“ABC” stands for All Barack’s Children. On Sept. 8, young students across the country will be watching television. Yes, they’ll be parked in front of boob tubes and computer screens watching President Obama’s address on education.

Instead of practicing cursive, reviewing multiplication tables, diagramming sentences or learning something concrete, America’s kids will be lectured about the importance of learning. And then the schoolchildren, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, will be exhorted to Do Something — other than sit in their seats and receive academic instruction, that is.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan dispatched letters to principals nationwide, boasting, “This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation’s schoolchildren about persisting and succeeding in school.” But the goal is not merely morale boosting. According to White House event-related guides developed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching Fellows, grade-school students will be told to “listen to the speech” and “think about the following”:

— What is the president trying to tell me?

— What is the president asking me to do?

— What new ideas and actions is the president challenging me to think about?

Students can record important parts of the speech where the president is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

After the speech, teachers will ask students:

— What do you think the president wants us to do?

— Does the speech make you want to do anything?

— Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

Obama’s White House Teaching Fellows include Chicago high-school educator Xian Barrett, a fierce opponent of charter schools who founded a “Social Justice Club” and bussed students to protests, and Michelle Bissonette, a Los Altos, Calif., teacher who is “focused on developing my leadership as a more culturally and racially conscious educator.”

The activist tradition of government schools using students as junior lobbyists cannot be ignored. Zealous teachers unions have enlisted captive schoolchildren as letter-writers in their campaigns for higher education spending. Out-of-control activists have enlisted their secondary-school charges in pro-illegal immigration protests, gay marriage ceremonies, environmental propaganda stunts and anti-war events.

And last year’s presidential campaign saw disgraceful abuses of power by pro-Obama instructors. In New Rochelle, N.Y., elementary students were given an in-class assignment to color in drawings of Obama — including a picture of a campaign button featuring his face and the slogan “Students for Obama 2008.” In Cumberland County, N.C., a fifth-grade teacher turned a “civics” discussion into an unhinged harangue against a girl who said her family supported John McCain.

Nor can the Democrats’ strategy of using kiddie human shields to advance their legislative agenda be overlooked in the context and timing of Obama’s speech. Children have been front and center of the left’s push for an ever-increasing government role in health care — from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s use of Baltimore seventh-grader Graeme Frost to push for the massive S-CHIP entitlement expansion to Obama’s none-too-coincidental choice of Massachusetts 11-year-old town hall questioner Julia Hall (the daughter of a prominent Obama activist and organizer who assailed Obamacare critics’ “mean” signs) to the Kennedy family’s decision to put grandson Max Allen on center stage to pray for health care reform at his uncle’s funeral last week.

So when the Department of Education directs schools to gather children ’round the TV monitors for Obama’s pep talk and then have them do this…

— Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.

— Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

…parents have every right to worry about their children being used as Political Guinea Pigs for Change. 

How far the goals and activities of public education have moved since its inception can be seen in a look at Challenge Day–or more accurately Challenge Days–which are scheduled for Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at O’Fallon Township High School (OTHS) in O’Fallon, IL. 

Challenge Day is the brainchild of Rich and Yvonne Dutra-St. John. The program’s goals are as follows:

Challenge Day successfully addresses some common issues seen at most schools during our school programs including cliques, gossip, rumors, negative judgments, teasing, harassment, isolation, stereotypes, intolerance, racism, sexism, bullying, violence, homophobia, (emphasis added) hopelessness, apathy, and hidden pressures to create an image, achieve or live up to the expectations of others….Be challenged to celebrate the diversity of ALL people.

And how do they achieve those goals? They do so through invasive psychological exercises that culminate in a collective state of raw emotion and weeping. Here’s an excerpt from a promotional video about Challenge Day narrated by Leeza Gibbons.

On their website, the Dutra-St. Johns describe Challenge Day:

The Challenge Day program is approximately 6 ½ hours long and takes place during a school day. Challenge Day is most effective when it is implemented on the school campus on a school day during normal school hours. It is critical that teachers understand the value of the program so that they are open to allowing students to take part in the day.

Challenge Day Leaders begin the morning by helping teens step out of their comfort zones through music and games. When the teenagers begin to feel safe in the group, they are then willing to be vulnerable with one another and connect as human beings….Leaders also spend a portion of the morning talking about the healthy expression of emotions, and the negative effects of keeping feelings inside. During the afternoon, participants dive into the issue of social oppression and examine the impact oppression has on their lives and the lives of people around them. By the end of the afternoon, participants have an opportunity to take a stand against oppression, make amends for hurts they have caused each other.
…Adults are needed to increase safety in the room, to be role models, and to help keep an eye out for teens that may benefit from follow-up support.

Schools are shelling out thousands of dollars to replace academic teaching with encounter group/sensitivity training-like exercises.

When asked if it’s okay if parents attend, the Dutra-St. Johns respond, “Not only is it OK, it’s ideal….Parents will not be assigned to the same small groups as their child.”

When asked if Challenge Day “will open a can of worms,” the Dutra-St. Johns respond, “We hope so. Challenge Day is designed to wake people up. . . . In addition to feeling inspired, some students who are dealing with hurts may need additional support. In most cases, we have found school officials are grateful to finally identify and have the opportunity to provide these students with the help they need. We require that your school team have a counselor who is excited to participate in the entire Challenge Day program and is able to provide any necessary follow-up support.”

In an interview, Rich Dutra-St. John shares his views on the necessity of expressing emotions:

But how can dreams be accessed when there are so many unresolved emotions competing for a kid’s attention? To explain this to young people, we use the image of an “emotional balloon.” The balloon demonstrates that feelings don’t just go away — they store in the body and every time you have an unexpressed emotion or you don’t feel safe to express who you are, the balloon gets bigger and bigger until it either leaks with sarcasm, violence, screaming, or it pops.

This is a view with which many disagree, including Christina Hoff Sommers and Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and lecturer at the Yale School of Medicine. In the book One Nation Under Therapy, they write that over the years “a sizable and compelling body of research demonstrating that the expression of feelings is not a sure pathway to fulfillment. On the contrary, it often leads to unhappiness.”

They further write that:

There are many who believe that therapism in the schools is a benign, constructive influence that comforts children, calming their fears and enhancing their feelings of self-acceptance. The evidence, however, does not bear this out. On the contrary, the therapeutic regime pathologizes healthy young people. It encourages remedial measures for nonexistent vulnerabilities, wastes students’ time and impedes their academic and moral development. American students are, with few exceptions, mentally and emotionally sound; they are resilient.

A 2002 Seattle Times editorial issued a stern warning about Challenge Day in which at that time “nearly 300 Seattle schools” had participated. The editorial entitled “Schools Shouldn’t Endorse Psycho-Fests,” asserted that “encounter-style seminars that leave students emotionally drained should not be part of” public education and that “Schools should not assist in placing children in situations where adults break them down emotionally and, purportedly, rebuild them into better people. Better to leave intensive character building to parents. If parents endorse this therapy, they can arrange it privately for their child.”

When asked by an interviewer if Challenge Day exposes “young people to the notion of a Spiritual Self,” St. John enthusiastically affirms “Yes, and it’s amazing! We tell kids to look inside their hearts, and whatever it is that gives them goose bumps is what they’re supposed to be doing with their lives.”

According to the Challenge Day website, the cost for hosting this event is $3,200 per day, but if the school is farther than two hours from CA, the school must book a minimum of three consecutive days. O’Fallon evidently booked four. And this $12,800 does not appear to include the cost to the District 203 for lunch for the participants and substitute teachers for the teachers who participated in Challenge Day. 

You may wonder how OTHS paid for these workshops. When a parent asked that question, the school social worker who is in charge of the program told her that they were funded through a combination of private grants, state grants, federal grants, and stimulus money. You heard that right–stimulus money. If federal grants, state grants, and stimulus money were used, then every taxpayer has subsidized these dubious workshops.

How many times and in how many ways can new age spirituality and “affective education” be secreted into public education? How much public money are we going to allow to be exploited to promote these ideas? And how much instructional time is going to be diverted to purposes that stand outside the purview of public education?

It would behoove our presumptuous public educators to understand that it is not their job to cultivate every good thing that exists; it is not their job to eradicate every bad thing that exists; and not every means available is legitimate for public educators to use in order to cultivate the good or eliminate the bad. 

Presumptuous activist educators need a huge dose of humility: they need to develop a proper sense of what their roles are in the lives of other people’s children and for what purposes they may legitimately use public money. Public education should not be used to delve into, expose, and manipulate the emotions of teens. Not one more dime of public money or one more minute of instructional time should be used for Challenge Day.

CNSNews.com reported yesterday that compared with other students, home school students score higher than the national average on the ACT college entry than other students taking the standardized test.

