissonance between their same-sex attraction and their faith hold at least somewhat to orthodox Christian beliefs. Are temporal subjective feelings so superordinate that facilitating heresy in a client is justified? And to a Christian therapist, is the biblical position that homosexuality is anathema to God a “value,” or is it objective truth?

Dr. Yarhouse explains the different conceptions of mental health practitioners:

Some people will assume that Christians in the mental health field should function like they are a particular kind of pastoral care provider. Although there are many ways in which pastoral care providers practice, I see pastoral care providers as representing their faith tradition in a very intentional way. They hold up a standard and provide pastoral care to help people move toward that standard of orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice)…. Others would view licensed mental health professionals as different than (sic) pastoral care providers in some important ways. They would see a licensed Christian psychologist, for example, as entering enter (sic) into a fiduciary relationship with the public, a relationship built upon trust, and part of that trust is built upon the assumption that the services provided are in keeping with the standards in the field as it is currently governed by the state in which the psychologist practices. So a group of one’s peers (psychologists, in this case, not Christian psychologists necessarily) would reflect on what is standard practice for addressing the topic of homosexuality in clinical practice.

Dr. Yarhouse employs some strained rhetoric in the phrase “Others would view” rather than saying “In contrast, Dr. Throckmorton and I provide services in keeping with the standards in the field as it is currently governed by the state.” Making such a direct first-person claim would reveal the troubling compartmentalization of their faith, the kind of schism about which Nancy Pearcey and Chuck Colson write:

[H]aving a Christian worldview…means following biblical principles in the personal and practical spheres of life….What does this mean in practice?… It means we do what is right even at great cost, because we are convinced that what we gain in the unseen realm is far greater than what we lose from a worldly perspective.

Sadly, many Christians….give cognitive assent to the great truths of Scripture, but they make their practical, day-to-day decisions based only on what they can see, hear, measure, calculate….They may sincerely want to do the Lord’s work, but they do it in the world’s way-using worldly methods.

Dr. Yarhouse’s rhetoric brings to mind the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter From Birmingham Jail” who was lamenting the failure of church leaders to boldly condemn the evil of racism:

In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities…. And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular. (emphasis added)

Christian counselors may be prohibited from “imposing” their values or even offering direction to their clients, but surely they enjoy the freedom to direct a client to another therapist rather than becoming complicit in facilitating the integration of same-sex eroticism into the “valued identity” of a client–or to put it another way, of facilitating heresy and behavior that if left unrepented of will lead to eternal separation from God.

I have heard people offer specious analogies to other professions, for example, suggesting that counseling someone who experiences same-sex attraction is analogous to a tax accountant accepting a client who is an adulterer. The analogy fails because tax return preparation is wholly separate from the moral issue of adultery, whereas when a therapist counsels someone on their experience of dissonance between their faith and their same-sex impulses, the moral issue is the entire purpose for their professional relationship.

I’m not arguing that Christian therapists must refuse to treat those struggling with conflicts between faith and sexual impulses. I am arguing that Christians are biblically prohibited from participating in any process that involves facilitating the modification of religious beliefs–that is to say, heresy–in such a way that same-sex eroticism can be integrated into a “valued identity.”

If what Drs. Yarhouse and Throckmorton mean when they say that “some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity,” is that therapists have to accept the unfortunate reality that by the end of therapy some clients will choose to pursue lifestyles that include the appropriation of wrong beliefs and destructive sin, their statement would be reasonable even coming from a Christian.

But their assertion that they “seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect the option of modifying religious beliefs to allow integration of same-sex eroticism” suggests a positive regard for an end result that no Christian should hold in positive regard. It suggests a willingness to facilitate the appropriation of wrong beliefs and destructive sin. Such a response is neither biblically defensible nor loving.

It could be cowardice, ignorance, pride, or vanity that causes a Christian counselor to affirm the ideas affirmed in the SIT Framework. But it could be the result of a serious lack of imagination. Imagine that you are a Christian counselor and with your assistance a client decides to modify his religious views in such a way as to accommodate sin that you know with absolute certainty will shortly result in unimaginable suffering–suffering worse than any torture you’ve ever read about in history books. Now imagine saying about this decision “I seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect this option.” Such a response should be inconceivable.

Rev. Senator James Meeks (D-Chicago) sponsored and passed the bi-partisan school vouchers legislation (SB 2494) that now moves to the Illinois House. This bill would enable 22,000 Chicago elementary students who attend the city’s 49 worst performing schools to attend private schools. IFI applauds Senator Meeks and all the Illinois senators who had the courage and wisdom to advocate for disadvantaged children through this bill. This is an excellent first step.

All parents have the right and should have the means to determine the kind of education their children receive. A statewide voucher system would provide parents an increased measure of choice and control over the education their children receive, and it would provide the means for parents to seek better academic preparation for their children.

Reasons to support SB 2494:

• Hispanics and African Americans, which are the groups most affected by poor performing urban schools, support the use of government funds to help low-income families afford private schools. www.edchoice.org/newsroom/ShowFaq.do#faq_14.
• Tenure and teachers’ unions in public schools serve as obstacles to school improvement: They often prevent administrators from getting rid of poor teachers.
• Vouchers save public schools money: “The amount of money spent on the voucher or scholarship for each participant in a school choice program is less than what would have been spent on that student if he or she had remained in public schools. That means states save money that can be plowed back into their education budgets and spent on the students who remain in public schools”
• Vouchers facilitate racial integration. Currently, segregation persists because families must send their children to neighborhood schools, and neighborhoods, particularly in large, racially diverse, urban communities, are racially segregated. Vouchers break down the barriers determined by neighborhoods.
• Vouchers improve public schools by creating competition: When public schools know that students have a choice and can leave by using vouchers, they have a powerful incentive to improve their performance and keep those students from walking out the door.
• A well-constructed voucher system is consistent with democratic and Constitutional principles: “As Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained in the majority opinion, voucher programs such as Cleveland’s are ‘neutral in respect to religion (because they) provide assistance directly to a broad class of citizens, who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice.'”

