A self-proclaimed bisexual male teacher in New York has invited his seventh-grade students and their parents to witness his commitment ceremony to another man.

The New York Times reports 32-year-old Chance Nalley gave slips of paper to his entire seventh-grade class at Columbia Secondary School, inviting them to the upcoming ceremony to be held at St. Paul’s Chapel on the campus of Columbia University on April 4. Nalley teaches math, science, and engineering at the school — “whose mission statement includes a commitment to diversity,” notes the Times. Nalley reportedly obtained his principal’s support before coming out to his students in the fall of 2007, when the school opened.

Frank Russo of the American Family Association of New York calls the Times’ report biased. “If a secularist teacher in a school invited his or her students over to a ritual of initiation into becoming a Christian and invited his students to attend this, I could just imagine the hullabaloo that you’d see,” he contends, “and The New York Times would not report it in the same fashion as it reported this.”

Russo admits he struggles to understand Nalley’s motives behind the invitations. “For a teacher to invite his students — seventh graders, typically 12-years-old, possibly 13 — to attend a gay marriage is mind-boggling to me that he would do that.”

The family advocate is also encouraging parents not to take their children to a ceremony that he believes “honors” a gender identity disorder.

The Times article showed Nalley’s students were trying to understand his sexuality. When asked if they were surprised he was “gay,” a handful of students noted he was bisexual, not gay. One student added that his coming out to them “showed he trusts us.”

Interestingly enough, Nalley says six of his students have “come out” to him this year.

It’s almost amusing to hear yet another public school administrator defend student exposure to radical ideas by appealing to the importance of “critical thinking.” Naperville Unit District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis waxes noble and enthusiastic about the pedagogical importance of students hearing a former terrorist speak, declaiming, “We’re causing kids to think and face controversial issues and take their own position on it (sic), and provide students with an opportunity most school districts around the country would die for.” It sounds as if Leis, like Chris Matthews, just may have been feeling a “thrill going up” his leg at the prospect of former Weather Underground member and “social justice” theorist extraordinaire speaking at Naperville North.

Administrators and teachers pull the old “critical thinking” argument out of their bag of rhetorical tricks exclusively in the service of exposing students to the ideas of liberals and radicals. Rarely, if ever, do you see public schools exposing students to essays or cultural commentaries or books or speakers that espouse conservative views in order that “students can think and face controversial issues and take their own positions” on them. Funny how that almost never happens.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of critical thinking. In fact, I think there’s far too little of it taking place among public educators. How, pray tell, do educators foster critical thinking when they refuse to expose students to the best conservative thinking? Those of a liberal persuasion call this “censorship”–except when they do it.

How do they censor, let me count the ways:

• Many American students have been shown Al Gore’s increasingly discredited polemic An Inconvenient Truth, but how many have seen the BBC’s The Great Global Warming Swindle?
• Many students have been exposed to resources that teach that the world is overpopulated, but how many have been shown the film Demographic Winter or read excerpts from Jacqueline Kasun’s book The War Against Population?
• Many students have been exposed to resources that embody or espouse the troubling “social justice” theories of Maxine Greene, Brian Cambourne, Paulo Freire, Asa Hilliard, or Bill Ayers, but how many have been exposed to criticism of those ideas by the likes of Sol Stern, David Horowitz, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, Dinesh D’Souza, and Thomas Sowell?
• In their history classes, many student have been exposed to the anti-American, anti-free market ideas of Howard Zinn through his book The People’s History of the United States, but how many have been exposed to the ideas of Professor Larry Schweikart through his book 48 Liberal Lies About America? This may be a provocative title, but no more provocative than using Zinn’s work and certainly no more provocative than having an unrepentant terrorist speak to students.
• Students are exposed to plenty of feminist-infected ideas, but how many students are exposed to Christina Hoff Sommers’ books The War Against Boys or Who Stole Feminism?
• Students are exposed to feminist literary theory, but how many of them have read excerpts from John Ellis’ Literature Lost?
• Students are compelled to use “gender inclusive” language, but how many are taught the feminist political history that drove this linguistic development.
• Students are exposed to magazine articles, essays, plays, novels, films, and speakers that espouse liberal/radical views on the nature and morality of homosexuality, but how many students are exposed to the voices of intellectuals who espouse intelligent, articulate conservative views on the nature and morality of homosexuality. There are easily available books like Homosexuality and American Public Life, Same Sex Matters: The Challenge of Homosexuality, or Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, as well as countless essays and commentaries written by intellectuals whose views students deserve to hear. Why don’t educators seem as invested in providing students with resources like these that espouse conservative views as they are in providing students with resources that espouse liberal views? Could it be that these “educators” are more invested in advocacy than critical thinking?

If I were a betting woman, I would bet good money that the Naperville North social studies teacher who invited Ayers to speak holds left-of-center beliefs.