The national average for 2009 graduating high schoolers reported by ACT (American College Testing) officials is 21.1 on a scale from 1 to 36. Home school students scored a national average of 22.5.

Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association, speculated that the one-on-one attention home-schooled students receive may explain the finding. “Parents can tailor-make an education program to suit the child. The child can then advance at their (sic) own pace. Typically, in the home-school environment, the teen is self-directed in their learning because parents set a topic or task, and the student will then do their own research,” he said.

IFI’s Director of the Division of School Advocacy, Laurie Higgins agrees:

This encouraging academic news will perhaps lead parents who have been considering home-schooling to take the plunge. Although many families are not in a financial position to home-school their children, many others have both the financial resources and time to do so. IFI would like to encourage those families to consider seriously this option.

It’s not just the lack of academic rigor in a many schools that should concern parents; it’s also the public school environment. The problems include your children’s exposure to destructive, ungodly ideas and language from their peers and your children’s immersion in the classes of activist teachers who use abuse their positions and their autonomy to inculcate other people’s children with their own social, political, and moral views.

In terms of both political and moral climate, public schools are only getting worse. Schools of education are dominated by liberal ideologues who are devotees of critical social theory (i.e. “social justice” theory) with its promotion of identity politics and the view of teachers as “agents of change.” Curricula increasingly include resources rife with sexually graphic, deviant, and profane images, ideas, and language. Behind closed classroom doors activist teachers commingle teaching facts and preaching politics, often peppering their rhetoric with salty language that would offend many parents.

Since the conservative community lacks the courage and will to respond appropriately, the decay of public education will continue. We should view what takes place in public education as a stewardship issue because our taxes subsidize public schools. And we should view what takes place as a stewardship issue because the children being “educated” will very shortly be our culture-makers. But instead, we allow the relentless efforts of activists “educators,” college and university education departments, the NEA, and GLSEN continue to bear toxic fruit.

If possible, it would best serve the immediate needs of our children to exit public schools, while working vigilantly, tirelessly, and courageously to make public education better for all those who remain behind and for the society that will be shaped by the next generation.

Home-schooling provides parents with the opportunity to train up their children in the way they should go, deepen the bonds with our children, and delighting in the company of these incomparable gifts from God given to us for such a very short time. As the mother of four children who are all getting married in the same year, I can attest to how very soon they leave the nest. Treasure this time, and use every possible moment to teach your children to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Take very seriously Paul’s words in 1Corinthians 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Unfortunately, today the halls of academia are more likely to do the opposite.

If you would like to consider the option of home education, please check out this webpage for some great resources from our friends at Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE).

Read more:

HOME-SCHOOLING: Outstanding Results on National Tests (Washington Times)

<a href=”http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/30/home-schooling-outstanding-results-national-tests/”><u>HOME-SCHOOLING: Outstanding Results on National Tests</u></a> <i>(Washington Times)</i>

District 204 parents really should spend some time perusing Neuqua Valley math teacher, Hemant Mehta‘s website to determine whether he is the kind of man with whom they want their children to spend a school year. He absolutely has a First Amendment right to promote any feckless, destructive, offensive, and immoral ideas he wants via his blog, but, as I mentioned in my earlier article, parents have the right not to have him as a teacher and a role model for their children. I want to be very clear about what I’m suggesting: I am suggesting that parents who have serious concerns about Mr. Mehta’s potential influence on their children’s beliefs politely insist that their children be placed in another teacher’s class.

On his blog on August 18, he seems to suggest that Christians who publicly read passages from the Bible that he doesn’t like should be charged with hate crimes. He wrote as follows:

“Does Free Speech Include Reciting Hate-Filled Bible Passages?”

Posted by Hemant Mehta

If you stood out on a street corner and started saying that gay people should be killed or made racially-charged remarks about slavery, it would be considered hate speech and you could be arrested.

In the UK, however, Miguel Hayworth and father John Hayworth are facing arrest for doing just that… but they say they are being treated unfairly. All they were doing is preaching what the Bible says.

I don’t know if they were preaching the following verses, but no doubt they serve as examples of some awful passages:

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (Lev. 20:13)

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Ex. 21:20-21)

Christians can make an argument that these passages need to be read in context to be properly understood and that these words say nothing about what God supports or condemns, but it’s a hard sell since Christians habitually take verses out of context to suit their own needs.

Chief Inspector Chris Hill, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “Police were called to St Ann’s Square in Manchester city centre following complaints from members of the public who considered the comments being made by two street preachers as racist and homophobic. When spoken to, the men said they were quoting from the Bible. The officers confirmed they were entitled to preach on the street, but advised them offensive behaviour is not acceptable.

They haven’t been arrested. Yet.

But if the Hayworths were reading passages such as these, it shouldn’t even matter that they were coming from the Bible. Hate speech is hate speech. Violence against any group of people ought to be condemned. It doesn’t matter whether you’re reading from the Bible or any other book with graphic depictions of violence against certain groups.

This is not a violation of free speech. Even that has its limitations.

I wonder if the cops would’ve arrested the Hayworths if they screamed “fire” in a crowded theater because the Bible told them to.

Where do you draw the line?

Mr. Mehta has several regular contributors to his blog, one of whom is Richard Wade. On August 18, a young woman calling herself “Poly,”–short for “polyamory”–wrote to Richard Wade for some relationship advice. Here is the letter from “Poly” followed by the response from Mr. Mehta’s regular contributor:

“Ask Richard: Considering an Ultimatum to Her Intolerant Family”

Posted by Richard Wade

Dear Richard,

I’m in a polyamorous relationship. I’ve been married to my husband for almost four years, and for the past three, we’ve had a live-in boyfriend. At this point in our relationship, we consider all three of us to be equals — the marriage between me and my husband is no more or less binding or meaningful as our relationship with my boyfriend. The three of us are best friends — more than best friends, we’re family. We’re all in our mid-twenties, and we all have college degrees and complete financial independence from our parents.

My husband’s family and my boyfriend’s family are both very liberal, mellow groups. They hadn’t been familiar with polyamory before we told them about our situation, but they took it in stride and treat us normally. All three of us are invited to certain holiday events, and it’s not awkward if, for example, I hold hands with my boyfriend in front of my husband’s family or share a brief kiss with my husband while we’re around my boyfriend’s family. So far, so good, right?

When we told my family (evangelical fundamentalists), they took it horribly. My parents were furious that I’d told my siblings (who are younger than me, but 18 and up) and compared our situation to pedophilia. When pressed, they admitted that our situation isn’t illegal, it’s just “unethical.” One of my siblings hasn’t been in contact with me for months now, having cut me off immediately after getting my letter. The rest of my family has handled this the same way they handled finding out about my atheism — they just avoid the topic. As long as no one brings up my boyfriend’s existence, they’re happy to keep making small talk and sharing family news.

I don’t want to allow them to keep pretending like this forever, and I think that at some point, I’m going to tell them that they’ll have to choose between being dicks about this and having me in their lives — and having me in their lives means acknowledging the existence of my boyfriend and treating him like part of the family. I do know, however, that they need some time to adjust and get used to the situation, so I’ve decided to give them a year before I do this.

So: Should I tell my family now that I’ll eventually expect this from them? I think that they’re assuming that we can go the rest of our lives the way we’ve been acting, and I don’t want to shock them by suddenly springing an ultimatum on them a year from now. On the other hand, I’m afraid to broach the subject at all, when things have been relatively pleasant, and I’m not looking forward to the emotional upheaval of another angry, negative reaction from them. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.

Polyamorous and Proud

Dear Poly,

I can understand your frustration and hurt. Your family’s behavior says that they don’t respect you or your loved ones. It says that their moral rules trump their love for you. Sitting around at family gatherings pretending that your boyfriend doesn’t exist is an immature way to respond. I gather from your letter that they have not even met him.

I see three possible ways you could handle this. One, you could continue to go along with the charade, playing your family’s game and never bring your boyfriend over to their home or mention his name.

. . .

I suggest . . . gradual engagement. Your family has responded in a less than mature way, but they could have done worse, by issuing you their own ultimatum and when you refused, consequently cutting you off. You still have contact with them, still have your foot in the door. Take advantage of it. What I suggest will take quite some time, and it will require higher levels of patience and maturity than you may have ever mustered before. You are worth that effort, and so are your husband, your boyfriend, and yes, even your family. . . .

