Last week, IFI was alerted to the fact that some School District 204 (Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook, & Plainfield) middle schools were participating in a diversity day last week. The person who contacted us thought that it would be a good idea for IFI to make this information known to District 204 parents.

On Thursday morning, I called six of the seven District 204 middle schools, leaving messages with six principals and two assistant principals. I explained that I worked for the Illinois Family Institute, that we had been contacted about this diversity day, and that I had some questions about it. Only one principal, Kathy Kosteck from Scullen Middle School, returned my call.

She expressed surprise that anyone would have concerns about a diversity day, so I explained that many parents understand that “diversity” is code language that conceals pro-homosexual ideologies.

She expressed her desire that parents make contact directly with the school regarding questions and concerns they have about curricula or activities. I explained that the issue of homosexuality is the most difficult cultural issue to discuss publicly because those who hold liberal views of homosexuality often label those who believe that homosexual practice is immoral as hateful, ignorant bigots. In addition, public education is dominated by those who hold liberal views on homosexuality and seek to promote those views through curricula, diversity days, and anti-bullying programs.

As a result, many parents justifiably fear that if they express their concerns directly to administrators or teachers, either they or their children will suffer repercussions, which is why some come to IFI. Ms. Kosteck had no apparent sympathy for parents who may be uncomfortable asking the questions I was willing to ask on their behalf.

Ms. Kosteck did share that Scullen Middle School was participating in a diversity day using resources provided in part by Teaching Tolerance, the educational division of the dubious Southern Poverty Law Center, which has long promoted homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality and analogous to race. As some IFI readers may recall, the Southern Poverty Law Center is the organization that in 2008 added IFI to their list of active U.S. hate groups because of one article posted in 2005 that claimed that homosexual men have a reduced life expectancy.

According to Kosteck, Scullen teachers were using resources from Teaching Tolerance’s “Mix It Up” program for grades K-12. She explained that teachers would be facilitating conversations among students who ordinarily don’t have opportunities to interact. I asked if she could send me copies of the lists of questions that teachers may be using in their facilitations. She refused.

Here are a few of the activities from the Mix It Up website to which Ms. Kosteck directed me:

• Controvesial Issues
• Controversial Issues Handout
• Homophobia Quiz
• Stay in the Mix for Valentine’s Day (Addresses state bans on “gay marriage”)
• Stay in the Mix with Music (asks if students are angry at the way some music portrays lesbians)
• Early Grades Allies
• Not True! Gender Doesn’t Limit You
• Teasing About Gendered Activities, Traits or Possessions

Perhaps none of these particular resources was consulted or used to create activities in District 204. Right now, only the administrators and teachers know for sure.

District 204 parents–and perhaps parents in other districts–might want to ask their school administrators and their children’s teachers the following questions:

• Did our school participate in Teaching Tolerance’s Mix It Up Day?
• Who proposed the idea of participating in Teaching Tolerance’s “Mix It Up” Day?
• Who planned “Mix it Up” Day?
• Were parental notification/opt-out letters sent out prior to Mix It Up Day?
• If not, why not?
• Was “sexual orientation,” “homosexuality,” “transgenderism,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression” mentioned in any of the resources or activities?
• Ask that the school provide to you any and all resources used with students. If they refuse, as Ms. Kosteck did me, file a Freedom of Information Act request to get them.Click HERE to look up the contact information for schools in District 204.

Parents should be deeply concerned when an administrator or teacher refuses to provide resources used with students to anyone who requests them. Parents should be concerned anytime they hear the word “diversity” used in public schools because most diversity programs view volitional homosexual practice as a form of diversity that society ought to embrace, affirm, and celebrate. And while I’m about the business of issuing warnings, parents should be wary of anti-bullying curricula, many of which tacitly seek to use anti-bullying programs to make students feel ashamed of believing that volitional homosexual acts are immoral.

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

Here is the form letter sent by the College of DuPage to those who expressed concern over Dr. Adelman‘s use of curriculum to advance her particular political biases. What is noticeably absent from this letter are any responses to the questions or concerns I raised in my initial article:

I thank you for your message regarding the honors seminar offered last spring. President Breuder has asked that I respond on behalf of the College.

The student in question did indeed bring her concerns to our attention last spring. We have looked into the matter and spoken with Dr. Adelman. She handed out the schedule for the course during the first week of class, at which point the students saw which films would be covered. Students had the opportunity to withdraw at that point with a complete refund if they did not feel comfortable with the films on the schedule. In presenting the curriculum, our faculty make every effort to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, and to show respect for the opinions of others, including our students. This situation has strengthened our resolve to provide students with careful advising and ample opportunity to make considered choices in their course selections.

The faculty of College of DuPage maintains a remarkable culture of caring for our students, and we are deeply proud of this. Every day, I encounter examples of the amazing lengths to which our professors go to help our students fulfill their potential. I am also deeply impressed with the accomplishments of our students, who often excel academically while dealing with any number of hardships and obstacles. I assure you that we are working tirelessly to improve the lives of all of our stakeholders.

Thank you again for your inquiry.

Joseph Collins, Ph.D.
Vice President, Academic Affairs
(Email: collinsj@cod.edu)
Phone:             630-942-3203
Fax: 630-942-3925

Dr. Collins does not explain why Dr. Adelman did not include in her course description the list of controversial films students would be required to watch. Instead, a student would have had to register, pay, purchase books, and show up for class. Then sometime during the first week, after they were given the list of assigned films, they would have had to go through the process of dropping a class, selling back books, selecting and re-registering for a new class, and starting that class a week late.

He does not explain why Dr. Adelman failed to include in her course description the fact that the class would emphasize controversial topics related to human sexuality.

He does not explain why Dr. Adelman did not include in her course description any acknowledgement of her moral, philosophical, or political biases.

He does not explain why she did not provide a “variety of perspectives” on the very controversial topics she chose to cover when according to her email to her student, she believes the provision of a variety of perspectives is important.

He does not explain how this statement from Dr. Adelman to her former student reflected “respect for the opinion” of her student: “Perhaps you are critical of anything that does not condemn homosexuality–I hope not, because that is not critical examination at all.”

He does not explain why the views of Dr. Adelman’s students on the topic of homosexuality are any concern or business of hers.

There was one more element of the story that I was unable to include in my article due to its length, but which I did share with Dr. Collins in a phone conversation. Dr. Adelman told her former student that if she permitted the student to do an alternative assignment, the student could not earn as many points as her classmates. Even if the substitute assignment were more rigorous and even if the student did superior work, she would not have available to her the number of points her classmates had available to them. As I told Dr. Collins, this seems to be a punitive response to a reasonable request. Dr. Collins and Dr. Adelman should explain how this action reflects “restraint and respect.”

I wonder, when Dr. Collins expresses how deeply impressed he is “with the accomplishments of our students, who often excel academically while dealing with any number of hardships and obstacles,” might he be referring to the hardships and obstacles posed by biased, unfair, politically motivated professors?

It would have been nice to read somewhere in this unsatisfactory bit of PR, some acknowledgement that what happened last spring to this honors student was not quite right.