Yesterday, I shared that I was going to discuss a letter sent by Deerfield High School English teacher Jeff Berger-White to his students regarding a vulgar, polemical play about homosexuality that he was going to teach. Because of a community imbroglio over this play, he was compelled to send a parental notification/permission letter. But what he ingeniously decided to do was send his students a manipulative letter prior to sending their parents a letter. Below is the text of the student letter, which was brought to me by a concerned community member, together with my commentary. The teacher’s words are in black and my comments in blue:

8 February 2008

Dear Students,

A version of this letter will come to your parents shortly, but I wanted to share it with you first.  (It was unethical and unprofessional of this teacher to share this information with students quite intentionally prior to sharing it with their parents. I can’t imagine a reason for that decision other than his desire to influence them in favor of Angels in America prior to discussions with their parents.)

When I re-framed the thematic focus of the A.P. Senior English course to Blindness and Vision, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America seemed a fitting addition to the curriculum. Last year, I had the great pleasure of teaching the play; it went well. We even had the incredible good fortune of having Tony Kushner spend a full hour on the phone with us. And so it was with enthusiasm that I decided to teach the play again this spring. The second time teaching any work usually goes better, and I was eager to see how another group of students would respond to the play. But it has been a much more challenging journey than I had anticipated and I want to tell you about it. (This whole passage in which he waxes enthusiastic about the prior year’s experience is an obvious hard sell of Angels during which he foreshadows the “challenging journey” that, like a master storyteller, he’s going to recount. In addition, he lures the students in with the prospect of speaking in person to a famous playwright–fame being something that even adults find enticing. He also communicates that his teaching of it will likely be “better” and that he is”eager” to see how these students will respond. Of course, this will make students reluctant to disappoint him. None of this drama is appropriate or necessary in a letter in which he is offering students a choice of texts to read. Nor is it necessary to discuss the controversy boiling in the community. He could have used his rhetorical skills to diminish the emotional disruption by being factual and professional, but instead he fans the flames of dissension.)

Angels in America is a provocative work. It is for mature and thoughtful readers, (By implication, those who choose not to read Angels would be immature readers, incapable or unwilling of being “thoughtful.”) and I was not certain last spring that it would go smoothly. Though recent editions have eliminated the play’s subtitle, it is called, and with good reason, “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” Before I taught the play last year, I thought there might be some students who would not want to read such a work, and so I gave them an opportunity, as is our school’s approach, to opt out of a reading experience if they believed that such a book would be problematic. No one took the offer.  (And what is his point in telling students that no one took the offer to opt out the year before other than to make those who might want to opt-out of reading Angels feel odd or self-conscious? He might have mentioned in this paragraph that the prior year he never informed parents of the shockingly obscene content of this play and its controversial perspective on homosexuality. Evidently, his and/or the “school’s approach” to teaching obscene material didn’t include offering parents an opportunity to opt their child out of reading this pernicious text. And last year, the inadequate parent letters were sent only after the play was challenged.)

I want to say more about the provocative nature of the play. It uses a great deal of language that you wouldn’t expect to read in a classroom, and there are a number of sexually explicit moments in the text. In fact, earlier this winter, a local organization, the North Shore Student Advocacy Group, filed with the district an official challenge to my teaching the book, saying that they “object to the pervasive vulgarity, sexually explicit content, religious denigration, disrespect toward women, and overall age-inappropriateness.” They go on to say that they “also object to the pervasive homosexual content of these books.” (As a community member so insightfully pointed out, this teacher never articulates, in his own words, a description of the pervasive vulgarity, sexually explicit content, religious denigration, disrespect toward women, overall age-inappropriateness, and pervasive homosexual content of these books. He cleverly and strategically quotes NSSA, an organization that many in the Deerfield community disliked, thereby tainting the substantive concerns by association with the group.)

It has been my experience that young people are a lot more sophisticated and insightful than many adults believe. (Here he uses the disreputable practice that manipulators of youth employ. By playing on the nature of the adolescent beast to desire the autonomy of adulthood and to think they possess the maturity of adulthood, manipulators tell young people that though others view them as immature, unsophisticated, and lacking in insight, they–the manipulators–don’t. This draws young people in and renders them less likely to oppose the manipulator who appears to value them in ways that other adults do not. In addition, by implication, those students who might not want to read Angels, would now be uncomfortable with the image of themselves as less sophisticated and insightful.) In the face of all kinds of intellectually and emotionally challenging material, I have found in the last sixteen years that students almost always rise to the occasion and handle readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity. That was my experience last year, and it has most definitely been my experience so far this year. (Here he implies that reading Angels represents nothing less than “rising to the occasion, and handling readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity.” So what does opting out then represent to students? And what might they think it means to this teacher? Does this not suggest that their teacher might view them as not rising to the occasion, and unable to handle readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity?)