Begin working on one family member only, whoever is most likely to be willing to just listen to you. The following may take several separate sessions: Privately, talk to that person about your hurt feelings from your sibling’s abandonment of you, and from the others’ decision to pretend and ignore someone who is very important to you. Avoid expressing your anger and indignation, which are secondary to your root feeling, hurt. Faced with anger, people will immediately defend or counter-attack. Just express your hurt. As I discussed in a previous post, frequently say that you love him/her. As he or she begins to understand how you feel, start introducing your boyfriend in small increments. First just show a picture of him. Later, briefly describe a few things about him, including both something that he does, and something that he feels. Gradually make your boyfriend a real human being in this family member’s eyes. Eventually arrange a casual meeting with him away from the family home. Hopefully, you will begin to have one family member who is more interested in supporting your happiness than in doggedly supporting a family consensus. Then s/he can work with you in an incremental way on the next person, whoever would be the second most open to listening, and then the next…

I think that you’re much more likely to gain more allies in your family, and you will have gently rather than forcibly broken up the monolithic rejection of your chosen relationships to the point that your boyfriend will be able to attend gatherings, and people will be able to relax without pretending that he doesn’t exist.

Poly, I know that this and many of my suggestions to other people’s problems are a lot of work. Doing the quick and brutal solutions instead can be very tempting, but atheists do not just have the advantage of rationality and emotional maturity on their side in a debate, they also have the responsibility to live by those qualities in their daily lives. We must rise to the challenge of our choice to be self-defining and self-responsible. . . .

Richard

Although Mr. Mehta did not write this blog entry, judging from the fact that he has several posts that endorse polyamory and none that criticize it, it seems clear that he shares Wade’s subversive views.

And finally, there’s the blog entry in which Mr. Mehta cheerfully encourages his readers to visit the obscene column of homosexual activist Dan Savage who urges a young man to act upon the same-sex attractions he is struggling to resist because of his faith. Here’s an excerpt from the Savage column that Hemant Mehta recommends on his blog:

[J]ust remind yourself that things have been crawling on top of each other and madly humping away for 850 million years. Sex came first, then humanity (200,000ish years ago), then religion came along tens of thousands of years after that. Which may explain why religion, when pitted against sex (really old) and human nature (pretty old), always loses. Always.

If you’re on the cross, it’s because you put yourself up there. Which means you’re not some poor mortal trapped between a cosmic rock and an existential hard place; you’re just another closeted co**sucker with a martyr complex.

Look, kiddo, you get one life, one chance at happiness. If it gives you a spiritual semi to fantasize about a God who created you gay but forbids you to act on your emotional and sexual attraction to men, knock your damn self out. But you can have a boyfriend and Jesus, too–look at the pope–you just have to do what people have been doing since the first terrified idiot invented the first bullshit religion: improvise. Find yourself a brand-new religion or sect, or jettison the bits of your current faith that don’t work for you. If you know anything about the history of Christianity-and it sounds like you don’t-then you know that the revisions began before the body was cold. No reason to stop now.

And finally, there is no God–you do realize that, right? No hell below us, above us only sky, etc.

It’s astonishing to me that a teacher, someone who is supposed to be a role model for students, would ever recommend that anyone visit Dan Savage’s offensive column.

Some parents fail to understand the adolescent mind: they fail to understand that teens are often predisposed to affirm the ideas of adults whom they find cool or personable or funny or anti-tradition. Those parents, no matter what their personal beliefs, will likely be comfortable with their children in Mr. Mehta’s class.

Some parents may be ideological kindred spirits with Mr. Mehta. Those parents may relish the idea of their children being impressed by Mr. Mehta and influenced by his subversive ideas.

But those parents who are troublied by the ideas Mr. Mehta expresses, posts on his blog, and endorses, and who recognize that their teens may be predisposed to look favorably on his ideas merely because they like him, may want to ensure their teens have another math teacher.

It’s all about diversity and choice. 

Last week, I wrote an article forewarning IFI readers to avoid the “Bean” in Millennium Park on Saturday, August 15 at 1:00 p.m. because the “Great Nationwide Homosexual Kiss-In” was going to take place there. I never suggested banning the event. I simply warned those families who believe that homosexual activity is perverse to avoid this location.

But even that warning drew the ire of some homosexual bloggers and their supporters. On some blogs, commenters wrote that children should be exposed to homosexual kissing–not merely that if exposure were to happen, it would prove harmless–but rather that children should be exposed to homosexual kissing. We’ve come a long way, baby, from the days during which the homosexual community dishonestly claimed that all they wanted was tolerance. No longer is tolerance their goal. Coercive universal affirmation of homosexual acts is their subversive and pernicious goal. And compulsory exposure of children to subversive and pernicious ideas and images is one of their many means to achieve that end.

One of the bloggers who was peeved that I would have the audacity to warn IFI parents about the great homosexual kiss-in was Hemant Mehta, whose blog is called “The Friendly Atheist”. He’s also a math teacher in District 204’s Neuqua Valley High School.

Judging from his blog, Mehta’s mission in life is to spread the gospel of atheism to students across the country, making disciples of all men and women. Judging from his blog, he also seeks to spread the message that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality.

Of course, teachers have a First Amendment right to blog or speak publicly about anything they want. And parents have every right not to have their children in the classroom under the tutelage of someone whose publicly articulated views they find fallacious and deeply troubling. Having a First Amendment right to speak freely does not guarantee public approval or public silence. And the public response may be that parents choose not to have their children in the class of those who espouse views that parents find foolish and destructive.

Parents have a justifiable concern that the personal views of teachers may find their way into the classroom, either through curricular choices or classroom commentary. Those parents who want nothing more than that their children will believe in God may find someone whose mission in life is to persuade young people to reject a belief in God to be a poor role model.

A generation or two ago, a teacher’s personal beliefs on philosophical, theological, political, and moral issues would have been irrelevant because students wouldn’t know what they were. But many teachers today, particularly our emboldened, hubristic liberal activists, make sure that their students are familiar with their beliefs. These teachers view themselves as “agents of change” and their students as clay to be fashioned in their own ideological image. In a day when many school administrations do nothing to prohibit activists from espousing their beliefs on social, political, and moral issues in the classroom, parents should make every effort to place their children in the classes of teachers who respect the rights of parents and the ethical limits of their jobs.

But even if Mr. Mehta does not view his math classes as opportunities to proselytize, there still remains the fact that he is a role model and he regularly engages in very public discourse on very controversial topics. For many parents, views on homosexuality and belief in God are two of life’s most important issues–issues that are critical to both civilized and eternal life.

Unfortunately, from middle school through college, many students are more influenced by emotion and personality than by rigorous analysis of arguments. Adolescence is also a time of rebellion which is why many teens are attracted to rebellious, anti-establishment people and ideas. Students–and often even adults–are unduly influenced by characteristics wholly disconnected from reason. Students are often unduly influenced by teachers who they find hip or funny or kind or charismatic or good-looking or anti-authority or anti-tradition or anti-establishment, which is why role models are so critical during children’s formative years.

If students especially like a particular teacher, they are likely to be predisposed to look favorably at this teacher’s views on a whole host of issues unrelated to the subject the teacher was hired to teach. And students will have no trouble finding out what Mr. Mehta’s views on a number of controversial issues are because Mr. Mehta is quite public and voluble with them.

Many parents would recoil at having their children spend a school year under the tutelage of a teacher–particularly a charismatic teacher–who in his or her free time blogs favorably about racism and travels the length and breadth of the country preaching racism. Similarly, some parents may recoil at having their children spend a year under the tutelage of a teacher who spends his free time blogging favorably about atheism and homosexuality and traveling the length and breadth of the country preaching favorably about atheism.

But Mr. Mehta doesn’t merely expatiate philosophically, he gets personal too.

Last week, Mr. Mehta made an unfriendly comment on his Friendly Atheist blog that I found troubling enough that I shared it with some of the District 204’s administrators and the members of the school board–something I have not done on the other occasions he has written about me.

He wrote the following in response to my IFI article about the homosexual kiss-in: “The only thing that could make this kiss-in even better is if it took place just outside Higgins’ house.”

In my email, I expressed my disappointment that a role model for students would make such a vindictive, irresponsible, and unprofessional public statement. My hope was that someone in the administration would have a conversation with Mr. Mehta regarding his influential role in students’ lives and his inappropriate comment. Making District 204 leaders aware of Mr. Mehta’s comment was all I intended to do regarding this issue, that is, until I received an angry email from attorney and school board member, Mark Metzger. His email contained the following not-so-veiled threat of a lawsuit: “Have you considered the possibility that if your actions caused Mr. Mehta to suffer consequences in his employment, you’d be subjecting yourself and/or your organization to liability? That’s potentially unwise to your organization’s self-sufficiency, surviival (sic) and mission.”

In addition, he suggested I was setting “a poor example for families,” which was perplexing to me in that my email correspondence was sent only to thirteen District 204 officials as compared to Mr. Mehta’s blog comments which are available to almost everyone in the world. Moreover, my fervent hope is that more parents will become involved in public school issues, including asserting their rights regarding the teachers under whose tutelage they place their children.