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

The famous — and soon to be infamous — Scholastic Books has decided to include the pro-homosexual book for 9-12 year-olds, Luv Ya Bunches, in its middle school book fairs. This troubling book is already in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue, which is distributed to elementary school children.

Because of the vociferous protests of homosexuals and a petition drive by the pro-homosexual organizationChange.org, Scholastic Books has reversed its initial decision to exclude the book from their book fairs. It will now allow Luv Ya Bunches to be included at its middle school book fairs.

According to the Guardian, author Lauren Myracle “who regularly makes the list of the most banned and challenged authors in the US — capitulated on the language, removing words such as ‘geez’, ‘crap’, ‘sucks’, and ‘God’, but refused to replace the lesbian parents of her character Milla with a heterosexual couple.” Scholastic Books includes Luv Ya Bunches on its “Teacher’s Picks” page as one of the “Best Books” for grades 3-5.

Change.org describes Scholastic Books as “one of the largest education publishers in the world with broad influence over the reading materials of children everywhere. . . .These are the same book fairs that have reach [sic] to millions of schoolchildren nationwide.” Clearly, homosexual activists recognize the potential Scholastic Books has to transform the views of impressionable children.

IFI is urging parents to notify your children’s schools that because Luv Ya Bunches is listed in the Scholastic Book Club catalogue, the catalogue is not to be distributed to your child and that you will not be ordering any books from Scholastic Books.

In addition, notify your children’s school that if Luv Ya Bunches will be included at the Scholastic Book Fair, your child is not to be taken to the fair during or after school hours.

Finally, call the Scholastic Books feed back line and send emails to Scholastic Books management to inform them that as long as they are carrying books that affirm homosexuality as moral, you will not purchase books from them. To leave an email message, contact Investor Relations. or call:

Jeanie Salgado, Scholastic Book Fairs:             (407) 829-8265
Scholastic Book Group:             (212) 343-4731
Scholastic Books feedback line             (212) 343-6834      

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!.

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

What is the difference between an educator and an ideologue? Perhaps a look at Naperville North High School’s teacher Kermit Eby will help answer that question.

Kermit Eby, the Naperville North social studies teacher who last year invited unapologetic Weather Underground domestic terrorist and “critical social theory” proponent Bill Ayers to speak at Naperville North, has now invited history revisionist and America-hater Howard Zinn to speak at Naperville North on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 2:00 p.m.

This same teacher signed the Support Bill Ayers petition (For those interested, Eby is signatory number 1947 on the petition, and he identifies himself as a Naperville North High School teacher). And this is the same Kermit Eby who signed the Historians Against the War petition in 2003, again identifying himself as a Naperville North High School teacher. These historians opposed “the expansion of United States empire and the doctrine of pre-emptive war that have led to the occupation of Iraq. We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history involved in the administration’s conduct of a war that violates international law, intensifies attacks on civil liberties, and reaches toward domination of the Middle East and its resources.”

Of course, Mr. Eby has every right to sign any petition he wants, but his obvious political leanings and interests appear to be influencing his pedagogical activities. A parent who had multiple meetings with Eby as a result of two of her children having him as a teacher wrote on a Daily Herald blog that Eby makes his political views known through his classroom commentary as well as curricular resources:

Both my daughter and my son sat through Kermit Eby’s American history classes. My son also had him for American government. I know Mr. Eby. I sat through five parent conferences with him and I had several conversations with him and exchanged three years of email notes with him. Kermit Eby is the stereotype of the so-called-progressive teacher. When I called to complain about a gay-rights skit he put on in which two girls held hands and kissed during a mandatory attendance assembly he justified himself by claiming to be a “progressive missionary working for social justice in the underbelly of affluence.” And there is no balance of any kind. My kids sat through his classes and listened to daily rants about the evils of the Republican Party, conservatives, religion, America, capitalism and especially George Bush.

Since Eby sent out district emails this week encouraging Naperville North and Naperville Central social studies and communication arts teachers to attend and to invite their students to attend Zinn’s lecture, it’s clear that he’s using extracurricular activities to promote his political vision as well.

This is not the first time Zinn has been invited to speak at Naperville North. According to a Nov. 8, 2002 Naperville Sun article, Zinn spoke to Naperville North students on the topic of “The Uses of History and the Current War on Terrorism.” Who, I wonder, invited Zinn in 2002?

Howard Zinn is the author of the book A People’s History of the United States, which has been used in history classes across the country for many years. Thomas Sowell, African American scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a prestigious conservative think tank, has this to say about Zinn’s book:

It speaks volumes about our schools and colleges that far-left radical Howard Zinn’s pretentiously titled book, A People’s History of the United States, is widely used across the country. It is one indictment, complaint, and distortion after another. Anyone who relies on this twisted version of American history would have no idea why millions of people from around the world are trying, sometimes desperately, to move to this country. The one virtue of Zinn’s book is that it helps you identify unmistakably which teachers are using their classrooms as propaganda centers.

An article in The New Criterion describes Zinn’s People’s History of the United States as an “anti-American fantasy masquerading as history,” a “book whose message is that the New World, once a paradisal playground … when Columbus met the gentle Arawaks, was ruined when rapacious, war-mongering white men overran the continent.”

It goes on to say “Zinn’s story-noble savages oppressed by nasty capitalists–was calculated to appeal to the politically correct, anti-American spirit that has been regnant among the country’s elites since the late 1960s.”

In a commentary on The People’s History of the United States, author Daniel J. Flynn, describes Zinn as an “unreconstructed, anti-American Marxist” and Zinn’s book as a

cartoon anti-history of the United States. . . If you’ve read Marx, there’s really no reason to read Howard Zinn. The first line of The Communist Manifesto provides the single-bullet theory of history that provides Zinn with his narrative thread– “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle” . . . Thumb through A People’s History of the United States and you will find greed as the motivating factor behind every act of those who don’t qualify as “the people” in Zinn’s book. According to Zinn, the separation from Great Britain, the Civil War, and both World Wars all were the result of base motives of the “ruling class” — rich men to get richer at the expense of others . . . This slanderous tome and its popular and academic success are monuments to human credulity and delusion, and to the disgraceful condition of American letters.

If an educator who personally holds left of center socio-political views invites primarily or exclusively left- of-center speakers, is he truly an educator or an indoctrinator? And how is critical thinking fostered or diversity honored through such obvious imbalance?

In the student online newspaper, NorthStar Online, Rachel Rodi writes about the prominent speakers Naperville North has hosted over the years: Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, anti-war protestor and perennial jailbird Kathy Kelly, and Howard Zinn. The only teacher quoted in this article was–you guessed it–Kermit Eby.

Kermit Eby should read Stanley Fish’s book Save the World on Your Own Time in which he argues that educators should not “advocate personal, political, moral, or any other kind of views except academic views.” Fish contends that some “faculty members . . . have forgotten (or never knew) what their job is and spend time trying to form their student’s character or turn them into exemplary citizens.” He asserts that teachers are not hired to do things like “produce active citizens, inculcate the virtue of tolerance, redress injustices, and bring about social change.” In Fish’s view, “these are tasks properly left to preachers, therapists, social workers, political activists, professional gurus, [and] inspirational speakers.”