School vouchers have been endorsed by the liberal Brookings Institution and the conservative Heritage Foundation. Liberty, choice, competition, compassion for the underprivileged, and the eradication of racial division are values that should enjoy bi-partisan support.

If you care about freedom; if you care about the plight of those who attend dangerous, poorly performing schools; if you care about working to eradicate racial division; and if you care about injecting competition into the public school system, please support school vouchers for Chicago elementary students by supporting SB 2494.

Dear Pro-Family Friends,

Here we go again. Liberal proponents of “tolerance” and “acceptance” are once again responding to our Day of Silence Walkout call to parents with a barrage of vile and vulgar hate email and phone calls.

Last week, IFI, working with a coalition of pro-family groups, issued a press release encouraging parents to call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration will be permitting students and/or teachers to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence (DOS) — a day of political activism and disruption promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

If student activists will be permitted to remain silent, parents are encouraged to express their opposition by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence (April 16th for most schools) and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.

The press release included contact information for IFI’s Laurie Higgins and Mission America’s Linda Harvey, so the media could contact them. Within hours they both began receiving obscene and hateful emails and phone calls from homosexual activists and their supporters.

These supporters of GLSEN’s DOS — a day to protest mistreatment of those who self-identify as homosexual — were ironically eager to use bullying tactics of their own in an attempt to intimidate and silence those with whom they disagree.

It is sad and disturbing to get these types of responses. It can even be very discouraging — if we dwell too long on them. But we know what our response should be. Jesus taught us to “bless those who curse you” and to “pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)

So, while it is easy to be upset by these hateful responses, I would like to encourage you to stop where you are, for just a moment, and pray for those who sent these emails specifically by name or pseudonym (God knows who these people are). Ask God to soften their hearts and minds and to open their eyes to His Truth.

I will then ask you to take a moment to pray for Laurie and Linda. Ask God to protect them from the slings and arrows being aimed at them. Ask God to keep them from becoming discouraged or dismayed. Finally, please keep the entire IFI staff in your prayers as we work on the front lines boldly proclaiming and defending the truth.

Thank you for standing with us. I am,

Sincerely,

David E. Smith
Executive Director

A national coalition of pro-family organizations is once again asking parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school will be permitting students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class. Parents can find out more information about the Day of Silence Walkout, which seeks to oppose the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) exploitation of public education for partisan political purposes, at www.doswalkout.net.

On Friday, April 16, 2010 thousands of public schools around the country will permit students and sometimes teachers to refuse to speak during class for a political event sponsored by the GLSEN called the Day of Silence which is intended to increase society’s affirmation of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder.

Each year the urgency and importance of opposing the Day of Silence increases because each year the efforts to exploit anti-bullying sentiment and anti-bullying resources in public schools to normalize homosexuality and to censor and demonize conservative views increases.

GLSEN seeks to end bullying by demonizing conservative beliefs about volitional homosexual acts. GLSEN seeks to have all children come to believe that moral disapproval of homosexual acts constitutes bullying and hatred. GLSEN seeks to make it socially unacceptable to express the belief that homosexual acts are immoral and dangerous. And GLSEN seeks to use publicly funded schools to promote their unproven, controversial views about the nature and morality of homosexuality.

Anti-bullying resources have become the Trojan Horse for getting homosexuality-affirming resources into public schools. And legitimate concerns about bullying are being exploited to expose ever younger ages of children to these resources. GLSEN understands that it’s easier to capture the hearts and minds of six-year-olds than sixteen-year-olds. Parents in CA, IL, MA, and MN have had to confront the efforts of pro-homosexual activists to normalize homosexuality to their elementary school children through anti-bullying resources.

In most schools, it is the gay-straight alliances that sponsor the Day of Silence, and tragically, the number of gay-straight alliances that are forming in middle schools is increasing. This means that increasing numbers of middle schools will have to confront the Day of Silence.

On their Day of Silence website, GLSEN explains to students that “you do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak.” The Day of Silence Walkout coalition expects schools to inform parents and students that they intend to enforce that legal requirement.

Parents and guardians must take a stand against the exploitation of public education in the service of controversial ideological and political purposes on the Day of Silence. The Walkout is one way to take a stand that may have an effect because every student absence costs school districts much needed money. The Walkout is an unfortunate last resort that is the result of the refusal of school administrations to listen to parental objections to the Day of Silence.

The AmericanCollegeof Pediatricians (ACP) is sending a letter to public school superintendents asking that they not tell students who may experience same-sex attractions to simply accept that they are homosexual or destined to be caught up in the dangerous lifestyle. The group has also launched a web site called Facts About Youth, which discusses sexual development and provides facts for parents, school leaders and policy makers on the issue.

The letter points out that, while at various times as many as one-in-four pre-teens or early-teens may report being uncertain of their sexual orientation, only between 2 and 3 percent of adults actually identify as homosexual. Therefore, the vast majority of youth with questions about sexuality choose heterosexuality. Many schools, however, are encouraging these youth to pursue and embrace homosexuality or bisexuality in spite of its significant physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual dangers.