I also found Mr. Metzger’s concern about setting a bad example ironic in light of his recent action as District 204 school board president. Some may remember that he was embroiled in a controversy last spring that led to his decision to step down from his position as school board president.

Last year in Naperville, an eleven-year-old boy was sexually assaulted by two classmates. Following the assault, the father of the victim asked that the perpetrators be moved to other schools in the district so that his son would not have to encounter them during his school day. The district initially balked at this request. During the heated public debate on the issue, Mr. Metzger composed another angry email which he intended to send to just the school board but accidentally sent also to the father of the victim. In it Mr. Metzger referred to the father by an extremely vulgar obscenity, one that was so offensive no newspaper would provide even an elided reference to it. Metzger wrote, “I think it’s about time for me to issue a response and blow up the lies this (expletive) continues to tell.”

District 204 community members, particularly students, deserve public servants and role models who demonstrate more wisdom, self-restraint, and respect for people than do Mr. Mehta and Mr. Metzger.

In the fall of 2008, I wrote two articles describing how absurdly imbalanced public high school book collections are on the topic of homosexuality. I mentioned in those two articles that DeerfieldHigh Schoolhad approximately 65 books that espouse liberal views on homosexuality and not one that espouses conservative views. At NewTrierHigh schoolin Winnetka, it’s even worse: it’s approximately 120 liberal books to 0 conservative.

Now the organization “Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays” (PFOX) has issued a press release taking a West Bend, Wisconsin library to task for its refusal to include in its book collection any books written by or about men and women who have decided no longer to engage in homosexual acts or identify as homosexuals, while at the same time carrying numerous books that espouse positive views of homosexuality:

Despite public opposition, the West Bend Community Memorial Library continues to stock gay books for children and teens while neglecting books by ex-gay authors.

Many of the gay books promote homosexual behavior to youth and are the subject of protests by concerned parents, whose request to have the books moved to the adult section were denied.

“Our requests that the Library balance some of its homosexual material for children with material written by ex-gays or with a heterosexual slant have been ignored,’ said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX).

“Apparently, the West Bend Community Memorial Library is not interested in diversity,’ said Griggs. . . . According to its own policy, the Library has a ‘professional responsibility to be inclusive, not exclusive, in developing collections.’

“For a library to provide children’s books which promote homosexuality while denying ex-gay books smacks of censorship and indoctrination of youth with a one-sided ideology,’ said Griggs.

The American Library Association’s (ALA) “Intellectual Freedom Principles” state that “1) Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation. 2) Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

In light of those principles, PFOX is asking the ALA to condemn the censorship taking place in Wisconsin. There are two chances of that happening: slim and fat.

In July 2009, the American Library Association held its annual convention right here in Chicago. It might surprise IFI readers to learn that one of the pressing issues addressed at this convention for librarians was same-sex marriage. This issue is of such pressing concern to the ALA that a resolution was put forward that has the ALA formally endorsing same-sex marriage. I hope this disabuses the naïve among us of the delusion that the ALA is an unbiased, politically neutral organization committed to providing “leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”

Here is a “must-read” article about the event from the delightfully sardonic “Annoyed Librarian” who wrote about the resolution in his or her blog post “ALA 2009: ALA Council and Same Sex Marriage.” (Please send this link to the librarians in your schools and community libraries.)

ALA ideologues are prepared to defend their de facto censorship practices. Their defense centers around their “Collection Development Policies” (CDP’s). The term sounds so stupefyingly boring that no one thinks to look closely at them and how they actually affect library book collections–but we should.

Fortunately, two university librarians, including the “Annoyed Librarian,” have provided cynical, saucy, and trenchant analyses of CDP’s which you can read here.

It’s not just the ALA whose bias is showing. A cursory look at the ideological biases of those who publish, review, and recommend books to school libraries and who sit on award committees will illuminate why such imbalances exist at virtually all public school and community libraries.

Secular publishing companies are largely staffed by liberals. Schools of education and departments of library science are notoriously liberal. Organizations that review and recommend books are notoriously liberal. And committees that award literary prizes are largely composed of individuals who hold liberal views on social issues, including homosexuality.

These various groups, along with English departments in colleges, universities, and high schools, are embarrassingly hypocritical when it comes to their public statements about intellectual freedom and diversity. When it comes to the topic of homosexuality, they are intellectually incestuous, politically motivated, narrow-minded, intolerant censors.

Below is an excerpt from a 2008 article written by four women on the staff of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison followed by their biographies, which reveals just how influential ideologues are in determining what books libraries purchase. This will also clarify why West Bend, Wisconsin community members are having so much trouble getting ideas into their local libraries:

Over the past few years there has been a welcome increase in young adult novels dealing with gay and lesbian themes and topics, and 2007 proved to be the best year yet, not only in terms of quantity but in terms of quality as well (emphasis added). We were pleased to see several newcomers pen their first novels for young adults with LGBTQ themes. Among these are published adult authors writing for the first time for teenagers, including Peter Cameron (Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You) and James St. James (Freak Show). First-time novelists M. Sindy Felin (Touching Snow) and Perry Moore (Hero) both got off to a great start with their original, finely crafted stories.

Established authors Julie Peters, (grl2grl) and Ellen Wittlinger (Parrotfish) expanded the genre by offering a variety of LGBTQ characters, including transgender teens. And Nancy Garden, a pioneer in the field, published a collection of short stories (Hear Me Out) that shows the changes that have occurred in the lives of gay and lesbian teens over the past six decades. This year also marked the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Annie on My Mind (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which was so groundbreaking when it came out-the first gay/lesbian love story with a happy ending. We have come a very long way, indeed, since John Donovan published I’ll Get There: It Better Be Worth the Trip (Harper & Row), the first gay novel for teens, in 1969.

In addition to Annie on My Mind, 2007 was an anniversary year for another landmark young adult novel. S.E. Hinton‘s The Outsiders, now a classic, came out in a fortieth-anniversary edition. Both of these books were important precursors of things to come.
. . .
In fact, one of the things that struck us profoundly this year was the fact that publishing reflecting the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning youth has, in just a few years, grown exponentially, and in that growth we are seeing more new voices and greater diversity of experience than we see within any single component of multicultural literature.

Kathleen T. Horning
Kathleen is the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kathleen T. Horning is a librarian who has served on many ALA award committees and is the former chair of the Newbery Award Committee. Kathleen is a past-president of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) of the American Library Association (ALA), and a past president of the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY). She has served on ALA/SRRT’s Rainbow List, ALA/ALSC’s Notable Children’s Books Committee and an earlier Newbery Award Committee. She chaired ALA/ALSC’s first Committee on Social Issues in Relationship to Materials and Services for Children. Kathleen frequently lectures to librarians on issues in evaluating literature for children and young adults, and she was named the 2010 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecturer for ALA/ALSC.

Merri V. Lindgren
Merri is a librarian at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Merri is a regular contributor to the Wisconsin State Journal, writing a monthly column about books for children and young adults. Merri was a member of the American Library Association ALSC/YALSA 2008 Odyssey Award committee and is serving on the ALA/ALSC 2010 Caldecott Award Committee. She served on the 2001 Charlotte Zolotow Award committee and chaired the 2002, 2006, and 2007 Charlotte Zolotow Award committees.

Tessa Michaelson
Michaelson is a librarian at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tessa is the producer of the weekly CCBC podcasts. Tessa is chair of the 2010 Charlotte Zolotow Award Committee, and served as a member of the 2009 Zolotow Award Committee.

Megan Schliesman
Schliesman is a librarian at the Cooperative Children’sBookCenter of theSchool ofEducation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Megan served on the American Library Association/ALSC 2005 Newbery Award Committee and is chairing the ALA/ALSC 2011 Laura Ingalls Wilder Committee. She has also served on the 1998, 1999 and 2002 Charlotte Zolotow Award committees, chaired the 2003 and 2008 Zolotow Award committees, and will chair the 2009 committee. Megan manages the CCBC Intellectual Freedom Information Services and “What IF . . . Questions and Answers on Intellectual Freedom” forum.

Through its de facto censorship mechanism, cunningly obscured behind the sterile nomenclature “Collection Development Policy,” the American Library Association has become a corrupt, hypocritical organization committed to promulgating biased, subversive social and political views on the controversial topic of homosexuality. On this topic one thing’s certain: if you’re looking for intellectual diversity, stay out of your libraries. 

Dear Mr. Mehta,

You wrote, “The Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins is going after me (and my job) again.”

I have never in any context suggested that you should be fired or that you should resign. In fact, I don’t believe the school has any legal right to fire you. You should have fact-checked before you posted that inaccurate statement.