Those who choose to teach in government schools, whose salaries are paid by the public, should be held publicly accountable when they violate sound pedagogical principles. When, year after year, they exploit the relative privacy and autonomy of the classroom and violate the trust of the public by using public resources to try to effect cultural change in the direction of their political vision, they must be publicly exposed and challenged. Unfortunately, Kermit Eby is not alone.

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

Last spring I was contacted by a remarkable student at the College of DuPage who could teach many adults a thing or two about courage and conviction.

She was enrolled in an integrated biology and film class entitled “Honors Seminar: Biology 1100 (Survey of Biology) and English 1154 (Film as Literature)-Defining Human Health on a Changing Planet” that was described in the course catalogue as follows:

This seminar combines an investigative and interactive approach to biology with the study of film as a literary genre to explore the concept of human health in its broadest sense. Using the medium of film as a commentary on past and current biological issues, we will explore ecological, evolutionary, and hereditary relationships among living organisms, examine lifestyle issues and analyze the relationships between population, agriculture, pollution, biodiversity, and disease. The principles and procedures underlying the modern approach to understanding living processes are emphasized. You will also explore contemporary health issues, and through these investigations come to appreciate the role of biology and film in society. Learning methods for this seminar include reading, film viewing, class lecture and discussion; labs issue deliberations, field trips, and cooperative research projects. All seminar participants will also be involved in service learning to enhance understanding of health issues at the local level.

Reading, film-viewing, lectures, discussions, labs, field trips, research projects, service projects, ecology, evolution, heredity, lifestyles, population, agriculture, pollution, biodiversity, disease, past biological issues, current biological issues, film appreciation–whew–I’m exhausted just reading this exhaustive list of topics and methods. And somehow in the midst of all this verbiage, the film/English professor, Dr. Deborah Adelman, forgot to mention her strident political biases and agenda. She failed to mention that she has a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual political agenda that she uses her Illinois taxpayer- funded salary to promote.

In her course description, she offered no clue that she would require her students to watch what most people consider an intensely pro-abortion film, Vera Drake, or the film Kinsey about the perverted sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, or the pro-homosexual film Brokeback Mountain.

When the teacher finally revealed what films she was assigning, the student wrote her the following:

As an honor student I do not make it a practice of trying to get out of assignments that make me uncomfortable; but rather, it is quite the opposite. I am paying for my own college education, and I am picking classes that I think will not only challenge me but also teach me a lot.

At the beginning of class you stated that you do not like movies with violence in them. Well, just like you, there are certain movies that I do not care to see. I do not like movies with a lot of sexual content and pornographic images. Not only do they make me feel uncomfortable, but the content in these movies morally offends me. These kinds of images are not easily forgotten, but rather they stay in a person’s mind for a lifetime. I do not care to put these images in my mind, because they may color a possible marriage for me in the future.

The whole theme for this seminar is human health and a changing planet. In class, we have discussed how Kinsey’s ideas led to the sexual revolution and gave us more sexual freedom. However, we have failed to look at the other side of the story. Sexual freedom often goes hand in hand with STDs, divorce, abortion, and other terrible consequences.

Instead of watching Kinsey and Brokeback Mountain, may I write a 3-5 page research paper on different views of human sexuality, by looking at academic resources such as books, journal articles, statistics, and films? My request is not to escape this unit on human sexuality because it makes me uncomfortable, but rather to think critically about different views on human sexuality.

Here’s the response of yet another “educator”–Dr. Adelman–who purports to be committed to exploring multiple perspectives:

I do think that work in college will often make a student uncomfortable. That is part of the college experience. I am not in the practice of coming up with alternative assignments because the material makes students uncomfortable. A big part of the college experience is learning to explore material, concepts, issues, etc. from a variety of perspectives.

I also am not in the position nor particularly interested in forcing you to view something you do [sic] want to view. If you don’t view the films, however, you really won’t be able to participate in the discussions. Perhaps you can be more specific and let me know what it is that makes you uncomfortable and why you think it is advisable for you not to view the films. There are a number of films coming up that may also make you uncomfortable. I do think that the best art does challenge us to go beyond our comfort zones.

. . . I do need to warn you that that you probably will not want to see the Spike Lee film I am showing on Monday (She’s Gotta Have It)

One thing I do need to point out right away is that from my end of the class, I am interested in your exploring how the medium of film explores human sexuality. . . We have also emphasized in class the role culture plays in human behaviors. So I am looking at feature films that are attempting to portray the filmmaker’s vision about sexuality. Any possible alternative assignment would have to be about film. This of course will be hard, because most films that deal with human sexuality will have some images in them you might not want to see.

. . . I don’t think you are able to really comment on whether or not the films you don’t want to watch are in some way pornographic because you have not seen them. You would need to define what you mean by pornography, because it is really a stretch to consider the film Kinsey pornographic, or Brokeback Mountain for that matter. There are some graphic scenes in both of them, and while one scene in Brokeback Mountain has been criticized from promoting certain stereotypes of male homosexual behavior, neither film comes anywhere close to fitting all the definitions of pornography I have encountered. Kinsey as a film also does not promote some of the things you are concerned with-it is a biopic which gives a fairly reserved portrayal of Kinsey and his work, and the portrait is certainly far from flattering in many moments. Brokeback Mountain, more than anything, is about how cultural mores towards homosexuality leave two broken lives as a consequence.

Perhaps you are critical of anything that does not condemn homosexuality–I hope not, because that is not critical examination at all (emphasis added).

In addition to “wow,” I have a number of random thoughts regarding Dr. Adelman’s response:

• What in the course description would have alerted prospective students to the films they would be required to watch or the bias of Adelman or the emphasis on film depictions of human sexuality? In fact, of all the myriad topics specifically mentioned in the course description, the only one conveniently omitted was the one that Adelman emphasized to the student: human sexuality. Brokeback Mountain could be justifiably included in this course because Adelman’s use of ambiguous phrases like “human health in its broadest sense” and “lifestyle issues” enabled her to include virtually anything her polemical heart desired. The course description gave absolutely no indication that students would be expected to view films that include nudity and simulated sex acts and that espoused liberal assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexual behavior. Students who are spending a lot of money on their education deserve sufficient information to make informed course selections.
• What in the course description would have alerted prospective students to Adelman’s theory–articulated in hackneyed, Cliche rhetoric–that “great art should challenge us to go beyond our comfort zones”?
• Exposure to images that make people “uncomfortable” is not essential to education. Somehow, students in American Universities managed to be well-educated–some would contend even better educated–for almost 350 years without being exposed to images of nude people simulating sex acts, including deviant sex acts.
• There is a difference between being exposed to ideas that challenge one intellectually and being exposed to images that one finds inappropriate and morally offensive.
• When was the last time that you heard of a professor selecting curricular resources that challenged only liberal or “progressive” views and that made liberal or “progressive” students uncomfortable?
• Many ideologues like Adelman claim that conservative students should be challenged morally and emotionally regarding their beliefs on homosexuality, but these same educators refuse to expose students to conservative perspectives on homosexuality because they may make homosexual students feel “uncomfortable.”
• What evidence is there to suggest that Adelman presented a “variety of perspectives” in her class?
• Teachers should teach about controversial topics only if they have the integrity to allot equal time to and present equivalent resources from all perspectives. This will ensure that authentic intellectual inquiry is being pursued rather than advocacy.
• When Adelman says that “Kinsey does not promote some of the things you are concerned with,” she implicitly acknowledges that Kinsey does, indeed, promote other of the things the student was concerned with.
• And when Adelman says that the film Kinsey offers a “fairly reserved portrayal of Kinsey,” she acknowledges–unwittingly perhaps–that the film fails to accurately portray the degree and extent of his depravity. In other words, the film sugarcoats Kinsey’s life.
• Adelman tries to conceal the pornographic elements in her film choices through tricksy rhetoric, saying that “neither film comes anywhere close to fitting all the definitions of pornography I have encountered.” So, according to Adelman, it’s not really pornography unless it fits all of the definitions of pornography she has encountered. That odd claim raises the question, can it be considered pornography if it fits just one of the definitions I’ve encountered? I rather like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart‘s definition of pornography which is that “I know it when I see it.”
• The fact that Brokeback Mountain depicts cultural impediments to homosexual relationships as tragic is the very reason to avoid the film. The pro-homosexual director, Ang Lee, seeks to use the power of narrative and visual imagery to transform society’s convictions on the morality of volitional homosexual acts. He and Adelman (and Neil Postman) know that emotional experience rather than intellectual or moral propositions are winning the day in our increasingly non-thinking culture.
• It is absurd to claim, as Adelman does, that one cannot fairly determine whether a film has objectionable content without seeing it. Since Brokeback Mountain was easily one of the most controversial movies in recent years, there is a plethora of information available that would enable consumers and students to know that it contains offensive imagery and ideas. The same goes for Kinsey.
• One hopes that Adelman does not really believe that only positive views of homosexuality can provide evidence of “critical examination.”
• What business is it of Adelman’s how her students view homosexuality?
• Illinois taxpayers pay College of DuPage professors with PhDs between $96,900-$119,500 annually.

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

by MassResistance.org

Contributes to offensive display of sexual perversion, child pornography, and anti-Catholic bigotry — now being exhibited at Harvard University

WARNING: Photos at the linked site are offensive and pornographic.

If you want to know what Americans can expect in public schools, look no further.

Kevin Jennings is Barack Obama‘s “safe schools” czar in the US Department of Education. He’s also the founder of the national homosexual group GLSEN, which sets up “gay straight alliance” clubs in high schools and middle schools across America. GLSEN is officially supported by the Massachusetts Legislature.

Jennings is also a former member of the radical homosexual group “Act Up”, and he contributed to this depraved and offensive museum exhibit on “Act Up” now at Harvard University (see press release).

See the complete article, along with more photos of this shocking exhibit HERE…

Both higher and K-12 education are in desperate need of reform, though there are some extremely positive signs are on the horizon. Within a decade we might well see elementary, secondary, and universities become more about learning and less about cushy careers for the so-called “education professionals.”

Last month I referenced the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, and today I wanted to bring to your attention an excellent article on their website by George Leef:

Creative Destruction Coming to Higher Ed
The emergence of high-quality online education could revolutionize college education.

First, let’s provide a quick definition of “Creative Destruction” from the Library of Economics and Liberty (emphasis added):

“Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) coined the seemingly paradoxical term “creative destruction,” and generations of economists have adopted it as a shorthand description of the free market’s messy way of delivering progress…

Schumpeter and the economists who adopt his succinct summary of the free market’s ceaseless churning echo capitalism’s critics in acknowledging that lost jobs, ruined companies, and vanishing industries are inherent parts of the growth system.

The saving grace comes from recognizing the good that comes from the turmoil. Over time, societies that allow creative destruction to operate grow more productive and richer; their citizens see the benefits of new and better products, shorter work weeks, better jobs, and higher living standards.”

The Pope Center’s George Leef opens his article:

“Remember the movie Jaws? I’m thinking especially of the scene where you know that the shark is about to take a gigantic bite out of the helpless swimmer.

We may have a similar scene about to play not in theatres, but in real life. Corresponding to the helpless swimmer are the many colleges and universities that have neither strong reputations nor large endowments. And the shark? Online education.

It’s true that online education has been around for years without doing any noticeable damage to traditional bricks and mortar schools. There is reason to believe, however, that things are about to change.”

Mr. Leef outlines one company that is seeking to provide higher education offering better quality, lower cost, and greater convenience. Leef writes:

“Most students (and their families, and taxpayers) now spend $20,000 to $50,000 per year for college. In return, they get instruction by professors, lecturers, and grad students that is often indifferent. What if they could instead get better instruction for $1,200 per year?

Yes, you read that right – $1,200.”

Of course there are hurdles to accomplishing this transition – but with the cost of living being what it is, there are a lot of incentives for both education providers and students to make online education work. With the advance of technology being what it is, my money is on this becoming a reality in the not too distant future.

Click here to read George Leef’s excellent article.

It’s my personal view that the same incentives and technology will finally help free many K-12 students from the prison that is the public school system. I’ve addressed my personal opinion on this topic here and here, and I must say that reading the following article from the New York Timesmade me very happy:

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

Reporter Steve Lohr wrote about a recent “93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education” that put forward “a most intriguing conclusion”:

“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

According to Lohr:

“The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008.”

And:

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing – it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.”

Of course there will be financially motivated as well as honest critics, but at the end of the day, it’s about learning – and, in fact, liberty. Parents, children, and those continuing their education after high school should be allowed to choose what’s best for them – and not be consigned to the bloated, self-important, inefficient and ineffective K-12 and University Education Industrial Complex.

Click here to read more on this topic.

John Biver is the Editor of Champion News.

A longtime champion of homeschooling rights around the globe, Home School Legal Defense AssociationSenior Counsel and Director of State and International Relations Christopher J. Klicka was called home by his Lord on October 12, 2009, at age 48, following a 15-year battle with multiple sclerosis.

An attorney, spokesman, lobbyist, and homeschooling husband and father, Chris is survived by his wife, Tracy, their seven children (ages 11-21). An integral part of Home School Legal Defense Association’s staff for 24 years, Chris was HSLDA’s first full-time employee, first executive director, and first full-time attorney. He believed passionately that homeschooling was the best educational method for children and demonstrated that passion in every area of his life.

IFI had the privilege of working with him on occasion. He will be greatly missed.

Please keep his wife and children in your prayers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=–tEY8gwrlQ

In this video clip, “Safe Schools Czar” and pederast-protector Kevin Jennings frets over the “aggressive” promotion of heterosexuality that takes place in public schools through the teaching of Romeo and Juliet.