“This is a critical, courageous, and revolutionary effort to restore factual accuracy to publicly funded schools that have unconscionably become the mouthpieces of organizations committed to using tax monies to advance unscientific, unproven, bleakly deterministic and dangerous ideas to children and teens, said IFI’s Laurie Higgins, Director of the Division of School Advocacy. “The censorship of facts and the censorship of diverse views about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder must stop. IFI is asking that all taxpayers send the link to this website to your local public schools.”

There is no scientific evidence that anyone is born gay or transgendered. Therefore, the College further advises that schools should not teach or imply to students that homosexual attraction is innate, always life-long and unchangeable. Research has shown that therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.

Optimal health and respect for all students can only be achieved within a school by first respecting the rights of students and parents to accurate information and to self-determination. It is the school’s legitimate role to provide a safe environment for respectful self-expression for all students. It is not the school’s role to diagnose or attempt to treat any student’s medical condition, and certainly not the school’s role to “affirm” a student’s perceived personal sexual orientation.

The American College of Pediatricians is a national organization of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children. The College produces sound policy, based upon the best available research, to assist parents and to influence society in the endeavor of childrearing.

Tom Benton, president of the ACP, said even children with Gender Identity Disorder, will “typically lose this desire…if the behavior is not reinforced.” “It is clear that when well-intentioned but misinformed school personnel encourage students to ‘come out as gay’ and be ‘affirmed,'” he explained, “there is a serious risk of erroneously labeling students who may merely be experiencing transient sexual confusion and/or engaging in sexual experimentation. Premature labeling may then lead some adolescents into harmful homosexual behaviors that they otherwise would not pursue.”

Another glorious Easter has come and gone, a day during which Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ with friends and family. Try as they might, Universityof Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone and the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune couldn’t dampen the spirits of those who know that the work of Christ on the Cross is finished.

But Stone’s op-ed piece and the decision of the Trib’s editorial board call for a response.

Stone’s op-ed titled “The crazy imaginings of the Texas Board of Education” seeks to warn an unsuspecting America that there is “a coterie of Christian evangelicals who are attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth.” His fretful missive was prompted by the Texas Board of Education’s efforts to restore balance to the teaching of American history after decades of successful “progressive” efforts to erase from history and the minds of children the place of faith in the founding of America.

Regarding the Trib’s calculated decision to publish this gigantic op-ed piece — I mean physically gigantic — I can only ask: Really — on Easter Sunday? Your coterie of editors had a confab to decide when to publish an op-ed piece that they had to know would offend conservative Christians and decided, yes, Easter Sunday is the best day to publish it.

(Commentary editor (Marcia Lythcott) contacted me the day before my commentary was published in the Trib and explained that the decision to publish Geoffrey Stone’s op-ed on Easter was hers alone, and she asked me if I wanted to change my sentence about the decision-making process. I revised it and sent her this:

“Commentary editor Marcia Lythcott ruminated about when to publish an op-ed piece that she had to know would offend conservative Christians and decided, yes, Easter Sunday is the best day to publish it.”

When my commentary appeared in the Tribune, this sentence was omitted.)

If I weren’t compelled to subscribe to the Tribune for professional reasons, this would be the camel-back-breaking event for me.

And now for Stone’s piece, yet another in his steady stream of irritating op-eds.* For those who may be unfamiliar with Stone, he is the law professor who loves to promote his daughter’s lesbian inclinations and thinks all of America should do likewise, and who thinks America is a better place with partial-birth abortion widely available.

It has become so commonplace to read denigrating comments about or see mocking portrayals of Christian evangelicals that the offensiveness of such comments and images barely registers on our tolerance meters. Imagine hearing these words come from the mouth of a professor at a leading American university on Passover: “a coterie of Reformed Jews are attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth.” Or imagine these words appearing in the Trib on Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic celebration that concludes Ramadan: “a coterie of Muslims are attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth.” Stone’s words almost sound bigoted and intolerant. When you look around at our leftist-dominated educational system, his words are laughable.

Stone believes that “most of the Framers did not put much stock in traditional Christianity. As broad-minded intellectuals and skeptics, they viewed much of religious doctrine as divisive and irrational, and they challenged, publicly and privately, the dogmas of conventional Christianity.” Stone could be accused of cherry-picking his quotes to bolster his thesis that America is not a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Here are the quotes Stone chose:

• Benjamin Franklin, for example, dismissed much of Christian doctrine as “unintelligible.” Franklin believed in a Creator, but not in the Christian God. He dismissed Christian revelation and described himself as “a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine.”
• Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral philosopher, but he believed Jesus’ teachings had been “distorted out of all recognition.” He condemned the details of Christian dogma as “dross,” “abracadabra,” “insanity,” “a hocus-pocus phantasm,” and a “deliria of crazy imaginations.” Jefferson expressed his hope to John Adams that “the human mind will someday get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2,000 years ago.”
• [John] Adams rejected the rigid dogmas he had inherited from his Puritan forebears. The Creator, he declared, “has given us Reason, to find out the Truth, and the real Design and true End of our Existence.”Adams rejected all religious doctrines “that could not be verified independently by human reason.” He wrote Jefferson that his religion could be “contained in four short Words, ‘Be just and good.'”

Stone evidently forgot these words, which might have been helpful in maintaining the accuracy that Stone seems to desire:

• The fundamental truths reported in the four gospels as from the lips of Jesus Christ…are settled and fixed moral precepts with me. (Abraham Lincoln)
• Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. (John Jay, Co-author of the Federalist Papers; First Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court).
• I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel. (Benjamin Franklin)
• Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon the earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity? (John QuincyAdams)

It’s interesting that Stone in all his paranoid handwringing about the “infiltration” of education by a coterie — or did he mean “cabal” — of Christian evangelicals is apparently unconcerned about the use of Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States to teach American history — a book that is roundly criticized for both its bias and its antipathy for America.