The voices of dissent have entered my dreams, and some days I would imagine my response. I believe deeply in all great works of imagination, and I believe in the intelligence and humanity of my students. (If reading Angels indicates something about the intelligence and humanity of his students, not reading it means what–that they are less intelligent and less humane?) I stand with Robert Cormier who said, `I think a controversial book belongs in the classroom where it can be discussed, where a teacher can guide the students, where, in fact, a student can get up in class or write a paper saying that he or she doesn’t like the book and objects to facets of it. That’s the kind of freedom that we must preserve.’ I know that my students will approach this work thoughtfully and critically.” (So now this teacher quotes a famous author to defend teaching controversial material. He puts the criticism of Angels in the mouths of people who are disliked, and defenses of controversial texts in the mouth of a famous published author. And no one sees the manipulative strategy here? I’m sure I could come up with someone famous who would find repellent the teaching of something as obscene and controversial as Angels in America in publicly funded high schools. Moreover, Cormier and by extension this teacher who quotes Cormier fail to admit that public school teachers never present resources that intelligently express the conservative side of the controversy about homosexuality. They never invite famous conservative writers to speak to students. Teachers self-righteously claim that students are free to disagree, but those same teachers won’t provide students with the voices of experts whose ideas will help students think critically from all perspectives.)

Nothing dramatic has transpired. I have stood behind Angels in America in the face of this challenge, and so too, after reading it and discussing it with me have a number of administrators, including our superintendent and our principal. Dr. Fornero and Dr. Hebson are not going to sing their own praises, but I will. And I do so not because of the decision they ultimately made, but because of the process they enacted. This has not been easy, and it would have saved us all a lot of time and frustration just to surrender. (Here he emotes mawkishly that he has stood strong, sacrificing his time and enduring frustration in his steadfast refusal to “surrender,” evidently to the forces of evil.) But they read the play and spent hours discussing their concerns about it and also its merits. I do not believe processes like this one happen in many other schools. (Perhaps, since he was so clearly invested in “sharing” this tale of courage and woe, he ought to haved shared with his students precisely how many administrators were involved in the decision-making process, and how many privately supported the teaching of this play. There were only three administrators, the superintendent, the principal, and the director of learning and curricula, involved in the decision. And what he neglected to inform his students was that many faculty members, including liberal teachers and the English Department chair who quit at the end of last year, were outraged at his teaching of this play.)

That brings us here, to your choices. Angels in America is still an option. It is, I think, one of the most important works of dramatic literature of the last forty years. It is a strange, funny, heartbreaking, inspiring play, one that challenges us as much emotionally as it does intellectually. It is crass and vulgar, harrowing and mystical, lyrical and beautiful. (Now, after all this magniloquence in the service of promoting Angels, pay close attention to the contrast in tone and detail present in his recommendation of The Plague.)

The other option is nothing less than one of the most important works of literature of the last century, The Plague. This novel, written by Albert Camus, just after World War Two, chronicles a group of sanitation workers and their attempts to keep at bay a new outbreak of plague. It is a rich philosophical novel, one that asks us to explore the toughest questions about what we do in the face of human suffering. I have mentioned The Plague a number of times this year, thought of it often, and even urged a few of you to read it. And so it is with great enthusiasm that I place it here as the other option. (That’s it. His description of The Plague pales in comparison to the glorification of Angels in America.)

As I thought with excitement about teaching The Plague to some of you, I became rather obsessed with the idea of teaching the books as a pair. (And now after his attenuated endorsement of The Plague, attenuated, that is, relative to his excessive praise of Angels, he now says that he is “obsessed” with teaching them as a pair. By hook or twisted crook, he is determined to get his students to read Angels.) They are wildly different on their faces, yet I think they share the same heart. I thought of the idea that they would play in a kind of repertory, offering echoes and variations on a common theme. And so, it is also possible that some of you may choose to read both books. There is absolutely no pressure to do so, but if you are feeling ambitious in April, this would be, I believe, an incredible opportunity. (Surely this teacher’s nose grew a few inches when he wrote the words, “There is absolutely no pressure to do so. . . .” This entire letter has been a manipulative effort to pressure students into choosing Angels by playing on their emotions and psychology.)

In my eyes, there are only good decisions. Read Angels in America, read The Plague, or read both of them. But whatever you decide, please do so thoughtfully. I trust that you will.

I believe in literature and in this curriculum and in the intelligence and humanity of you, my students.

And I believe in the wisdom and values of your parents, which is why I want them to know about all of this, too. (Of course, he wants the parents of his students to know about all of this after they, the students, know about it all first. Just imagine the conflict he had potentially created between students who want to read Angels in America and parents who opposed it.)

Parents and other taxpayers shouldn’t have to worry about the content of resources, activities, classroom comments, or all-school emails. Unfortunately, because of the disproportionate number of teachers who hold liberal or radical socio-political views and who believe it is their right and duty to reform the views of other people’s children using public money, parents and other taxpayers do need to worry and be vigilant about the ideas that teachers are expressing in myriad ways to students.

Last week, I wrote about a Stevenson High School teacher who inappropriately used all-school email to express her unproven, inflammatory opinions of both conservative views on homosexuality and on Illinois Family Institute (see Part 1 and Part 2). Even more troubling, however, is that teachers are seeking to use public time and resources not just to influence colleagues but to manipulate impressionable students.