Jennings makes the disingenuous claim that parents are fearful that homosexuals “are after their kids.” He implies that the chief concern of parents is that teachers will try to recruit children into the homosexual lifestyle, when in reality that is not the chief concern of most parents.

Rather, the concern of many parents and other taxpayers is that homosexual activists are committed to changing students’ views on the nature and morality of homosexuality. Homosexual activists both within and without our public schools are using public funds to indoctrinate other people’s children with their radical, unproven beliefs that homosexuality is ontologically equivalent to race and that volitional homosexual acts are morally equivalent to heterosexual acts. Would Jennings deny that activist teachers and members of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network — the organization he founded — seek to change student views about homosexuality?

We should all hope that if teachers are using curricula to reinforce beliefs about sexuality, they are using it to affirm only heterosexuality and more specifically heterosexuality within the confines of marriage.

Yale University’s motto Lux et veritas, which means light and truth, succinctly captures precisely what education should cultivate. It is an elementary truth evidenced by human anatomy and the biology of procreation that all humans are created heterosexual — a truth from which Jennings would likely recoil. Similarly, we should recoil from the peculiar concern with Romeo and Juliet expressed by our Safe Schools Czar — a man whose adult life has been shaped by a retreat from truth — and instead demand that our schools always “aggressively” point students toward truth.

Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, said this about Jennings’ ludicrous claim: “[W]hen the reading and studying of Shakespeare-who is one of the greatest writers in any language-is deemed part of a campaign to promote heterosexuality, you know that ideology has trumped reality and that the new barbarians are not only within the gates, they are the gatekeepers.”

Because of Jennings’ foolish beliefs and dangerous deeds, there is widespread and increasing public opposition to his appointment to the Department of Education. The inestimable Princeton University law professor Robert George has joined the chorus of American citizens who are calling for Jennings’s expulsion from the Department of Education.

Please take a moment to watch this short video from Professor George: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wK5-F6SCNFo

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The indefensible decision of Arne Duncan to appoint radical homosexual activist and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Kevin Jennings to the position of Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools is finally generating the public opposition it deserves.

Criticism of Jennings is coming from multiple sources all over the country. From small and large pro-family organizations to the Washington Times to Sean Hannity — all are calling for Jennings to resign or be terminated. Now is the time to act. Call or email your representatives and senators to politely demand the ousting of Kevin Jennings who is at least as unsuitable and controversial an appointment as the former “Green Czar” Van Jones was.

Jennings began his career in education as a teacher in a private Massachusetts boarding school. He has written and spoken about an incident that occurred when he was teaching there in which a troubled fifteen-year-old boy confessed to Jennings that he was having a sexual relationship with an older man he had met in a Boston bus station bathroom. Jennings’ response to this troubled teen was to advise him to use condoms. Even more troubling, Jennings failed to fulfill his legal obligation to report sexual activity between an adult and a child under the age of 18. When Jennings’ professional misconduct was reported to the National Education Association (NEA) by the chair of the NEA Republican Educator’s Caucus, Jennings threatened a lawsuit against the teacher who reported it.

For a fascinating expose of this disturbing chapter in Jennings’ disturbing life, read these articles by Grove City College professor, Warren Throckmorton:

Remembering Brewster

The saga of Kevin Jennings and Brewster: Enter Robertson

Fortunately, Jennings left teaching but unfortunately for the nation went on to found GLSEN whose mission is to use public funds and public education to normalize homosexuality. GLSEN was the sponsor of the notorious sexuality workshop “Teach Out” held at Tufts University in 2000 where students as young as 14 were exposed to graphic descriptions of deviant sexual practices by adult homosexual “educators.” This workshop has come to be known as “Fistgate” because of one particular sexual practice taught to teens.

In addition, GLSEN is the sponsor of the annual Day of Silence, a pro-homosexual protest that takes place in thousands of high schools and increasing numbers of middle schools around the country every year. On this day, students are encouraged and permitted to remain silent all day even during class in support of GLSEN’s view of homosexuality.

On September 30, 2009, twenty-one years after the boarding school debacle and with public pressure mounting, Jennings finally issued this rationalization:

Twenty-one years later I can see how I should have handled the situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted legal or medical authorities. Teachers back then had little training and guidance about this kind of thing. All teachers should have a basic level of preparedness. I would like to see the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools play a bigger role in helping to prepare teachers.

How convenient.

His “mishandling” of the incident wasn’t really his fault. Oh no, it was a lack of “training,” “guidance,” and “preparedness.” How could a 24-year-old teacher be expected to know that he should report sexual activity between a teen under his charge and an adult male whom the teen met in a bus station bathroom located almost an hour from the boarding school where the teen lived? If only the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools had existed then with a zealous homosexual activist at the helm, Jennings would have known exactly what to do.

Kevin Jennings violated both professional standards of ethics as well as Massachusetts law. He has publicly expressed contempt for theologically orthodox Christianity and Christians and has spent his entire adult life trying to exploit public education to effect social changes that reflect his sexual preferences and unproven, controversial, and perverse views of homosexuality. His appointment to the Department of Education is an unmitigated outrage that must be opposed.

I was disappointed to read Julia Keller‘s article “Don’t read that: The secret lives of book banners” in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. Julia Keller is the erudite literary critic for the Trib whose reviews of books are delightful, fresh, and insightful gems of writing in and of themselves. There were glimmers of her humor and story-telling skills in the anecdote, rich with evocative imagery, about her mother’s peremptory seizure of Keller’s stash of true-crime novels. Unfortunately, Keller’s hearty, unequivocal endorsement of the American Library Association’s (ALA) farcical Banned Books Week lacks the insight and complexity of thought I’ve come to expect from Keller.

Here are her arguments:

1. If a book is “banned,” it will become ever more “alluring.”
2. Reading books will not result in behavior change (as evidence Keller assures us that she never became an ax murderer from reading about ax murderers).
3. Concerns with profanity, sexual content, and anti-religious sentiments are tiresomely “predictable.”

Here’s what she fails to address:

1. Ideas do, indeed, have consequences. Keller’s personal experience that reading about serial killers, ax murderers, and remorseless poisoners didn’t turn her into a murderer is lousy evidence for her unproven implicit claim that literature has no capacity to change people.
2. Not every novel, play, essay, or short story is appropriate at every age.
3. Books that never appear on the shelves of libraries, that is, books that theALA’s de facto censorship protocols (aka “Collection Development Policies”) never allow to be purchased can’t be banned.
4. Banning a book, or more accurately, making a book less easily accessible to children, may keep dangerous, destructive, deviant ideas and images out of the minds and hearts of children or delay the age at which they’re exposed to them.

Most purported “book banners” are not asking that books be banned. Parents are not asking that the government engage in prior restraint or that book stores refuse to carry controversial books. Rather, parents of young children are requesting that libraries not purchase children’s books with extremely controversial ideas and language or that such books be shelved separately so that young children cannot access them without parental knowledge and permission. And they are asking that teachers not read controversial picture books to young children who could not understand the presuppositions implicit in them even if teachers were to unpack them, which they wouldn’t because “progressive” book banners would likely have a conniption if they did.