Dr. Gary Scott Smith, who chairs the history department at Grove City College and wrote the book Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2009) offers a slightly different view than Stone — who is not a historian. Dr. Smith explains that the truth about the religious views of America’s founders falls somewhere in between the view that “most of the founders were devout Christians who sought to establish a Christian nation,” and the view that “most founders were deists who wanted strict separation of church and state.”

Dr. Smith writes the following:

Two recent books edited by Daniel Dreisbach, Jeffry Morrison, and Mark David Hall…explained the religious backgrounds, convictions, and contributions of numerous founders. They show that many who played leading roles in the nation’s Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress, and the devising and ratification of the Constitution were devout Christians, as evident in their church attendance, commitment to prayer and Bible reading, belief in God’s direction of earthly affairs, and conduct….

A third book, which is currently being written, will explain how the faith of Congregationalist John Hancock, Quaker John Dickinson, Presbyterian Elias Boudinot, and Episcopalian Charles Pinckney, and others helped shape their political views, policies, and practice. Abigail Adams and Catholics Charles Carroll, Daniel Carroll, and John Carroll also were dedicated Christians. Moreover, Jay, Boudinot, Pinckney, and numerous other founders served as officers of the American Bible Society.

Even many of those often labeled as deists — Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Alexander Hamilton — do not fit the standard definition of deism, which asserts that after creating the world, God has had no more involvement with it. Deism views God as a transcendent first cause who is not immanent, triune, fully personal, or sovereign over human affairs. All of these founders, however, repeatedly discussed God’s providence and frequently affirmed the value of prayer. Their conviction that God intervened in human affairs and directed history has led some scholars to call these founders “warm” or “enlightened” deists, but these terms seem like oxymorons. A better label for their position is theistic rationalism….Those espousing this perspective believed in a powerful, benevolent Creator who established the laws by which the universe operates. They also believed that God answered prayer, that people best served Him by living a moral life, and that individuals would be rewarded or punished in the afterlife based on their earthly deeds. Only a few founders, most notably Thomas Paine and Ethan Allan, can properly be called deists.

Despite their theological differences, virtually all the founders maintained that morality depended on religion (which for them meant Christianity). They were convinced that their new republic could succeed only if its citizens were virtuous. For both ideological and pragmatic reasons, the founders opposed establishing one denomination as a national church. However, they provided public support of Christianity through various means, including establishing Christian denominations at the state level, passing state laws restricting public office holding to Christians and punishing blasphemy, issuing proclamations of thanksgiving to God and calls for fasting, using federal money to finance missions to Indians, and permitting Christian congregations to use governmental facilities, both at the state and federal level, for their worship services.

While we must be careful not to overstate the role of religion in the founding of our nation and the Christian convictions of the founders in textbooks or public discourse, the tendency in many scholarly circles has been to ignore or discount these matters.

*Over the past few years, the Tribune has carried numerous op-eds from Stone:

• Here’s his op-ed on a Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion that first appeared in the Trib: www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/our-faithbased-justices_b_46398.html
• Here’s another op-ed by Stone that first appeared in the Trib: www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/civil-unions-and-religiou_b_191533.html

Some months ago, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with School District 113, asking for any documents that mentioned my name. This is the district for which I worked for a decade and from which all four of my children graduated. As I wrote earlier, I was stunned by the unprofessional nature of the emails that I received through my FOIA request. All public school email is government property and therefore is subject to FOIA regulations.

At a recent school board meeting, school board member Harvey Cohen lamented the cost of FOIA requests to the district, costs which have been substantial because of the involvement of the law firm of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn.

Fortunately, there is a way for the district to recoup their expenses, which I asked them about in the March 22, 2010 Board of Education meeting.

The Board of Education has established policy regarding district computer use. The policy states that “Unacceptable Use [of the Computer Network] is generally defined as any action that is socially inappropriate” and “Unacceptable Use is specifically defined as inappropriate use of the District’s computer network in the following ways: disclosing personal addresses, telephone numbers, or other personal identifying information of other persons; disseminating material that constitutes or furthers libel [or] slander; deliberately creating, transmitting, or disseminating material that contains indecent/inappropriate language [or] text.”

Further, this policy states that District 113 employees “agree to indemnify the District for any losses, costs, damages, charges, or fees, including, but not limited to, telephone charges, long-distance charges, per-minute surcharges, equipment or line costs, or attorney fees, incurred by the District and relating to, or arising out of, [their] use of the District’s computer network or any violation of Policy 4146 or other rules, regulations or other terms or conditions of computer network access promulgated by the Superintendent or Building Principals.”

Here are just a few of the emails sent by district employees via district email that violate district computer use policy::

• Superintendent George Fornero disseminated an email to a DHS faculty member in which I was falsely accused of anti-Semitism.
• George Fornero sent an email to California”diversity educator” Glenn Singleton in which he said “WELCOME TO WHITE SUBURBIA!” (This clearly racist comment violates a number of district policies and principles.)
• Highland ParkHigh Schoolteacher’s aide Beth Avraham sent an email to HPHS Spanish teacher Robin Oliver in which she called me a “sick b—-” whom she hoped would burn in hell.
• Highland Park High School Spanish teacher Robin Oliver, whom I’ve never met, sent emails in which he shared personal medical information about two members of my family.
• Highland Park High School English teacher Paul Swanson, whom I’ve never met, sent an email to George Fornero saying, “I have a name/word for [Laurie] and I cannot put it in print.”
• Paul Swanson sent an email to George Fornero in which he said, “cmon————–I want the American Civil Liberties Union on [Laurie’s] ass so fast-that’s the way to get her….”
• Directory of Diversity Andrea Johnson sent an email to Deerfield High School principal Audris Griffith in which she said “The bad news is [Laurie] lives in Deerfield and she and her “cronies” show up at board meetings.”
• DHS principal Audris Griffith, whom I’ve never met, sent an email to Andrea Johnson in which she said, “The good news for you and me is that [Laurie] isn’t married to anyone in our respective families.”