In addition, I have repeatedly stated that you have a First Amendment right to make whatever public statements you want on any topic. I have also made it abundantly clear that my goal is to provide information to District 204 parents–particularly IFI readers–about the nature of the ideas you express and endorse on your public blog so that they can make informed decisions as to whether they want their children to spend a school year under your tutelage.

In my first brief email to your administrators and school board, I did not, as one of your blog commenters suggested, call for you to be fired. I notified them that you made the public, vindictive, irresponsible, and unprofessional suggestion that the Kiss-In would be even better if it took place in front of my home.

You fail to acknowledge a central point that I addressed in my two articles, which is that many teens are unduly influenced by emotion and the cult of personality, and therefore are predisposed to look favorably on the ideas of teachers whom they find cool or charismatic or funny or kind or anti-tradition. Adolescence is also a time of rebellion which is why many teens are attracted to rebellious, anti-establishment people and ideas.

If students search your name and come upon your blog, they will be exposed to your endorsement and promotion of ideas that some parents may find deeply troubling. If students have you as their teacher, like you, and develop a relationship with you–as happens often in high school–they will be more likely to look favorably on and be influenced by your ideas than those students who have little or no personal connection to you. This is the reason that many parents care deeply about role models.

It’s the reason there were some recent stories about parents being upset that a high school cheerleading coach posed in her private life for Playboy magazine, and why some parents would not want their children in the class of a teacher who in their free time on a public forum promotes racist views or denies the historicity of the Holocaust.

It’s probably the same reason that three years ago a well-known homosexual blogger informed my former superintendent that I had been interviewed on Moody Radio on the topic of homosexuality. During my last three years at Deerfield High School, there were more than a few supporters of the normalization of homosexuality who wrote publicly and contacted my administration about what they believed was my unfitness as a role model for students–and I worked in the writing center where I had no classes.

In my second article about you, I concluded by saying that some parents may not view teachers as potentially influential role models for their children, and therefore those parents will be fine with you as their children’s teacher.

I said that other parents may believe that teachers are potential influences but agree with your public promotion of polyamory, homosexuality, and the non-existence of God, in which case they may love for you to become a role model in their children’s lives.

But other parents, perhaps some Jewish, Muslim, or Christian parents, may have concerns about the adults with whom their children spend time, develop relationships, and who may potentially influence their children and may also have significant disagreement with the ideas you promote on your public blog. Those parents are entitled to sufficient information to make informed choices about the very public activities of their children’s teachers–something that for some odd reason seems to offend you.

You also erroneously stated that I sent “out an official press release” about you which I did not. We sent out an Illinois Family Institute email to our subscriber list, which we do once or twice a week.

Mr. Mehta, you have now made two more inaccurate statements (the first was in your blog entry following your attendance at a presentation I gave at Wheaton Bible Church). If you cannot produce any proof from my writing to support your claim that I am “going after” your job, please retract that statement.

Those of us who are troubled by both premarital sexual activity and by comprehensive sex education should not abide in a state of willful ignorance or complacency about the problem of how to educate our children about sexuality issues.

Far too many teens and young adults raised in Christian homes are adopting worldly views of sexuality. We and our children are immersed in a sex-drenched culture that giddily promotes profligate sexuality. No sex ed curricula will be able to eliminate the pernicious effects of daily exposure to ubiquitous, tantalizing images of and ideas about pre-marital, extra-marital, and non-marital sexual activity in magazines, music, films, television, advertising, and even our public schools. But the difficulty of the challenge is no excuse for acquiescence to the unacceptable curricula offered in many schools.

A truly comprehensive sex ed curriculum will not only include but be centered on the theology of marriage and sexual union. That is the central problem with public school comprehensive sex ed curricula. They omit that which is central to sexual activity: the spiritual core. And it is that dangerous omission that reinforces the dominant cultural presuppositions that vitiate a proper and correct understanding of sexuality: Gnosticism and scientific materialism.

We must teach our children that our bodies are objectively and inextricably connected to our immaterial spiritual natures, which are as real as our physical natures. In the August/September issue of First Things, Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, writes about the two philosophical views of the relationship between the body, mind, and spirit:

The view typically (if often unconsciously) held by advocates of liberal positions on issues of sexuality and marriage is that the person is the conscious and desiring aspect of the self. The person inhabits (or is somehow associated with) a body, certainly, but the body is regarded (if only implicitly) as a subpersonal reality, rather than a part of the personal reality of the human being whose body it is.

. . . The alternate view of what persons are is . . . [that] human beings are bodily persons, not consciences, or minds, or spirits inhabiting and using nonpersonal bodies. A human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. (“What Marriage Is–And What It Isn’t”)

We are working against our culture’s Gnostic and naturalistic presuppositions. Gnosticism teaches that we have two separate natures and that our physical nature is of less importance. One of the outworkings of Gnostic views about the nature of man can be sexual profligacy. If the body is somehow distinct from the essence of the individual, how we use the body becomes insignificant.

Metaphysical naturalism or materialism tells us that all that really exists is the physical, material, measurable universe. It presumes, without proof, that there is no spiritual, non-material plane of existence. This view trivializes our spiritual natures in that it fails to recognize the truth that we are more than matter. We possess spiritual natures that are inextricably united to physical bodies. What we do with our spiritual and physical selves matter enormously to the Creator of the universe. Whereas Gnosticism trivializes the material, scientific materialism trivializes the spiritual. Adopting the view that we are merely material matter makes it more likely that we will view what we do with our bodies as unimportant.

But if humans are created in the image and likeness of God with bodies that are united inseparably from spiritual, eternal natures, then what we do with our bodies is both ultimately and truly spiritual and incalculably important.

Parents must not simply tell their children to refrain from sex until marriage. They must discuss repeatedly in formal sit-down instructional times and informal teachable moments what marriage is. By the time our children reach adolescence they should know that earthly marriage is a picture, a type, an earthly representation of the covenant between Christ and the church. Christ is the bridegroom and the church is His bride. The act that sealed that union was the shedding of Christ’s blood on the Cross. Sexual intercourse is the act that seals the covenant between a husband and a wife. And just as Christ covenants only with His bride, we must share our oath sign or seal-sexual intercourse-with only our spouse. We must teach our children from the youngest ages–in age-appropriate language, of course–that this is an objective reality that the world in its darkness cannot comprehend.

After reading Comprehensive Sex Ed Part I, an IFI reader expressed his concern about virginity pledges–a concern we should all share:

One of the reasons my wife and I have a problem with virginity pledges–although we totally support abstinence before marriage–is that they are very similar to taking a vow, and those teens who are encouraged to make these pledges are not also informed of the seriousness with which God takes vows.

Numbers 30 outlines the laws regarding vows. However, since the majority of Christians don’t take God’s law seriously, they don’t have a problem leading their children into an area in which they could suffer spiritual consequences–beyond the obvious ones–for breaking a vow. By breaking an abstinence/virginity vow, they are not only sinning by fornication, but they are also sinning through the breaking of a vow.

What needs to be promulgated is not the making of vows, but simple obedience to the word of God. If we as families took God’s law more seriously, virginity “pledges” wouldn’t be necessary.

The deep meaning and seriousness of vow-taking and vow-breaking–whether virginity pledges or marital vows–are not adequately addressed within the Christian community.

For more on what marriage and sexual union are, here are four excellent sermons by Dr. Gordon Hugenberger, senior minister of Park Street Church in Boston:

The Covenant of Marriage

What is Sex?

What About Premarital Sex

Hate Masquerading as Love

IFI does not want parents either to acquiesce to the comprehensive sex education offered in public schools or to ignore this critical topic. As I wrote in an earlier article, Illinois Family Institute has a counter-cultural pragmatic suggestion for all parents of children in public schools: for just health class, homeschool your children:

Health class is usually a one-semester class taken by sophomores. I know from my eight years of working in a public high school and from putting four children through a public high school that many, probably most, high school students think of health class as a “blow-off” course. Students are familiar with much of the content already, from drug, alcohol, and tobacco use to nutrition and exercise to mental health issues. That leaves sexual matters, and for many parents of faith, information regarding sexuality should never be taught divorced from discussions of faith and morality.

Moreover, teens should not be in co-ed sex ed classes, whether abstinence-based or comprehensive. There are topics that adolescent boys and girls should not discuss together. Co-ed discussions of sexual anatomy and sexual activity break down natural barriers of modesty, which is not to be confused with shame or prudery, and become yet another step in the sexualization of our youth. Co-ed sex education classes further undermine the virtue of modesty that our culture is doing a remarkable job already of undermining.