In the case of high school, parents are requesting that teachers not teach books with extremely profane or obscene language or sexually graphic imagery. In her condescending dismissal of parental concerns with profanity, sexual content, and anti-religious sentiment, Keller doesn’t even attempt an argument. She just sighs, “predictable.”

She refuses to engage the substantive argument that repeated exposure to such language and imagery desensitizes human beings to their offense and that teaching texts that include such elements undermines societal disapproval of them, all of which will contribute to the coarsening of the culture.

She fails to respond to the belief that public educators should reinforce the values they claim to hold through school policies that prohibit both students and staff from using profane or obscene language.

She fails to address the real possibility that a teen who reads books that explore the pleasures and moral legitimacy of promiscuous sex will more likely embrace promiscuity than will a teen who reads books about ax murderers come to embrace murder, particularly when virtually every other cultural media, from music videos to advertising to magazines to television shows to films to video games, promulgates the same message.

Is Keller arguing that public school teachers and librarians should never take into account the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, and images of sexuality in texts or an author’s anti-religious sentiment when making curricular or library collection decisions?

In the case of controversial ideas — as opposed to profane or obscene language or sexually graphic imagery — parents are requesting that teachers present the voices of experts from all sides of cultural debates or none. Currently, many teachers use curricula to advance their own social and political values. To curtail that misuse of curricula and to facilitate critical thinking, teachers should be required to provide relative ideological balance in the texts they choose. This would help put an end to the pervasive and untenable banning of resources that express conservative views on controversial topics.

The lack of sophistication and complexity in Keller’s predictable arguments surprises me. Increasingly, challenged books are not books that contain an occasional racial epithet, profane word, or non-explicit reference to sexuality. Keller seems to employ a red herring argument when she cites To Kill a Mockingbird and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while, for example, ignoring a play like Angels in America that includes extraordinarily obscene language and graphic sex and whose author Tony Kushner displays some rather virulent anti-religious sentiment.

In addition, she fails to acknowledge that many of the most frequently challenged books are ones that affirm controversial ideas about homosexuality, and that many of those are picture books intended for very young audiences. The frequently challenged books Heather Has Two Mommies and King and King embody unproven ontological and moral claims that many parents consider radical, subversive, and perverse. The implicit claims are far too abstract and complex for the very young audience for whom these picture books are intended, which leaves just squishy, emotional non-arguments to shape the feelings of young children. I think this could reasonably be called propaganda. Books like these have the potential to affect how young children feel and think about homosexuality — a subject that parents should not be compelled to discuss with their children at an age they consider too young.

For those who believe that homosexuality is not ontologically analogous to race and that volitional homosexual acts are profoundly immoral–as immoral, for example, as polyamory — having their children exposed to positive images of or ideas about homosexuality represents a grave and presumptuous moral offense. Imagine this scenario: Parents discover that during library time, their child has chosen the book Heather Has Two Mommies and Three Daddies or Heather Wishes She Knew and Could Be Raised by Her Biological Mommy and Daddy or Heather is Sad Because Daddy left Mommy So He Could Disfigure His Body and Wear Women’s Clothes. Even better, imagine that a kindergarten teacher has read one of these books to a class unbeknown to parents. It’s an interesting speculative exercise to guess who in this scenario the book banners would be. If Keller’s arguments are valid, then no one need worry. Children will not become polyamorous from reading these books; nor will they come to believe that children are entitled to a mommy and a daddy; nor will they come to view “transgenderism” negatively. Moreover, “banning” these books will only make them more alluring.

“Book banners” come from all ideological stripes, and right now “book banners” from the wildly misnamed “progressive” ideological stripe control the ALA, the National Education Association, departments of library science, curricula and development committees, and school administrations. Just try to get a school library to order a book like Same Sex Matters: The Challenge of Homosexuality; Homosexuality and American Public Life; Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality and the Power to Change; or Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Or try to get a teacher to have students study the eloquent essay by Professor Anthony Esolen entitled “A Requiem for Friendship” alongside their teaching of the poorly written polemic, The Laramie Project.

It strikes me as disingenuous and inconsistent for those like Keller who clearly love language and believe in the power of language and stories to touch the imagination and transform lives to refuse to acknowledge that Heather Has Two Mommies or Angels in America have the capacity to change perspectives on controversial issues or desensitize readers to profane or obscene language.

The epithet “book banner” is hurled at conservative parents as a tactic to humiliate them into silence. Would parents who object to picture books that explore the sorrow of children who have been deliberately created as motherless or fatherless children be called book banners? Would parents who object to picture books that affirm polyamory be considered book banners? Would parents who object to public school teachers enthusiastically and positively teaching a play that affirms and celebrates racial superiority be considered book banners? Would parents who object to public school teachers teaching a novel that graphically depicts and celebrates paraphilias as normal variations of sexual practice be considered book banners? Would parents who object to the teaching of a book whose author attacks or ridicules Orthodox Judaism or Islam be considered book banners?

Should the ALA collectively be considered an organization committed to book banning because their Collection Development Policies serve to prevent any books that do not view homosexuality as analogous to race and morally equivalent to heterosexuality from being purchased?

The answer to the last question should be obvious.

H.R. 2262, “The Safe Schools Improvement Act,” was introduced in May, and in June it was referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. This bill would “amend the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act to include bullying and harassment prevention programs.” Anyone who has been paying attention knows that anti-bullying/safe schools curricula are now the central means by which pro-homosexual propaganda is secreted into public schools.

According to the pro-homosexual website Change.org, “H.R. 2262 would require schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement comprehensive anti-bullying policies that enumerate categories often targeted by bullies, including . . . sexual orientation [and] gender identity/expression.”

Joining bill sponsor Representative Linda Sánchez (D-CA) are 81 co-sponsors. Seventy-nine are Democrats, one is an independent, and two are Republicans. Co-sponsors from Illinois are Mark Kirk (R-10th District), Danny Davis (D-7th District), Luis Gutierrez (D-4th District), Mike Quigley (D-5th District) and Jan Schakowsky (D-9th District).

Background
A few months ago, a mother from Alameda County, CA called me for help in combating the new K-5 “Safe Schools” curriculum adopted by her local school board and implemented this month. It was this mother who directed me to H.R. 2262 and asked whether the passage of this bill would be accompanied by public money, perhaps even stimulus money.

The “safe schools” curriculum in Alameda,CA, like all other “safe schools” curricula, presents homosexuality, bisexuality, “transgenderism,” and “transsexuality,” (more properly known as gender identity disorder) positively and in ways that suggest that these disordered sexual practices are morally equivalent to heterosexuality.

What makes this situation worse — if that’s possible — is that the school district’s “attorneys say parents would not be allowed to keep their children from taking the courses because the lessons don’t include health or sexual education.” The school board formally announced in May that parents will neither be notified prior to students being exposed to pro-homosexual resources, nor will they be permitted to opt their children out of such presentations. In so doing, these activist ideologues betray their own pedagogical claims that they want parents to be advocates for their children and that they “honor diversity.” They reveal the deceit and Machiavellian machinations they are willing to employ in the service of using public education to advance their social and political vision.