In light of clear board policy regarding the dissemination of socially inappropriate emails and emails that contain inappropriate language or text, I asked the board if it is going to recover the costs incurred by the district-including the fees paid to district attorneys-from those people responsible for violating district “Computer Network Acceptable Use” policy.

District 113 taxpayers ought to also ask some hard questions of the school board regarding the $264,035 paid to the law firm of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn between Sept. 17, 2008-Dec. 9, 2009. Click here for district check register details.

A few weeks ago, it came to IFI’s attention via some obscene hate email that several false rumors about us had started at StevensonHigh Schoolin Lincolnshire, Illinois. The rumors were that IFI was attempting to persuade the Stevenson administration to shut down its gay-straight alliance, to fire a teacher, and to remove the book Flamingo Rising from the curricula.

As much as IFI would like all gay-straight alliances to close their doors forever because of the harm they do to students, the Equal Access Act guarantees their right to exist. IFI would not waste our time trying to get any school to close one.

And as much as IFI would love for the Stevenson English Department to choose a better book than Flamingo Rising — one that would not offend the sensibilities of any student or parent — we have not made any effort to remove it from Stevenson’s curricula.

Finally, although in March and December of 2009, I wrote critically about some of the comments and activities of Stevenson teachers, IFI has never suggested that any of them be fired.

As a result of these false rumors, a number of current and former Stevenson students started an anti-IFI Facebook group (at last count, membership stood at 683). Although, I’m sure Stevenson students believe this Facebook group serves the cause of tolerance, I would characterize some of the comments as serving the cause of hatred and intolerance.

The reason I’m writing about this sorry incident is that it exposes the hard truth about what our culture, including our public schools, actually cultivates with the message about homosexuality embedded in discussions of bullying, “diversity,” and “tolerance.” The kind of hatred expressed both on this Facebook website and in the emails IFI received reveals a deeply troubling truth about the impact of the pervasive cultural deceit that moral disapproval of homosexual behavior constitutes hatred of those who self-identify as homosexual. The intense hatred reveals that this deceit itself breeds hatred.

Many of the students who joined this group and emailed obscene, ignorant, and hateful messages to IFI have clearly bought the lie that disapproval of behavior = hatred of persons. And it is this lie that ironically fosters hatred in those who believe it and serves as an obstacle to civil discourse.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that these same students live out that principle consistently because virtually no one does. It is unlikely that they believe that their moral disapproval of, for example, selfishness, aggression, laziness, gluttony, promiscuity, cheating, lying, gossip, or polyamory constitutes hatred of those who engage in aggressive, lazy, gluttonous, promiscuous, dishonest, gossipy, or polyamorous behavior. These same students are likely able to even love those who hold different moral beliefs from theirs and who engage in behaviors they believe are wrong. At least, most people are able to do that.

Right now, public schools censor all resources that affirm conservative assumptions about homosexuality while at the same time presenting resources that affirm unproven “progressive” assumptions about homosexuality. It is this pervasive censorship and bias that contributes to a climate of hate. It reinforces the lie that moral disapproval of behavior constitutes hatred of persons and ironically results in exactly the kind of intolerance, incivility, and hatred that IFI experienced.

In terms of curricula, administrators and teachers should either remove the topic of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (aka “transgenderism/transsexuality”) from public schools or do what public schools are supposed to do and claim to be doing: critically study these topics using the best resources from the best scholars on both sides of the debate.

“Nuance”–yet another manifestation of rhetoric serving the cause of sin. Where oh where is C.S. Lewis when we need him to poke holes in the fancy façade of sophistication that we sinners don to conceal our acquiescence to a fallen world.

Grove City College Professor Warren Throckmorton’s feet have been put to the fire recently regarding the Sexual Identity Therapy guidelines that he and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University have developed. Their guidelines state the following:

The emergence of a gay identity for persons struggling with religious conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations….some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options.

How can a serious follower of Christ “envision” a homosexual identity, that is to say, an identity defined by disordered desire and objectively immoral behavior? Substitute another sin for homosexuality and imagine such a statement: “The emergence of a polyamorous or promiscuous identity with religious conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations. Some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of polyamorous eroticism or promiscuity within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options.”

Throckmorton and Yarhouse’s statement could be made only by those whose allegiance to a secular worldview takes precedence over their allegiance to Christ. Unfortunately, Throckmorton and Yarhouse are not alone in their subordination of faith and truth to the demands of secular professional guidelines or requirements.

In an interview with One News Now, Throckmorton stated that “in a professional therapy situation” it is accurate to say that “homosexuals can live normal, natural, and healthy lives that are free of mental illness.” Throckmorton and Yarhouse quote APA guidelines which state that “Psychologists understand that homosexuality and bisexuality are not indicative of mental illness.” In the words of the infamous Gollum, this is tricksy rhetoric that calls for some careful parsing.

What constitutes “mental illness” is determined by the notoriously liberal American Psychiatric Association, which removed “homosexuality” as a disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973 because of the political machinations of a group of homosexuals who stormed and disrupted an APA meeting and subsequently applied political pressure to any pockets of resistance.