Separating adolescent boys from adolescent girls for discussions of sexuality reinforces the idea that sexual activity and sexual anatomy are intimate and private. Co-ed classroom discussions about breast development, menstruation, erections, nocturnal emissions, anal sex, and masturbation only serve to break down natural sexual barriers of modesty that cultural institutions should be strengthening.

Christian parents should also teach their adolescent children about birth control–not to encourage them to use it, but rather because all informed human beings should be familiar with this information. It is in this teaching context that parents can fully inform their children about what condoms can and cannot do. They can inform them of the serious health risks of oral contraceptives. And they can inform them about Natural Family Planning.

We are preparing our adolescents for their future married lives. For many, those married lives will include contraception. And for those who believe that artificial means of contraception violate God’s will for marital relations, this is their opportunity to explain their beliefs to their children.

There are myriad curricula available from which to choose and which students would be able to complete in far less time than a school health class would take. In addition, this option would not involve pulling students out of school. Students could complete this work during their evenings or on weekends and have an extra free period during their school day.

Perhaps if enough parents opt to homeschool their students for health class, the decline in enrollment, which would in turn affect staffing, would lead public school administrators to rethink the wisdom of co-ed comprehensive sex education curricula.

If, however, only a few parents opt their children out of health class and enrollment is little affected, at least those students who take an alternative program at home will have escaped yet another attempt at indoctrination.

On Thursday morning, June 25, three days before the Chicago”pride” parade, I called Nettelhorst Elementary School Principal Cindy Wulbert to ask whether the school was participating in the parade as was reported in the Chicago Tribune. I was told that Principal Wulbert was unavailable and that the school would be participating in the parade.

I asked the woman I was speaking to whether school time was used to make and/or tie the “thousands” of rainbow-colored fabric strips that the Trib reported were adorning the school fence. She claimed that she didn’t know and that when she “arrived at school one day, they were just up.”

I left a message asking that the principal return my call.

I called again in the afternoon and was told that Principal Wulbert was still not available and that Nettelhorst was not participating in the parade. The new person told me that there are Nettelhorst parents who are members of the gay and lesbian community and that they would be taking their children to march in the parade. She also informed me that Nettelhorst “does not have any school policy that prevents these parents from identifying the school their children attend.” This raises the question, what is the difference between officially participating in the “pride” parade and unofficially participating if anyone can carry signs that say “Nettelhorst Elementary School”?

Since Nettelhorst was purportedly not “officially” participating in the parade, I asked her if the school had removed the sign that the Chicago Trib reported was on the school fence announcing Nettelhorst’s participation in the parade. I was told that there was no such sign and never had been, and that the statement in the Trib was “inaccurate.”

I then asked this new person, who was giving me remarkably different answers from those that I had been given in the morning, about the fabric strips. Lo and behold, I was again given a different answer. I was told that the thousands of rainbow-colored fabric strips had nothing whatsoever to do with the “pride” parade. I was told that “they’re always up.” She claimed that the fabric strips represent student wishes, and whenever a student makes a wish, he or she ties a fabric strip on the fence. I wonder why the first woman I spoke to, who I believe was a teacher, didn’t seem familiar with this longstanding tradition.

This new version of the story contradicts not just the Chicago Trib story but also the account offered by Darius Kemp on the blog “Not in Our Town”:

In May, teachers and parents, both gay and straight, collected ribbons and created a rainbow “Pride Fence” with a sign that read: “Each Nettelhorst student has tied a piece of fabric to the fence as a tangible sign of his or her personal intention to create a better world.”

Furthermore, to show children and the neighborhood that fighting intolerance and bullying is not a one-time event, parents and teachers from the school will march in the Chicago Gay Pride Parade to demonstrate their support for inclusion in our schools and in our towns.

I called again on Friday to try to get to the bottom of this very curious story by speaking with Principal Wulbert but was told she would not be in the office until Monday. I then asked the gentleman on the phone if he could answer some questions about Nettelhorst and the “pride” parade. He said that he was “not at liberty to discuss that issue.” Apparently, the Nettelhorst administration has as much commitment to transparency as they do to truth.

I left yet another message for Principal Wulbert; I’m still awaiting her call.

I had one last pre-parade hope for clarification: Rex Huppke, the Trib reporter who wrote the story on Nettelhorst.

I called and emailed Mr Huppke, leaving detailed messages about who I am, what Nettelhorst told me, and what my questions were. I’m still awaiting his call also. Mr. Huppke is likely very busy writing yet more glowing, transparently biased stories about the LGBT community, some of which you can read here, here, here and here:

I guess we’re all just left to figure out the truth for ourselves. Perhaps this disturbing video of this year’s Chicago Pride Parade provided by Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) can shed some light on the darkness created by the Nettelhorst administration and the homosexual activist organizations that promote the depraved “pride” circus:

Two final thoughts:

• The dissembling or outright lying engaged in by Nettelhorst public school employees makes one wonder how people with so little commitment to truth can possibly foster integrity in children.
• Pay attention to the Log Cabin Republicans’ float in this AFTAH video. The GOP must sever all ties to Log Cabin Republicans. The “big tent” must not become so big that its support structures collapse under the weight of pernicious ideas.

There is much to ruminate about following the publication of a study that compared the sexual behavior of teens who took virginity pledges with that of teens who did not. The study by Janet Rosenbaum appeared in the Jan. 2009 issue of Pediatrics and received widespread coverage by the mainstream media. The study showed that teens who make “virginity pledges” are no more likely to remain virgins until marriage than teens with similar religious views who do not make pledges. Moreover, those who make pledges are less likely to use condoms when they finally choose to have premarital sex.

The gleeful, smug announcement of these findings by all too many comprehensive sex ed proponents is troubling. Their responses suggest that they are more concerned about winning the battle to get ever more provocative and graphic sexual information into the heads and hearts of teens than they are with the disturbing information that fully 50% of our youth are sexually active by the time they are 21 years old.

Comprehensive sex ed proponents say that since abstinence pledges don’t work and abstinence pledges are a central part of many abstinence sex ed programs, then abstinence programs don’t work. But is that too broad a claim? Might it just be that one element of the abstinence program–the virginity pledges–doesn’t work? Is the apparent failure of that one element sufficient to abandon all abstinence programs?

Executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, Valerie Huber explains that “The author inaccurately equates the holistic breadth of an abstinence education program to the one-time event of a virginity pledge. A pledge and an abstinence program are not synonymous.”

What I have not yet been able to ascertain is whether the 932 students Janet E. Rosenbaum studied had been in comprehensive or abstinence-based sex ed classes. If they were all in comprehensive sex ed classes, then the failure of the virginity pledges could hardly be attributed to abstinence education.

A Washington Post article quoted a Johns Hopkins obstetrician and gynecologist who said “It is time to stop spending money on these useless (abstinence) programs and funnel it into safer-sex counseling.” But before we abandon abstinence education, ought we not ascertain whether it was the abstinence education that failed or the virginity pledges that failed?

James Joyner writes that the Rosenbaum study “is good social science if one is attempting to isolate the effects of signing a pledge. But it shouldn’t be interpreted as a simple comparison of pledgers and non-pledgers. Instead, she’s comparing only the kind of people who would be expected to sign pledges to see if actually signing the pledge changes anything.”

What somehow got lost in the media-hype surrounding the release of this study’s findings is that it also showed that “teens who take virginity pledges do delay sexual activity until an average age of 21 (compared to about age 17 for the average American teen).” Some theorize that this delay is a result of religious faith since the study participants–both pledgers and non-plegers–had similar conservative religious convictions (according to Rosenbaum, “40% were born-again believers”). Apparently the proponents of early sexualization of children find religious faith so objectionable that they refuse to acknowledge the real possibility that faith may provide the solution to the problem of teen sex.

Another interesting fact from the Rosenbaum study, rarely reported by the mainstream media, is that “non-pledgers,” meaning those who did not take virginity pledges were “2.31%” more likely to have “been paid for sex” than those who took virginity pledges. Make of that what you will.

Critics of abstinence programs use the Rosenbaum study, which focused solely on the efficacy of virginity pledges in preventing premarital sex and condom use, as justification for defunding abstinence education. But for many abstinence education advocates, virginity pledges are not their central concern.

Liberal “educators,” with their voracious appetites for the hearts and minds of other people’s children, continue to gobble up increasing areas of life. Their apparently insatiable hunger to remake the world in their own image blinds them to the arrogance of their quest. And their manipulation of rhetoric blinds taxpayers to the inappropriateness of both their means and ends.

Here are some of the problematic features of typical comprehensive sex ed curricula:

• They include “values-based education that offer students the opportunity to explore and define their individual values as well as the values of their families and communities,” all of which suggest there are no moral absolutes.
• They provide information on abortion, masturbation, and “sexual orientation.”
• They offer students “the opportunity to explore their own and their family’s religious values.”