Far too many teachers arrogantly assume that they should have absolute autonomy over what they teach and how they teach it. The abuse of public trust, the use of public money to subsidize personal political goals and moral convictions, and the manipulation of students by ideologues masking as educators happens in many public schools. High school students share much less information about their classroom experiences than do elementary school students, and consequently, parents often have little knowledge of the efforts at inculcating students’ with particular moral or political views that many teachers engage in.

Tomorrow I will discuss an example of student manipulation that occurred last spring at Deerfield High School, which was recently named to the Young America’s Foundation list of “Top Ten PC Abuses in Academia for 2008.”

The teacher who taught the egregiously obscene, profane, pro-gay screed Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes for the second year in a row, Jeff Berger-White, sent a permission letter to parents prior to teaching the play–something neither he nor the other District teachers who had taught it in previous years had done. Apparently, he was compelled to send the parental permission letters only when the community became aware of and angry about the curricular inclusion of such a deeply offensive text.

What was truly troubling, however, was that quite deliberately in advance of sending their parents a letter, he sent the letter I will be posting tomorrow to his students offering them three reading options, two of which included Angels in America. This letter was brought to me by a community member who was disturbed by its content.

I was a member of this English Department for eight years. The common practice when offering students reading options was to give them a brief handout that simply listed the reading options. There would be little to no description of the texts. I have never seen a teacher offer students literary options through a document as self-evidently designed to prejudice them in favor of one text. This teacher’s letter constituted the most stunning rhetorical attempt at manipulation that I have encountered in my eight years of working in the writing center.

The content of this letter reveals the kind of boundary violations, emotional manipulation, and unprofessional conduct that takes place in too many classrooms. It was a deliberate and inappropriate attempt to sway his students in favor of choosing to read Angels in America, in advance of discussions with their parents, thereby undermining any potential opposition parents may have had. The letter was awash in cunningly manipulative language that would make the decision to reject Angels very difficult for students and hence unlikely. This exercise in rhetorical manipulation represented nothing less than an unconscionable abuse of power of which, in light of the community controversy, taxpayers were entitled to know. That this kind of manipulation took place behind closed schoolroom doors is deeply troubling. The parents of his students are owed an apology, whether or not they approved of Angels in America.

Parents and other taxpayers must demand that policy be written requiring that when resources are presented to students that explore controversial topics, equivalent time and resources be allotted to all sides of the topic. Parents and other taxpayers should also demand that text selection criteria include the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, depictions of graphic sex, and religious denigration. Without such policy, teachers are free to use public time and resources for indoctrination rather than education.

Far too many teachers condescendingly dismiss these issues as the concerns of ignorant, provincial, book-banners. These same teachers, however, never admit to the pervasive censorship in which they engage. They huff and puff in high dudgeon about and often ridicule “book-banners,” while steadfastly refusing to present any resources that articulate the erudite, intelligent, articulate views of conservative scholars, essayists, or journalists. In addition, many of these same teachers use foul language in their personal lives and classrooms with careless abandon–something else of which many parents remain largely ignorant–which partly explains why extraordinarily vulgar language is inoffensive to them. And many of these teachers don’t think deeply about what their ethical obligations to the entire community are.

Taking into account the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, depictions of graphic sex, and religious denigration, as well as requiring balanced presentations on controversial topics will make the process of selecting resources messier, but in such a vulgar, depraved culture, and with so many teachers invested in political indoctrination, such policies are necessary.

Yesterday, I posted Part I of my response to a troubling email that was sent to the entire faculty of Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL by an English teacher. There were two central reasons that I decided to write in some depth about this incident.

First, the fact that a teacher would presume to use all-school email to express her personal beliefs on the controversial issue of homosexuality reveals an attitude of entitlement shared by all too many public school educators. They erroneously believe it is their right and duty to use their publicly subsidized jobs to transform the moral convictions of society, including other people’s children, and they count on the public remaining largely unaware of their moral reformation efforts.

These teachers use professional development workshops; curricular resources and activities, including textbooks, newspaper and periodical articles, essays, novels, films, plays, and speakers; classroom comments; and even all-school emails to advance their personal, unproven beliefs on the nature and morality of homosexuality. The efforts of these activist ideologues must be exposed and opposed.

The second reason for discussing this email is that it embodies a number of arguable ideas that dominate discourse and curricula in public schools and that need to be analyzed and vigorously challenged. The time is long past for taxpayers to demand evidence for specious claims as well as to demand ideological parity, without which education becomes indoctrination.

Some Stevenson faculty members were angry that I would publicly criticize English teacher Bill Fritz who is the gay-straight alliance sponsor and who attended the dance for students who identify as homosexual. Mr. Fritz is a public servant, a representative of the government, and he agreed to make a public statement to the press. In so doing, his judgment, his words, and his actions became legitimate objects of scrutiny, analysis, and criticism. If Mr. Fritz or any other public educator does not want his judgment, words, and actions scrutinized, analyzed, or criticized by the public, he should not accept a government salary, or if he does, he should not express–either implicitly or explicitly–his personal moral beliefs on controversial topics while executing his publicly subsidized duties.