A Massachusetts court came to a similar conclusion regarding parents’ rights — or the lack thereof. Judge Mark Wolf concluded that it is reasonable for K-5 teachers to teach other people’s children to respect homosexuality. He further stated that parents have two choices: either put their children in public schools or don’t. Once children are enrolled in public schools, however, there will be no requirement that schools notify parents prior to the presentation of pro-homosexual resources or offer parents an opt-out option.

We in Illinois should be troubled by this because it’s coming here. Organizations like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which endorsed H.R. 2262, are working feverishly to get pro-homosexual/safe schools curricula in all schools.

What is noteworthy about the efforts of activist “educators” like those inAlameda,CA is that they live and move as if their subversive theories about homosexuality and transgenderism are objective facts — despite the absence of proof:

• Homosexualists (i.e., homosexuals and those who support their moral beliefs and political agenda) arrogate to themselves the right to use public money and public resources (i.e., public education) to advance their subjective beliefs and values because they view their subjective beliefs and values as objectively true.
• Homosexualists believe that their subjective, unproven ontological theories and moral views grant to them rights that supersede parental rights, and therefore, they refuse even to allow parents to opt their own children out of presentations that affirm homosexuality. Homosexualists see nothing wrong in compelling other people’s children to be exposed to implicit and explicit theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality because they believe their theories are facts.
• Homosexualists believe they have the right to censor all resources in public schools that challenge the myth that homosexuality is ontologically analogous to race and the belief that homosexual acts are morally equivalent to heterosexual acts because they see their subjective beliefs and values as facts.
• Homosexualists believe they have the right to conceal from parents when their little ones will be exposed to radical, subversive ideas about homosexuality because homosexualists view their own unproven theories as facts.

This sounds scarily like propaganda to me. Apparently, when activist educators say that it takes an entire village to raise a child, they really mean it takes an entire village of likeminded “agents of change” and boatloads of public money to indoctrinate other people’s children.

If only people of faith would start to treat their own ontological and moral views as objective, universal, eternal, transcendent truths, maybe we could stem the tide of pro-homosexual activism in our public schools.

The California mother who contacted me comes to the issue with an unusual perspective: Kerry Cook is a former lesbian who identified as a “lesbian feminist” for ten years. Not only that but she was an Anti-Discrimination and Managing Diversity professional for the Australian government and a former board member of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby in Sydney, Australia. She turned from that life, embraced Christ, a husband, and motherhood.

It is unconscionable that pro-homosexual resources are making their way into our schools when there are so many people of faith who know that these resources promote deeply flawed and destructive ideas. Why are there not more faith leaders and their followers in communities all across this country willing to fight the well-financed, morally corrupt effort to propagandize children with abominable ideas?

Just as the legitimate concept of “civil rights” is cunningly manipulated to change the legal definition of marriage, and the phenomenon of race is exploited to convince the public that homosexuality is an immutable, biologically determined, 100% heritable, morally neutral condition like race, the very real problem of bullying is being exploited to convince the public that pro-homosexual proselytizing belongs in public schools. Don’t buy it.

Schools can address bullying without ever mentioning deviant sexual conduct. For example, no public school administrator would ever recommend an anti-bullying program that affirms polyamory even to end the bullying of those students who identify as polyamorous. As I’ve said before, the good ends of ending bullying do not justify the illegitimate means of using public funds to affirm homosexuality.

Not only are schools pushing pro-homosexual indoctrination under the guise of “anti-bullying” programs, but the hardcore proselytes are fighting tooth and nail to prevent parents from being allowed to opt their children out of these propaganda sessions.

We in Illinois must stop ignoring the educational abuses taking place in publicly funded schools in places like California and Massachusetts. There are activists both within and without our public schools working to bring the same kinds of resources, activities, programs, and policies to IL schools. Children are the immediate victims of these abuses, but we should remember that current students are our future culture-makers.

To be good stewards of our money, caretakers of our children, preservers of our culture, and protectors of our rights, we must vigorously and publicly oppose the promotion of ignorance and deceit in public schools.

There’s yet more troubling information about H.R. 2262, the proposed amendment to the Safe and Drug-FreeSchools and Communities Act. According to the pro-homosexual website Change.org, “H.R. 2262 would require schools that receive Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act funding to implement comprehensive anti-bullying policies that enumerate categories often targeted by bullies, including. . .sexual orientation [and] gender identity/expression.”

Change.org is saying that if passed, H.R.2262 would mandate that schools that already receive funding for drug prevention education would either have to include homosexuality, cross-dressing, and “transsexuality” or lose federal funding for their drug prevention programs. And this would apply not just to high schools but to elementary schools as well.

Furthermore, H.R. 2262 would require states that currently receive federal funding for programs to prevent drug use and violence to use funds for the collection of information on “the perception of students regarding their school environment, including with respect to the prevalence and seriousness of incidents of bullying and harassment and the responsiveness of the school to those incidents” (emphasis added).

In H.R. 2262, harassment is defined as conduct that “adversely affects the ability of one or more students to. . .benefit from the school’s educational programs or activities because the conduct, as reasonably perceived by the student (or students), is . . . persistent or pervasive; and includes conduct that is based on a student’s actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

So, if H.R. 2262 is passed, federal money will be used to poll teenagers on their perception of the prevalence and seriousness of harassment. And the harassing conduct need only be conduct that one teenager perceives as persistent and pervasive.

In addition, “authorized activities” will “teach students about the consequences of bullying and harassment.” One can reasonably assume that schools will not be able to teach about the consequences of harassing conduct toward peers based on actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity without explaining precisely what is meant by perceived sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. And remember, H.R.2262 will apply even to elementary schools.

H.R.2262, “The Safe Schools Improvement Act,” was introduced on May 5, 2009. Then exactly two weeks later, on May 19, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a press release announcing that he had appointed homosexual activist and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Kevin Jennings, as the new Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.

Kevin Jennings, GLSEN, and Change.org believe that homosexuality is an ontological condition analogous to race rather than a condition defined by subjective feelings and volitional sexual acts. Those who believe in the legitimacy of including explicit mention of homosexuality in anti-bullying curricula need to ask whether they believe that other conditions defined by subjective feelings and volitional acts should also be included. Wherever homosexuality is mentioned in these curricula, let’s replace the term with aggression, or promiscuity, or polyamory, or selfishness–all conditions that are driven by powerful feelings that are not chosen and which often emerge very early in life. After all, aggressive, promiscuous, polyamorous, and selfish students ought not be bullied either.

This exercise reveals that these anti-bullying curricula go much further than merely ending bullying acts. They seek to end bullying by normalizing homosexuality. They seek to deracinate the belief that homosexuality is immoral. And this is why homosexualists seek to expose our youngest children to their dangerous ideas. It’s not that there is a problem with kindergarteners bullying homosexual classmates. Rather, homosexualists seek to expose kindergartners to pro-homosexual ideas and images because it’s easier to indoctrinate five-year-olds than seventeen-year-olds.