There are no valid pedagogical reasons for health educators to discuss masturbation or abortion or family religious values or homosexuality. Nor do they need to demonstrate how to use a condom. If virginity pledges are what’s sticking in the craw of comprehensive sex ed advocates, it’s quite simple to eliminate them from abstinence curricula. Churches and families are better places for encouraging virginity pledges anyway.

Critics of abstinence programs also point to a study released in April 2007 that compared the behavior of students in abstinence programs with that of students who were in comprehensive sex ed programs as evidence of the failure of abstinence programs. That study revealed the following:

• Kids in both groups (abstinence and control groups) were knowledgeable about the risks of having sex without using a condom or other form of protection.
• Condom use was not high in either group.
• By the end of the study, when the average child was just shy of 17, half of both groups had remained abstinent.
• The sexually active teenagers had sex the first time at about age 15.
• More than a third of both groups had two or more partners.

This study also, however, found this:

• A greater number of students in abstinence programs correctly identified STDs than did students in control groups.
• A greater number of students in abstinence programs reported correctly that birth control pills do not prevent STDs than did students in control groups.

After reading this report, Martha Kempner of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States declared that “Abstinence-only was an experiment and it failed.” Curiously, Ms. Kempner looked at abstinence programs, which have largely the same results as comprehensive sex ed programs–except that they better prepare students with a knowledge of STD-prevention–and she declares that only abstinence programs are failures.

I would argue that if abstinence programs are deemed a failure and worthy of defunding, then comprehensive sex ed programs that have virtually the same results should also be deemed a failure and defunded.

According to the Chicago Free Press, on Monday, June 22 openly homosexual CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Ron Huberman, met with homosexual teens and community activists from a group called Gender Just who are “demanding” that Huberman “immediately commit to implementing several changes in order to make the city’s schools safe for all students, particularly GLBT youth.”

Here is their list of demands:

– They want the CPS to move forward with the homosexual high school, Social JusticeSolidarityHigh School(formerly Pride Campus).
– They are asking that the term “gender expression” be added to CPS anti-discrimination policy (which would be an indefensible and disastrous request to accommodate).
– They want the CPS to create a district-wide accountability officer.
– They want to require additional teacher-training on GLBT issues.
– They want schools to distribute a resource guide and handbook written by Gender JUST to all CPS students.
– They want to revisit Renaissance 2010 (Mayor Daley’s school initiative through which the high school for homosexual and transgender students was created) and how it possibly impacts at-risk students.
– They want a signed directive that promises to make all CPS schools safe and affirming for all students.

Huberman told the crowd that “he was excited to hear” their proposals and that he was coming “to this with a sensitivity to the issue,” … adding that he came out 20 years ago when he was a 15-year-old high school student. The atmosphere, he said, was different then. ‘We’ve come miles since,’ he added, but a lot of progress still must be made.” Lest anyone harbor the delusion that Huberman’s homosexuality is irrelevant to his job, he’s just told us with utter clarity that it is. He’s also told us that to him progress is measured by the degree to which society rejects historical, orthodox Judeo-Christian views of homosexuality.

The Chicago Free Press reported that Huberman told Gender Just that “some of the demands made at the forum are already being looked into.” Great homosexual activist minds think alike.

The group that Huberman met with and has promised to meet with again soon is calling their movement — not surprisingly — the “Safe and Affirming Education Campaign.” Notice three things:

First, the Trojan horse of “safety” is used once again. The problem is that believing the disputed claim that affirming homosexuality in and to teens makes them safe necessarily requires that one accepts the prior unstated claim that homosexual behavior is morally defensible and physically safe.

Second, the name of this campaign reveals the implied but rarely stated view of homosexual activists which is that the only way to end bullying is to eradicate the belief that homosexual behavior is profoundly immoral. Homosexual activists will stop at nothing in their quest to eradicate the Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, and Christian belief that volitional homosexual conduct is immoral.

Ironically, in their quest to make schools “safe,” they never demand that teachers share the shocking nature and extent of diseases bedeviling men who have sex with men.

Third, this “Safe and Affirming Education Campaign” announces that no longer are homosexuals seeking tolerance; rather, an increasingly radical and pushy group is demanding “affirmation.” This is a demand that faith communities and conservatives who hold to no faith tradition must uncompromisingly, vigorously, and tenaciously resist.

Make no mistake about it, if conservatives and Chicago faith leaders maintain their public stance of apathetic or cowardly acquiescence toward homosexual activism, we will see not only Chicago’s first homosexuality-affirming public high school, but also the transformation of all public schools into homosexuality re-education camps. Public money, curricula, and policy will be employed in the service of affirming homosexuality in public schools.

And who supports this campaign? None other than the radical, subversive group Bash Back whose members describe themselves as “homosexual anarchists.” This is the group that a few days after the passage of Prop 8 in November stormed a church service in Lansing, Michigan, shouting obscenities, vandalizing the church, and unfurling a banner that read “IT’S OKAY TO BE GAY! BASH BACK!”

Thanks to Mayor Daley, the Chicago Public School system has an open, unapologetic homosexual CEO. Our top education leader, the man who by virtue of his position is a role model for children and who will now determine how much more public money and school time will be used to affirm deviant sexual behavior in and to children, is unashamedly involved in deviant sexual behavior.

Huberman has committed to meet with Gender Just leaders again within 60 days after he has time to “absorb” their proposals and speak with the CPS leaders. Chicagoans, including leaders in our faith communities, as well as other Illinoisans whose taxes subsidize Chicago Public Schools have a very short window of opportunity to make their views known to Mayor Daley, Ron Huberman and the School Board members. Tell them the following regarding the affirmation of volitional homosexual behavior:

– It is not compassionate. If homosexual behavior is, indeed, immoral, affirming it is hateful.
– It does not make our children safe. If homosexual acts are unhealthy, then affirming them makes kids unsafe.
– It is not appropriate in taxpayer subsidized public schools.
– It is divisive.
– It requires that school officials take a position on the nature and morality of homosexual behavior which they in their official capacity as school leaders are not ethically or intellectually equipped to do.

We never see anyone suggesting that schools work to end the bullying of polyamorous or promiscuous students by affirming and celebrating promiscuity or polyamory. Similarly, we should not concede to any efforts to curb the bullying of homosexual students that involve normalizing, affirming, or celebrating homosexuality.

I am so angry I could scream — but instead I’ll write.

Nettelhorst Elementary School, a public school located in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, has the dubious honor of being the first Chicago public school to march in Chicago’s “gay pride” parade on Sunday.

According to an article in the Windy City Times, and not surprisingly, “Brad Rossi, a gay parent of a first-grade girl, and Marcia Festen, a lesbian parent of two daughters, one of whom is in kindergarten, were both crucial in bringing the idea to the school. The two worked together in the 1980s, and Rossi says that the idea came from California.”

I have asked before and I will ask again, how depraved does the behavior have to become to which our public schools expose children and how young do the children have to be before conservatives and faith communities rise up in righteous indignation?

According to the Chicago Tribune, “The black metal fence in front of Nettelhorst Elementary School is obscured by thousands of strips of dyed fabric-yellows giving way to greens, then blues, purples and reds-each one tied on by the small hands of a student.” How special.

I called the school to ask if the small children had tied the thousands of strips on the fence during school time, but the teacher who answered the phone claimed she didn’t know.

I was struck by the symbolism inherent in these decorations: The rainbow colors representing the GLBT movement and goals now completely obscure public education.

The National Education Association (NEA), the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and pro-homosexual proselytes employed in public schools conspire to use public education to eradicate the belief that volitional homosexual acts are immoral. Public education is transmogrifying into public indoctrination right before our very eyes. The evidence is proudly displayed in thousands of rainbow-colored flags tied by little hands.

We have become so desensitized that we no longer view homosexuality as the perversion it is. And those who have retained a modicum of moral discernment have become so cowardly they are no longer willing to call perversion by its rightful name. We care more about our comfort than we do about children. We care more about our comfort than we do about how our money is exploited for someone else’s political agenda. We care more about how the world views us than how God views us. We are apathetic, self-centered, acquiescent cowards who allow paid public servants — activist ideologues — to exploit public education in the service of their pernicious, subversive, dystopian vision for America.

Volitional homosexual acts are depraved. How dare public educators suggest that children in publicly funded schools march in a parade that celebrates and affirms depravity. No public school educator in their professional capacity has any right to espouse, affirm, endorse, promote, or support either explicitly or implicitly any position on the nature and morality of homosexuality. To espouse, affirm, endorse, promote, or support any position on the nature and morality of homosexuality stands way outside the purview of their jobs and way outside their professional expertise.