But whether the APA considers homosexuality a mental illness or not should be irrelevant to a Christian mental health professional. Christian counselors ought not ignore serious moral issues when deciding how or whether to counsel a client. Neither polyamory nor adult consensual incest is considered a mental illness either. Does that mean that Throckmorton and Yarhouse would be complicit in helping a brother and sister who were involved in an incestuous relationship to work out their relationship conflicts?

Throckmorton asserts that “homosexuals can live normal, natural and healthy lives,” which raises the critical question of how he, as a Christian first, defines normal, natural and healthy. He quite obviously is not applying biblical understandings of normality, naturalness or health. I can’t imagine even what secular standards he is using to define these terms. Since homosexuals constitute somewhere between 2-4% of the population, homosexuality can’t be considered normal. And since the predominant sex act between homosexual men is profoundly unhealthy and structurally damaging, and homosexual sex is inherently sterile, it’s hard to see how anyone would define homosexuality as natural or healthy.

But most important, as a Christian first, how is Throckmorton defining that which God calls abominable as normal, natural and healthy?

In his interview with One News Now, Throckmorton also said that “he takes a more ‘nuanced’ view” on the topic of same-sex marriage. He said “that he opposes same-sex marriage but believes the Equal Protection Clause permits homosexual civil unions.” Tricksy rhetoric again. He cleverly avoids saying he supports homosexual unions, instead saying that the Equal Protection Clause permits homosexual unions.

First, if the Equal Protection Act actually required homosexual unions, it seems it would require same-sex marriages also.

Second, the question Throckmorton needs to answer directly is, does he, who claims to hold orthodox Christian views on homosexuality, believe that civil unions–which are really same-sex marriages in all but name–should be legalized. Some are interested not in what he thinks the Equal Protection Clause permits, but what he personally thinks should exist.

What seems clear is that many Christian mental health professionals are subordinating their faith to the professional standards established by a world largely hostile to faith. No serious Christian–no one who understands that Christ expects full submission of every aspect of the lives of those who accept the gift of eternal life that came at the cost of His life–would affirm to others either implicitly or explicitly profoundly sinful behavior, behavior that orthodox Christian doctrine teaches will lead to eternal damnation.

Increasingly, Christians from all walks of life are going to have to choose between their work and their faith, between friendships and faith, and perhaps even between family and faith. But we shouldn’t be surprised: Jesus told us that,

Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law–a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 10:32-39)

For Immediate Release: March 15, 2010
Media Contacts: Linda Harvey, 614-442-7998 & Laurie Higgins, 847-948-7889

Tinley Park, IL – A national coalition of organizations committed to preserving parental rights in public education, restoring academic integrity to public education, and removing partisan political protests from the classroom is urging parents to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school is permitting students to refuse to speak in class. This year’s Day of Silence is scheduled to take place in most schools on Friday, April 16th.

The Day of Silence is a political protest sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) that exploits taxpayer-funded schools to normalize homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder by asking students to refuse to speak in class.

The purported goals of the Day of Silence are to draw attention to and stop the bullying of students who self-identify as homosexual or who experience gender confusion. What GLSEN fails to acknowledge is that the means by which they seek to end bullying is by compelling public affirmation of homosexual acts and cross-dressing as normal and moral behaviors.

According to the Day of Silence website, “Hundreds of thousands of students at more than 8,000 schools” participate, including increasing numbers of middle schools.

Although the Day of Silence Walkout coalition supports the goal of ending all bullying, we do not support any effort to end bullying that involves normalizing disordered and dangerous behaviors.

We also oppose any efforts to allow divisive, partisan political action into the classroom.

The Day of Silence is just one of many contexts in which students are exposed to homosexuality-affirming ideas in public schools. And while public schools expose students to resources that affirm homosexuality, they engage in absolute censorship of all resources that espouse dissenting views.

The Day of Silence Walkout is one of the few efforts parents have available to express their unequivocal opposition to both the means and the message of the Day of Silence.

The coalition urges parents to call their children’s schools and ask the administration one question: Are students and/or teachers permitted to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence?

If the answer is “yes”, parents should call their children out of school.

For more information and a list of coalition members, visit www.doswalkout.net.

On Feb. 23, 2010 Sandy Rios devoted an entire two-hour radio program to a discussion of Julie Roys’ investigation into Wheaton College’s Department of Education “Conceptual Framework” and its reliance on far-left scholars who promote critical pedagogy, or as it’s more commonly known “teaching for social justice.” As with so many problems in education, the manipulation of rhetoric is front and center in the effort to advance “progressive” ideologies, in this case via the term “social justice,” an innocuous term that masks some not-so-innocuous philosophical commitments.

David Horowitz, ex-Marxist who is now committed to exposing leftwing radicalism in American colleges and universities, discusses the serious pedagogical and cultural problems posed by “social justice” theory in his article “The Political Assault on Our K-12 Schools“:

Today the gravest threat to American public education comes from educators who would use the classroom to indoctrinate students from kindergarten through the 12th grade in radical ideology and political agendas.

Much of this indoctrination takes place under the banner of “social justice,” which is a short-hand for opposition to American traditions of individual justice and free market economics. Proponents of social justice teaching argue that American society is an inherently “oppressive” society that is “systemically” racist, “sexist” and “classist” and thus discriminates institutionally against women, non-whites, working Americans and the poor. … In recent years teaching for social justice has become a powerful movement in American schools of education.

The problem isn’t that the creators of the Conceptual Framework mention the names of “progressive” theorists. The problem is they mention them with no acknowledgment of the serious worldview flaws they espouse. Education students should critically engage with their ideas, but it ill serves Wheaton students to believe that these are theorists whose ideas are largely positive and on which they can rely for wisdom.