When a sexual orientation law in Mainewas passed in 2005, it was the most radical of its kind ever. The law not only protected homosexuals from discrimination, it also prohibited discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” and “gender expression.” “Gender identity” is the belief that one is either male or female, regardless of one’s biological sex. “Gender expression” is the dress, hairstyle, and the like which expresses one’s perceived gender.

One result of this law is what happened at the Asa C. Adams Elementary School when a twelve year old boy, a fifth grader, wanted to use the girls’ room. The school offered a compromise — the use of a unisex faculty bathroom. The boy’s parents then claimed the school was discriminating against their child, who thinks he is a girl. When denied entry into the girls’ bathroom, a case was filed and The Human Rights Commission concluded unanimously that the school discriminated against the boy.

Read more: State Forces School to Let Boy Use Girls’ Room 

I wrote an article last week about Challenge Day which took place from Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at O’Fallon Township High School in southern IL. The four-day event cost thousands of dollars with much of the funding evidently coming from the public coffers.

This workshop, based out of CA and patterned after large group awareness training sessions (LGATs), has been criticized from coast to coast. It employs emotionally invasive, encounter group-like exercises that break down the often fragile emotions of teens and culminate in collective weeping. Unfortunately for taxpayers and students, Naperville Central High School in Naperville, IL will be hosting three Challenge Days on Oct. 26, 27 and 28.

It’s not surprising that Challenge Day founder Rich Dutra-St. John would incorporate large group awareness training techniques and new age spiritualism into this current manifestation of old ideas because Dutra-St. John is a proud 1993 graduate of the “Hoffman Quadrinity Process”(HQP) which embodies both:

Our programs are designed for you to release this negative conditioning and access your untapped resources of power, wisdom and creativity….The HQP brings into awareness the counterproductive beliefs, perceptions and emotional needs that have been adopted from parents and others who shaped our early life experiences….Our methodology of “infused teaching” addresses all dimensions of your being: intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual.

Following last week’s article, I received some interesting emails and phone calls, several of which I have received permission to share.

A school psychologist with a PhD in clinical psychology wrote that Challenge Day “is just one more reason for home schooling. I see this as dangerous and unproductive. They are stepping over the line into an area that they should not be going. I am appalled and surprised that this is allowed by any school system.”

A parent reported this story:

A 9th grader who had just gotten done participating in Challenge Day at OTHS was sharing with a teacher and an older high school student what a classmate in her Challenge Day group had shared. The classmate had been in tears, as were all the others in the group, expressing anguish over being abused by [a relative] (the student named the relationship, but I am omitting it). The teacher responded that she doesn’t like programs like this because she doesn’t like people sharing those kinds of personal things.

Of course, O’Fallon Township High School employees have both an ethical and legal obligation to report this alleged abuse.

But there is more troubling fallout potentially in the offing. Many students have now heard the account of alleged abuse. It is likely that many of these students will, like the 9th grader mentioned above, tell others. Soon this story may be spread all over town. What if the story is not true? If it is true, did the parents know about the abuse? Would they have wanted their child to share it with a group of acquaintances and strangers? Will the dissemination of this story result in this student’s healing or in further harm? How will the entire family be affected?

Another community member talked to a boy who participated in Challenge Day:

The boy told me that people were affected emotionally and they shared some private things, but no one has really changed how they treat each other and in some cases things are worse instead of better.

Kids were asked to sit in a circle and one-by-one go around and share an experience in which they were hurt. The boy telling recounting this story did not want to participate in that exercise. Then one boy announced that he was “gay” and most of the kids began to clap. Someone then told the group to stand up if they supported and accepted the “gay” boy. Next, a girl announced that she was bisexual. The standing and clapping continued. Only two students remained seated, but finally, because of the extended standing and clapping, the boy felt pressured to stand. He feared if he didn’t stand, someone would say something to him.

These two students who may be deeply compassionate and respectful but may also believe that homosexuality is immoral and destructive were put in a terrible public bind: if they remained seated, it appeared as though they were intolerant and uncaring; if they stood up and clapped, it appeared that they supported and affirmed homosexuality. Talk about peer pressure. Unfortunately, this avoidable peer pressure was orchestrated by adults lacking in wisdom.

I also received this email:

I read your article about Challenge Day and emotional purging (group activity) and was horrified. I am a trained, professional actress as well as an educator. I have a MA in Creative Drama for children from Northwestern University and have taught across the nation. I attended a four- year professional actors training conservatory, toured the nation teaching creative-drama based workshops for teachers and K-12 students as an ensemble member of the nationally recognized Metro Theatre Company (St. Louis) and studied at one of the finest universities that pioneered/teaches safe and effective creative drama approaches to education. 

I question whether the leaders of these Challenge Day seminars have ever read the true “method” practices of Stanislavski (very often misinterpreted) or the emotionally dangerous, controversial practices of Artaud‘s “Theatre of Cruelty” approach to acting/self-discovery. I wonder if they understand how often these approaches have done more harm than good. These techniques seem to me to be similar to those used by the Challenge Day leaders. I strongly agree with you: in the wrong hands, much harm can be done using such an approach. Never can this type of “learning” be productive or safe.

In response to vociferous community opposition, school districts in Naples, Florida and Washington State discontinued hosting Challenge Days. That’s a good thing according to Michelle Malkin who wrote about the Seattle mess in 2002:

The latest news of the weird in our public schools comes from Seattle…. Principals and teachers traded in phonics for histrionics. Children learned the Oprahfied alphabet — A for apologies, B for blame, and C for crying. Uncontrollable crying. Kleenex must have made a killing. Here’s how the Times reporter described the workshops: “Sitting in small circles, their knees touching, students shared their own hurt and the pain they had inflicted on others. The tears flowed. In some groups, half the Washington Middle School students were crying at once….”

All bounds of privacy and self-restraint were erased as seminar “facilitators” encouraged their young guinea pigs to confess whether they — or friends or family members — had ever faced addiction problems, sadness over the death of loved ones, guilt over teasing others because of their weight, or thoughts of suicide. The public sniveling and sniffling ended with a “final exercise — hugging as many people as possible in two minutes, to the theme from ‘Rocky.'” One child, showing uncommon wisdom, dubbed the dolorous debacle a “psycho cry-fest.” 

Now, there may be legitimate private businesses out there that provide real help to families with emotional problems. But even so, they have no place in taxpayer-funded schools whose primary function is supposed to be filling students’ heads — not emptying their lachrymal ducts.

For Naperville Central parents and other concerned community members, here are some pragmatic suggestions:

• Ask your school board and/or administrators exactly how much Challenge Day is costing, including the costs of feeding Challenge Day participants and the costs for substitute teachers whom the district has to hire to replace teachers who are participating in Challenge Day.
• Ask how Challenge Day is funded. If the school answers that it’s paid for by grants, make sure to ask if the grants are private, federal or state grants. Also, ask if any stimulus money is being used.
• If you object to Challenge Day, make your objections known to administrators and school board members.
• Do not allow your children to participate in Challenge Day.