Here is Part II of my response:

1. This teacher’s claim that Illinois Family Institute is committed to book banning likely grows out of our opposition to the teaching of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes at Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools. Does she actually believe that opposition to the use of public money to subsidize the teaching of a book that includes the most obscene and profane language imaginable; references to oral sex, semen, and ejaculation; and depictions of graphic homosexual acts constitutes a repressive book banning effort? In order to prove that they are not “book banners,” are educators prohibited from ever taking into account the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, religious denigration, and depictions of graphic sex?

2. Since she’s so evidently and admirably concerned about censorship, is she sending emails to the faculty and administration expressing her concern about the embarrassing and unethical ideological imbalance in the Stevenson library book collection which has scores of books written from a liberal perspective on the topic of homosexuality but has virtually none written from a conservative perspective? Is she actively lobbying the administration and faculty to ensure that in every context in which students are exposed to liberal views on homosexuality they are exposed to conservative scholarship as well? After all, how can students learn to think critically without balanced presentations of controversial issues?

3. Perhaps when public educators use public resources to subsidize activities that embody and promulgate what many view as profoundly immoral beliefs, a “vitriolic,” denunciation is in order.

4. If the unproven beliefs of public educators on the nature and morality of homosexuality are wrong, then they may, indeed, be harming rather than helping students when they affirm the morality of acting on same-sex attraction.

5. She claims that my position constitutes “ignorant prejudice.” “Prejudice” refers to “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” As such, opinions–even negative opinions–formed after careful consideration do not constitute prejudice.

6. Taxpayers must demand that public educators refrain from making the specious claims, either implicitly or explicitly, that homosexuality is equivalent or analogous to race or biological sex. Homosexuality is ontologically utterly distinct from race or biological sex. If public educators persist in making this claim, then taxpayers should demand that they provide evidence for it.

7. I imagine that those students who are sexually and emotionally attracted to multiple people concurrently, and those students who are emotionally and sexually attracted to relatives, and those students who are emotionally and sexually attracted to children, and those who are powerfully drawn to pornography would “feel” much better and much less ashamed if society would just stop vilifying polyamory, consensual incest, “intergenerational sex,” and pornography use. In fact, if society would just stop making any and all pesky little judgmental moral claims, perhaps we could rid the world once and for all of guilt, thus enhancing the “social and emotional well being” of all. To hell with their eternal lives so long as we can make their temporal lives as guilt-free and pleasant as possible.

And I’m certain that the social and emotional wellbeing of conservative students would be enhanced if public school educators would stop presenting resources to them that embody or affirm liberal assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality or the view that the belief that homosexual conduct is immoral constitutes hatred.

All human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and as such are of equal worth and equally deserving of compassion and respect. Not all beliefs or behaviors, however, are of equal worth or equally deserving of respect. Those who identify as homosexual are of infinite value because of their humanness — not because of their sexual feelings and volitional sexual conduct.

Christians have lost sight of how truly evil it is to affirm sexual deviance to anyone, but especially to children and teens. We are supposed to lead children in the paths of righteousness. In order to do that, we must regain a proper biblical response to sin.

If we truly love teens who experience same-sex attraction, we would tell them the truth. We would acknowledge that they don’t choose their impulses or feelings. We would tell them that they share in common with all humans the experience of feelings that are unbidden and unwelcome. We would tell them that simply because we experience a feeling doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s right to act upon it. We would tell them that the persistence or seeming intractability of feelings is not proof that those feelings are morally legitimate to act upon. We would tell them that they share in common with all humans the task of figuring out which of our myriad messy impulses are morally legitimate to act upon. We would tell them that our impulses and feelings do not define us. We would tell them that we and God love them deeply and unconditionally, and that we will walk alongside them as they struggle against sinful impulses. We would tell them that God offers them forgiveness and freedom.

And if we truly love children and teens, we would tell public educators to do the very narrowly circumscribed job they were hired to do, which does not include arrogating to themselves the right to use public resources to inculcate other people’s children with unproven, controversial, ahistorical, subversive, faith-based theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.

Remove this topic from public schools. Leave the topic of homosexuality to families, churches, synagogues, mosques, and private organizations to address.

If, however, public school administrators and faculty members insist on using public resources and instructional time to address it in school, then they have an ethical, pedagogical obligation to spend equal time and equivalent resources exploring all sides of this contentious, unsettled cultural issue on which diverse peoples hold diverse opinions.

As a result of my article about Stevenson High School’s dance for students who identify as homosexual, an English teacher sent an email to the entire Stevenson faculty denouncing Illinois Family Institute.