On its website the Wheaton Department of Education has posted the foundational philosophy that lies at the heart of its Teacher Training Program. What is notable about this “Conceptual Framework” is the sheer number of leftist scholars who are uncritically cited, and who hold precisely the view of social justice that Horowitz decries. Very few parents and virtually no prospective students would be troubled by the document because they would be unfamiliar with the names and the jargon that may alert those who are familiar with “social justice theory.” The troubling scholars cited include unapologetic former Weather Underground domestic terrorist Bill Ayers; socialist and proponent of black liberation theology Cornel West; feminist psychologist Carol Gilligan; and Brazilian Marxist and godfather of the “social justice” movement Paulo Freire. The jargon that raises red flags is the term “agent of change,” that appears sixteen times in the Conceptual Framework and which is straight out of the Freire playbook. Christians should be concerned about justice and should seek to effect positive change, but what justice and positive change look like to disciples of Paulo Freire and Bill Ayers is likely very different from what justice and positive change look like to many disciples of Christ.

One of the most troubling statements found in the Conceptual Framework is that “The first broad goal is to ensure that candidates learn to work effectively with all children and their families regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, [and] sexual preference…“(emphasis is Wheaton’s). Of course, all teachers should work effectively with all children, but why would the crafters of this document pluck out just one form of sin — homosexuality — to mention specifically in a list of conditions unrelated to morality? The fact that they have included one form of sin to include in a list of other conditions unrelated to morality suggests the influence of secular thinkers who routinely attempt to equate homosexuality with race. It also suggests the influence of adherents to critical pedagogy who view homosexuality as constitutive of an immutable identity and who view those who identify as homosexual as an oppressed class.

The Conceptual Framework also states the following:

Finally, teaching for social justice extends beyond one’s individual classroom. An agent of change is aware of current inequitable access to quality education.

After the writers of the Conceptual Framework say that “an agent of change is aware of current inequitable access to quality education,” and that an agent of change “recognizes the inter-relatedness of educational opportunity and society at large,” they cite Ayers, West, and Freire. One could extract an inoffensive comment or idea from virtually any writer, but is there no Christian scholar who could make those obvious and superficial observations? How about a non-Christian who does not hate capitalism and the United States and one who doesn’t use foul language routinely, even when talking to students as Ayers does?

The Conceptual Framework also cites feminist theorist Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice, about which Christina Hoff Sommers has this to say:

In the final analysis, the (un)availability and (in)adequacy of Gilligan’s research are the concern of her professional colleagues. My Atlantic article touched on In a Different Voice only because that is the book that made Gilligan famous and influential and because I firmly believe that her influence has been harmful — to boys especially, but to girls as well.

Gilligan went on to successfully promote the sensational but empirically baseless “finding” that America’s adolescent girls were being “silenced” and demoralized as they were raised in our “male-voiced” culture, a culture that also harms boys by pressuring them “to internalize a patriarchal voice.”

Gilligan’s pronouncements on girls and boys are more ideological than scientific. Few academic psychologists take them seriously. In “gender studies” and in many schools of education, however, Gilligan is taken very seriously indeed, and not least because she is thought of as the famed Harvard scholar who did that “landmark research” showing that men and women speak morally in different voices.

In response to the Sandy Rios program about Wheaton, Provost Stan Jones wrote:

On February 23, 2010, the nationally syndicated Sandy Rios radio program broadcast a commentary, termed an “expose,” about “social justice” issues at Wheaton College. The commentary significantly misrepresented how social justice is addressed at Wheaton College.

I have read the document, and I would argue that if there is any misrepresentation going on, it comes from the Conceptual Framework itself rather than the radio program.

Dr. Jones continues:

A second broad goal is to ensure that diversity is respected and that candidates have the opportunity and capacity to work in diverse environments and with diverse colleagues and teachers. A third broad goal is to ensure that candidates understand legitimate current issues of justice in education, and understand their responsibility to work for positive change when such injustice is present.

What does “ensuring that diversity is respected” mean? Are Wheaton grads expected to respect all forms of diversity? How is injustice defined by “social justice” proponents? What does positive change look like? What are the means recommended to achieve positive change? For example, most devotees of critical pedagogy deem homosexuality a form of diversity worthy of respect and affirmation and believe that the eradication of orthodox Christian beliefs about homosexuality constitutes positive change.

Dr. Jones defends the Conceptual Framework, explaining that:

As a part of the educational process, students in our teacher preparation program in the Department of Education engage with a wide array of educational theorists, including certain critical theorists who explore issues of possible systemic societal injustice such as diminished educational opportunities and resources for children in low-income communities. As individuals and together, our faculty recognize that many of these theorists and researchers have some valuable insights and research findings to offer, even as they question, criticize, or even outright reject aspects of the overarching worldviews that often lie behind their work (e.g., naturalism, dialectical materialism, statism, collectivism).

Several observations:

First, if the Conceptual Framework is accurate, students will be engaging with a preponderance of “critical theorists.”

Second, Dr. Jones uses the problematic term “systemic societal injustice,” which is a synonym for the more common but equally problematic term in the lexicon of social justice theory, “institutional racism.” Both terms refer to the notion that bias and inequality are built into institutions and serve to preserve the power of the oppressor classes. Institutional racism is distinct from the prejudiced beliefs held by individuals or racist acts committed by individuals. One wonders if Wheaton students critically engage with the ideas of F.A. Hayek who was an economist, philosopher, and U. of Chicago professor. Hayek wrote this about “social justice” (as distinct from justice):

I may, as a result of long endeavors to trace the destructive effect which the invocation of ‘social justice’ has had on our moral sensitivity, and of again and again finding even eminent thinkers thoughtlessly using the phrase, have become unduly allergic to it, but I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I can make… speakers and writers…thoroughly ashamed…to employ the term ‘social justice.’