Have Nettlehorst administrators and teachers read, studied, and thought deeply about the nature and morality of homosexuality? Have they studied what some of the greatest theologians, historians, and philosophers throughout history have written about it? Have they read the best contemporary scholarship on the subject from both liberal and conservative thinkers? What astonishing hubris, foolishness, and irresponsibility this parade decision represents.

Those Nettelhorst parents who want their children to attend this reprobate event can take their children themselves. Under no circumstances should participation in this parade of profligacy be deemed either an official or unofficial school event. And under no circumstances should any school time be used to discuss or prepare for this event.

Conservatives must wake up. To use a cliche, we must see the forest for the trees. Cultural change rarely occurs through dramatic single events, but rather through the slow accretion of little events that we dismiss or ignore.

Illinois Family Institute is calling for the immediate resignation of Kevin Jennings, the newly appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. In this position, Jennings would become the second-in-command in the Department of Education. 

Arne Duncan’s appointment of Jennings, with his long history of homosexual activism, is an affront to taxpayers, especially families of children who attend public schools. Jennings is the founder and former executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). During his tenure as executive director of GLSEN, Jennings oversaw the infamous education conference held at Tufts University formally entitled “Teach Out,” but later referred to as “Fistgate” due to the obscene and deviant sexual practices to which teachers introduced teens.

Prior to his position with GLSEN, Jennings worked as a history teacher at Concord Academy, a private high school in Massachusetts where Jennings was involved in yet another scandal when he neglected to inform the authorities of his knowledge of a minor male student having sexual contact with an adult male. Not only did Jennings not report the sexual abuse as required by law, but in his book One Teacher in Ten, Jennings shared that he “listened, sympathized, and offered advice” to the 15-year-old student.

Jennings has demonstrated rabid intolerance of conservative beliefs regarding the nature and morality of homosexuality and made unprofessional statements regarding those whose hold views different from his own.

He has demonstrated repeatedly that he is divisive, unprofessional, and woefully ill-equipped to make schools or students safe. With scores of worthy candidates from which to choose, IFI is calling upon Arne Duncan to appoint someone whose interest is truly in keeping children safe, rather than someone whose main goal is the normalization of homosexual behavior.

IFI believes that schools have no right to affirm homosexual behavior to a captive young audience. Because of Jennings’ background and ideology, we call upon him to immediately step down from this high level position.

Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools, which comprise District 113, have offered SEED, SEED II, and SEED for Administrators for many years. In addition, District 113 has employed the services of the pricey Glenn Singleton and his Pacific Educational Group which promote the same dubious “social justice” theories as SEED. The District has spent well over $100,000 for these programs that are supposed to help close the racial learning gap.

In 2007-2008, Glenn Singleton visited District 113 approximately seven times. Each time he came, the district pulled all administrators, including all department chairs; two teachers from every department; and some secretaries and custodians from both high schools away from work for the entire day to meet with Singleton at the Highland Park Country Club to discuss district “whiteness” and “institutional racism.” Cumulatively, Singleton cost taxpayers $53,000; substitute teachers cost taxpayers $10,000; and lunch for everyone at the Highland Park Country Club for these seven visits cost taxpayers $20,000.

Last year, I asked my former employers, both the administration and school board, how, even in theory, having secretaries leave their jobs for seven full work days would help the Latino students improve their scores on standardized tests. As was their custom, they did not respond.

And what did the district, and most importantly, the Latino students, gain from this enormous financial investment? As I wrote earlier, District 113 Superintendent George Fornero recently wrote Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to tell him that District 113’s minority students “will all fail” this year’s ACT and Workkey Assessment tests (Prairie State Achievement Examination).

I can’t help but wonder what the Latino parents would think if they knew that District 113 has had over $100,000 available to help their children and that liberal activists squandered it to teach district employees about their “whiteness” while lunching at a North Shore Country Club.

But let’s turn to District 153 which has also spent thousands of dollars on SEED ostensibly to help close the achievement gap.

After visiting Churchill School in Homewood, IL, Southtown Star Reporter John Ryan wrote a follow-up column about District 153’s experiences with SEED. According to Ryan, Principal Cece Coffey explained that “the program was first brought in to address an achievement gap in the district.”

Then in a futile attempt to conceal the fact that SEED has accomplished precisely nothing in terms of closing the achievement gap, Coffey feebly said that the “Reasons for the gap in a middle-class community are subtle . . . If a student feels more accepted they are more engaged in school. It’s another leg, along with hard-core academic programs, to address the achievement gap.” The reasons are “subtle”? What does that even mean? Does it mean that Coffey doesn’t know what the reasons are? If so, why spend thousands of dollars for a curriculum to fix a problem whose causes remain a mystery?

Coffey attempts to obfuscate the issue of test scores, talking instead about students being “engaged in school.” This is very clever rhetoric in that to anyone reading it quickly, it suggests improvement in test scores and grades without actually claiming that test scores and grades will improve.

But the story gets even worse. Coffey was forced to admit that “[T]he program’s results are not quantifiable enough to gauge if it has directly influenced test scores in the two years it’s been in the district.”

In plain, non-evasive language, this means that test scores have not improved as a result of SEED. (This evasiveness makes one wonder if our public servants will ever admit mistakes.)

As I stated in an earlier article, a little thing like absence of results will not deter a true “diversity” proselyte. Coffey seamlessly switches the goal from improved test scores, which are, of course, objective and quantifiable, to something warmer, squishier, and non-quantifiable: “student interaction.”

Although the achievement gap remains, Coffey sees other benefits to the SEED expenditure. She “does believe she has seen [SEED’s] influence in student interaction. ” She reports that “‘On the playground and in conversations I’ve had with students, I can say we’re making progress.'” Thousands of tax dollars spent, and what does District 153 have to show for it? They have Ms. Coffey’s claim that from some conversations with students, she has divined that the school is “making progress.”

Specifically what kind of progress is being made and toward what goal is a wee bit unclear, but I’m sure whatever the shifting and murky goals are, Coffey and District 153 SEED Coordinator Jeanette Nichols can achieve them with just a few more tax dollars.

I would suggest that Homewood taxpayers, particularly the parents of minority children, ask Coffey some hard questions. For example, ask her who is learning to accept whom through SEED. In other words, prior to using the SEED curriculum, who was not accepting whom? Is she claiming that there were teachers who were not accepting minority students? Also, ask her to provide evidence that SEED has improved “student engagement with school.” Then ask her if the acceptance of someone by someone has improved either test scores or grades. If Coffey’s answers are evasive or unsubstantiated, don’t allow one more penny to be devoured by SEED.

If anyone has any doubts about the direction Secretary Education Arne Duncan wants to take public education regarding the issue of homosexuality, look no further than his selection of Kevin Jennings as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. (Read the DOE Press Release HERE.) Remember, it was Arne Duncan who last October approved the nation’s third homosexuality-affirming high school while CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

Kevin Jennings is the founder of the radical homosexual activist group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) that you may know as the sponsor of the Day of Silence. This organization is committed to using public education to normalize homosexuality and gender confusion and demonize orthodox Christian view on these topics. GLSEN exploits “safe schools” and anti-bullying programs to achieve their subversive and destructive goals.

Jennings has written or edited multiple books that serve his goal of undermining conservative beliefs, including Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for High School and College Students in which he states emphatically that teachers “must teach gay history.” He also looks “forward to the day when books such as this are commonplace.”

Kevin Jennings had this to say about people of faith who affirm orthodox biblical views of homosexuality:

We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. . . I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘[F—] ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think!

He also calls theologically orthodox Christians “hard-core bigots” and suggests they “Drop dead!”

While under his leadership, GLSEN sponsored what has come to be called “Fistgate,” the notorious education seminar in Massachusetts that both children as young as 12 and teachers attended. This event was considered a professional development opportunity for teachers who could earn required professional accreditation credits for attending.

Some of the goals of this conference, formally titled “Teach Out,” were “to build more Gay/Straight Alliances in Massachusetts and expand homosexual teaching into the lower grades.” (Read more here)

If you want a sample of what teens were exposed to at “Teach Out” click here [Warning: disturbing and graphic details.]

Kevin Jennings believes that affirming profoundly deviant sexual behavior that results in disease and spiritual death will make our students “safe,” and he is committed to using public education to promote his insidious vision. If this is not the epitome of hate, I don’t know what is.

Our benighted Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, scoured the country, searching far and wide from among thousands of educators to find the best candidate for the job. And who did Duncan select? He chose the ignorant, intolerant destroyer of children, Kevin Jennings, to be his Assistant Deputy Secretary.

If you find this appointment troubling, please contact President Obama, Secretary of Education, and your U.S. congressmen to demand politely that Jennings resign.

Arne Duncan: arne.duncan@ed.gov

President Barack Obama: 202-456-1414