Her email exposes the presumptuous attitude many public educators have toward using public money to advance their particular social, political, and ethical views. They believe they are entitled to use public resources to promote their views and to attempt to transform the views of other people’s children. And they rely on public ignorance and cowardice to continue promulgating their unproven beliefs to impressionable students.

Her email also reveals beliefs commonly held by liberal educators that need to be understood, exposed, and rigorously, relentlessly, and boldly challenged.

My response addresses a number of problems with the content of her email as well as with her decision to use the District email to express her social and political views. All-district or all-school communications are not private communications.

In subsequent all-school emails by other faculty members, IFI was compared to the KKK; I was falsely accused of attacking students (stating that volitional homosexual behavior is wrong is no more an attack on students than saying promiscuous conduct is wrong constitutes an attack on students); the content of my article was described as “biased vitriol”; and my claim that homosexual conduct is immoral was called “hate speech.” One of these teachers dismissed IFI as a “mouthpiece for a particular conservative ideological agenda,” apparently not noticing that public education has for some time been a mouthpiece for a particular liberal ideological agenda on the topic of homosexuality.

Due to its length, my response will be posted in two parts. Below is the English teacher’s email, followed by Part I of my response:

Dear Colleagues,                                              

I feel compelled to respond to (an article by the Illinois Family Institute) that appeared in Friday, March 6th’s Daily Digest regarding the recent Stevenson dance sponsored by the GSA. Sadly, I don’t think that it’s any secret that the topic of homosexuality is controversial, and in some sectors, vilified and viewed as immoral. Such was the viewpoint expressed in the editorial that appeared on The Family Institute website. However, this particular viewpoint went beyond criticism of the dance. The author referred to English and theatre teachers as “arrogant” and Bill Fritz’s comments about the dance as “nescient” (which I must admit made me smile. If my AP English students used such a word in an editorial I would advise them to quit using a thesaurus to inflate their prose unnecessarily) and “smarmy.” As I am puzzled by the inclusion of such vitriol from an extreme fringe group’s website in the Daily Digest, I wish to redirect anyone interested in this event to the article written by Tara Malone of the Chicago Tribune. This piece does more than reporting that the dance took place and the surrounding controversy, but also reports compelling statistics about the low academic success rate of students who feel marginalized, as well as the social and emotional wellbeing of students who benefit from the support of a Gay Straight Alliance. As academic success and social and emotional wellbeing are two overarching goals of Stevenson’s philosophy, I feel these statistics are important and newsworthy, and as such, valid for being included in the Daily Digest – which they were. However, I do not feel it a valid use of a public forum to propagate a hate-filled opinion from someone who supports book-banning. As Stevenson parent Marti Goldberg, who supervised the dance, said in the Tribune article, “I feel like I’m there to show them, ‘yes, there are adults who aren’t gong (sic) to judge you. Don’t think it’s hopeless.'” As a heterosexual wife, mother of three, and Christian, I applaud a school that adheres to the scripture “Judge not lest ye be judged.” What I don’t applaud is giving print (or electronic) space to what can only be characterized as ignorant prejudice.

1. The fact that this teacher presumed to send an email to the entire faculty at Stevenson High School espousing her views on the controversial issue of homosexuality shows that she hasn’t considered or doesn’t care that some faculty members may hold different views than she does. In addition, it is troubling that a public school teacher would send out an email that could be construed as libelous, offensive, or inflammatory. At many high schools, if a faculty member were to send an email like this to the entire faculty, an administrator would have a stern conversation with him or her.

2. My description of many English teachers as arrogant offended this teacher. It is my observation, however, that through classroom comments, curricular selections, and now all-school emails, many English teachers, though certainly not all, reveal a flagrant disregard for the values, beliefs, and desires of those who are conservative. By using public education to advance personal convictions, teachers arrogate to themselves a right that is not legitimately theirs.

3. It’s surprising that this teacher explicitly appealed to her Christian faith, applauding Stevenson for adhering to New Testament principles. I would expect that many of her colleagues would rise up in indignation over her attempt to violate the sacrosanct “wall of separation” between church and the state. Did they take umbrage at her apparent desire to impose her religious views on everyone at Stevenson High School?

4. If this teacher were to read the Bible more carefully, she would learn that the Bible is one of the “sectors” that “vilifies” homosexuality and views it as immoral.

5. As a Christian, she should be troubled that Stevenson administrators permit a dance for teens who affirm that which God finds profoundly wrong.

6. This teacher misinterprets the verse “Judge not lest ye be judged.” It means that we are not to engage in unrighteous judgment. We are not to hypocritically condemn the speck in the eye of others while ignoring the plank in our own. We’re to recognize the universality of sin and offer forgiveness as we have been forgiven. This verse does not entail a refusal to judge between right and wrong behavior. It does not prohibit humans from making distinctions between moral and immoral conduct. We forfeit a right to a civil and just society when we forfeit the right to make public statements regarding what constitutes moral or immoral behavior. Since it’s clear from this teacher’s description of me and Illinois Family Institute as hate-filled, ignorant, prejudiced, extreme, and fringe that she has no reticence about being judgmental. So, what precisely does she mean when she harrumphs that one ought not to be judgmental? It seems that what she means is that others ought not to make moral judgments with which she disagrees.