Or what Hayek wrote about equality:

From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Third, there was nothing in the Conceptual Framework or responses of Education Department Chair Jill Lederhouse or Wheaton President Duane Litfin in the radio interview to suggest that the faculty “questions, criticizes, or outright rejects aspects of the overarching worldviews that lie behind the work” — or in the forefront of the work — of Bill Ayers, Maxine Greene, Cornel West, and Paulo Freire. Neither Dr. Lederhouse nor Dr. Litfin provided evidence that students read any criticism of the definition of social justice or the remedies for injustice that these theorists promote. Do faculty members expose students to criticism of their theories? And why not include references to scholars like Ronald Nash who actually hold the worldview that Wheaton claims to hold? I would argue that there is a substantive difference between critically engaging with a text in class and citing it in one’s foundational statement of philosophy.

This document purports to be the driving philosophical force for the entire department’s pedagogy. According to the Conceptual Framework, it has a “direct effect” on the policies and practices of the Wheaton Teacher Education Department:

Teaching for social justice is addressed in all of the unit’s classes…. The unit’s conceptual framework has also been used to develop the evaluation forms that are completed on each candidate after the completion of each practicum experience….In addition to its influences on the classes and school experiences of the candidates, the conceptual framework also guides the practices of the faculty in all aspects of their work and the unit itself in its assessment of its own effectiveness. As new faculty members are recruited, all are provided with a copy of the conceptual framework. During the interview, the faculty candidate’s fit with the College’s beliefs regarding the preparation of teachers is assessed.

I was interviewed almost a year ago for Julie Roys’ report, a report in which Dr. Lederhouse admitted that the Conceptual Framework relied too heavily on leftist thinkers, and yet in the ensuing year, the document was neither taken down nor revised. In addition, in recent responses to concerns addressed in the radio program, neither Dr. Litfin nor Dr. Jones addressed Dr. Lederhouse’s admission.

Education majors at Wheaton should critically engage with formative theorists, but in the document outlining the foundational philosophical commitments for Wheaton’s Department of Education it might be wise to exclude those theorists whose worldviews are largely antithetical to a Christian worldview, and whose valuable contributions — if any — are not unique to them. The Conceptual Framework would be vastly improved if scholars like Anthony Bradley, Ronald Nash, Christina Hoff Sommers, Thomas Sowell, Sol Stern, and Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom were cited in the Conceptual Framework, and Ayers and Freire were critically studied in class.

(Read more about this important issue and/or listen to segments of the radio interview at Julie Roy’s blog: JulieRoys.blogspot.com)

What would you do if your local high school bought every student a brand new Apple MacBook? Would you think you have the best school district in the world? Or would you be concerned about your privacy?

I think it’s probably safe to say, privacy would be our last thought. After all, we trust the school with the education of our children. That was the mistake of parents of high school students in a wealthy school district in Pennsylvania where 2,300 Apple laptops were distributed. The laptops came equipped with webcams and software (also known as spyware) that enabled school officials to turn on the webcam by remote and take snap shots of the computers’ operators (often children in their own bedrooms), which apparently the school often did.

It all came to light when the vice principal of the high school called a 15-year-old boy named Blake Robbins into her office. There, she reprimanded him for his improper behavior in his home. It seems that young Mr. Robbins was popping Mike and Ikes like candy–which they are. However, this spying vice principal thought he was taking drugs.

Blake’s parents were outraged (and rightly so), and filed a civil rights lawsuit against the school, and also several administrators. Their lawsuit claims:

[T]he laptops were routinely used by students and family members at home, it is believed that many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including in various stages of dress or undress.

We cannot pretend that we don’t live in an era where teachers’ sexual misconduct is an issue. No, that would be plain ignorant. The headlines of such misconduct have become such common place, that it’s really no longer news. What is news is that a school would be so brazen to trample the privacy of its students by placing them under surveillance, without permission from anyone, and for no apparent reason.

The official excuse from the school as to why the technology was installed in the first place is frankly lame. It claims the spyware was installed to locate stolen or lost laptops. When you consider that a simple piece of electrical tape would provide sufficient cover for a thief, and GPS could pinpoint the location of a lost item, it really doesn’t hold water. Not to mention the fact that the boy who got busted for eating candy in his bedroom was not working on a lost or stolen computer. So, why were they spying?

For over a year, students reported that the tiny green LED light, which indicates the webcam is on, would turn on indiscriminately. When this issue was brought to the school administrators, they blew them off, saying it was a software glitch. Obviously, someone knew full well what was going on– that these webcams were being remotely activated and operated, putting their students under surveillance. The school lied about it.

The FBI has opened an investigation to see if any federal wiretap or computer- intrusion laws were violated, and a lawyer for a possible class action lawsuit has asked a judge preserve all the data on the laptops as evidence.

Just a few years ago, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that a parent’s right to direct the education of their child was greatly diminished once the initial decision of which school the child would attend was made. Once a child passes through the threshold of the school, the school assumes parens patriae or country as parent. Over the years, parents have let their authority slip away to the schools, while the local schools have given way to the states, and the states to the federal government. This should outrage every parent and grandparent.

These school administrators have demonstrated one of two things. Either, there is a very creepy and sinister motive behind the eye of the webcam peeking into students’ bedrooms, or they truly believe they own the children to the degree that their reach of authority stretches into home and private life. Neither is acceptable, and both should be criminally punished.