She might find it illuminating to study these verses from the very same Bible that she quoted in her email: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24), and “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice” (Psalms 37:30). She also may recall that Jesus Christ, her Lord and Savior, judged as wrong the following: anger against our brothers, lust, adultery, divorce, oath-breaking, retaliation, hatred toward our enemies, pride, hypocrisy, acquisitiveness, and worry about our material existence.

Finally, she might also want to consider that the very foundations of our legal and judicial systems are based on society’s recognition that making moral judgments is essential to a civil and just society.

7. In her email, this teacher has perpetuated the pernicious deceit that those who believe that homosexual behavior is immoral hate those who identify as homosexual. Perhaps she hates those whose moral choices she disagrees with, but she ought not to project her experiences on to others. Many people, perhaps most, are fully capable of loving those whose volitional behavior they find immoral and whose moral views they find flawed. Does she think that public statements regarding the immorality of consensual incest, polyamory, selfishness, lying, or greed constitute hatred toward those who engage in incestuous, polyamorous, selfish, greedy, or deceitful behavior?

8. Since this teacher professes to be a Christian and cites Scripture to support her views, does she also hope that her school will take heed of the principles embodied in Romans 1:26-27 that says “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion,” and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 that says “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God,”? Those two verses embody a fair number of public moral judgments.

Part II to be posted tomorrow — stay tuned!

The Illinois Family Institute is part of a national coalition of pro-family organizations urging parents to call their children out of school on April 17. This is the day designated for this year’s Day of Silence when students and/or teachers will purposely remain silent during instructional time to protest so-called discrimination and gain sympathy for students who identify as homosexual or transgender.

The Day of Silence is a yearly event sponsored by the partisan political action group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The implicit purpose is to undermine the belief that homosexuality is immoral. It is the belief of the sponsors of the Walkout that parents should no longer passively accept the political usurpation of taxpayer funded public school classrooms through student silence.

The DOS requires that teachers either create activities around or exempt silent students from any activity that involves speaking. DOS participants have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom.

Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute explains that “While in the public school setting, it is legitimate to teach students that there exist diverse opinions on this issue, it is not legitimate to imply that one of those opinions is preferable to another. While it is appropriate to teach students that tolerance requires that society should treat all with civility, it is not appropriate to teach that tolerance requires students to accept the view that homosexual conduct is moral.”

Higgins further emphasizes that “The worthy end of eliminating harassment does not justify the means of exploiting instructional time.” The First Amendment already allows DOS participants to wear t-shirts or put up posters, but according to a document co-written by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, a “school can regulate what students say. . . and it can also insist that students respond to questions, make presentations, etc.” Students and teachers should not be allowed to exploit instructional time to advance their socio- political goals.

Parents are encouraged to call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration and/or teachers will permit students to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence. If so, parents can express their opposition by calling their children out of school on that day and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members.

Endorsed by: Abiding Truth Ministries; AFA Michigan; AFA Pennsylvania; AFA National; Americans for Truth; Association of Maryland Families; Called2Action; Campaign for Children and Families; Citizens for Community Values of Ohio; Coalition of Conscience; Community Issues Council; Concerned Women for America National; Concerned Women for America Washington; Culture Campaign; Faith2Action; Faith, Family & Freedom Alliance; Illinois Family Institute; Indiana Voice; Liberty Alliance Action; Liberty Counsel; Maine Family Policy Council; MassResistance; Mission America; Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX)

ADF attorneys inform public official that new policy prohibiting prayer over PA systems at private schools is on shaky ground.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys urged the Illinois High School Association in a letter sent Wednesday to terminate its policy banning private schools from praying or delivering religious messages over public address systems before IHSA tournament games hosted at private schools. ADF attorneys also offered the IHSA free legal representation in the event it is sued for rescinding its new rule if it decides to do so.

“Christians shouldn’t be censored from expressing their beliefs, and especially not on their own private property,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “It is blatantly unconstitutional for public school officials to come into private schools and enforce a policy prohibiting them from expressing what’s central to their religious beliefs.”

After allegedly receiving a few complaints from people who didn’t like the prayers and religious announcements at the private schools, IHSA instituted a new rule prohibiting all prayer or religious messages given over PA systems prior to IHSA state series events, even when they are held on private school property.

The ADF letter to IHSA Executive Director Dr. Marty Hickman explains that the new policy is both needless and unconstitutional because private schools’ prayers and religious announcements prior to games are in no way a state endorsement of religion.

On January 22, 2009, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman ruled that the following Illinois law is unconstitutional:

(105 ILCS 20/1)
Sec. 1. In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.

(105 ILCS 20/5)
Sec. 5. Student prayer. In order that the right of every student to the free exercise of religion is guaranteed within the public schools and that each student has the freedom to not be subject to pressure from the State either to engage in or to refrain from religious observation on public school grounds, students in the public schools may voluntarily engage in individually initiated, non disruptive prayer that, consistent with the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the United States and Illinois Constitutions, is not sponsored, promoted, or endorsed in any manner by the school or any school employee.

ACLU Senior Staff Counsel Adam Schwartz made the untenable, irresponsible, and paranoid statement that this law “coerced children to pray as part of an organized activity in our public schools.”

On Feb. 20, 2009, IL. Attorney General Lisa Madigan appealed this ruling to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that “laws requiring a moment of silence have been found constitutional in other states,” and that “the legislature debated this issue and, by an overwhelming majority, voted to enact this law (the Senate voted to enact this law by a vote of 58-1 and the House by a vote of 86-26).” (Source: Chicago Tribune Blog)

I must confess up front that I am not a huge fan of school prayer laws. The reason for my lack of enthusiasm is that the implementation of these laws makes a mockery of the seriousness and significance of prayer. For the past eight years, I worked at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois. A colleague timed our moment of silence: it was a ludicrous seven seconds.

In addition, the endless debate and controversy generated by petulant atheists, like the ubiquitous Rob Sherman, who wrongly try to strip the public square of every last vestige of our religious heritage and every manifestation of the free exercise of religious faith, serve to make students self-conscious about their faith and uncomfortable with the public spectacle that even the appearance of prayer becomes in such a hostile context.

Fortunately for students who follow a theistic faith tradition, they are free to pray anytime they choose — a truth that likely irritates many of society’s true believers: a-theists.

What troubles me more than the implementation of school prayer laws is the lack of a proper understanding of church-state relations on the part of so many Americans who have come to believe that they are legally prohibited from participation in the political process if their political decisions are shaped by religious beliefs. That issue, however, is beyond the scope of this response to Gettleman’s moment of silence ruling and Madigan’s appeal.

I am not an attorney, so the opinions offered here are those of a mere mortal, but here goes.

It seems to me that there are a number of problems with Gettleman’s recent decision. First, he makes the case “that the addition of the words ‘and Student Prayer’ to the title of the Statute conveys the true intention of the legislature to endorse and encourage prayer.” The case could easily and more reasonably be made, however, that the word “prayer” was added simply to make clear to students that prayer is permissible, an idea that many students may not realize. A reasonable case can be made that because of the pervasive cultural hostility to religion, particularly in public education, and the poor understanding that many have about church-state relations, many students may mistakenly believe that even voluntary silent prayer is prohibited.

Francis Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy & Church-Studies at Baylor University, discusses Supreme Court Justice Byron White’s response in the Wallace v. Jaffree school prayer case:

As Justice Byron White eloquently pointed out in his dissenting opinion, if more than half of his brethren would “approve statutes that provided for a moment of silence but did not mention prayer,” then where precisely would his brethren come down in the case of a teacher who answered “yes” when asked by a student if she could silently pray during the approved moment of silence? And if the giving of that answer by a state actor, the teacher, is permissible, then why is it not permissible for the Alabama legislature to provide precisely the same answer before the question is asked? Moreover, because earlier cases against school-sponsored prayer may have led some citizens to mistakenly believe that all prayer is prohibited in public schools, another purpose of this legislation is to remedy that misconception by showing that the state is not hostile to religious free exercise when voluntarily engaged in by its citizens.

The point is that moment of silence laws that include “prayer” as an option do not coerce, mandate, endorse, or embrace religion; nor do such laws constitute an unconstitutional preference of religions that practice silent prayers over those that do not, as Gettleman speciously argued the Illinois law did.

Rather, these laws communicate that the state neither prescribes nor proscribes the content of private thoughts. The inclusion of the word “prayer” is needed to clarify to Illinoisans, including students, that the state does not censor the content of thoughts, which means that prayer is permissible.

In his ruling, Judge Gettleman wrote the following:

As noted by this court in Sherman I, the clear language of the Statute compels each classroom teacher to ensure that the period of silence is used by each student only for prayer or reflection on the activities of the day ahead (“This … shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.”) Even silent thoughts by a student about a professional sporting event or a family vacation would appear to violate the stated intent of the Statute. The only way a teacher could be assured of compliance, therefore, would be to explain to her pupils at the opening of “every school day” that they use the period of silence for one of the two permitted purposes. Consequently, the teacher is compelled to instruct her pupils, especially in the lower grades, about prayer and its meaning as well as the limitations on their “reflection.”

The plain language of the Statute, therefore, suggests an intent to force the introduction of the concept of prayer into the schools. This is where the Statute crosses the line and violates the Establishment Clause. Prayer is without doubt “a religious activity,”

I believe Gettleman is in error when he suggests that the statute “compels” each classroom teacher to ensure that the period of silence is used by each student only for prayer or reflection.” The statute states that the moment of silence is “an opportunity” for silent prayer or reflection, which clearly indicates that neither silent prayer nor reflection on the activities of the day is mandatory. It does not say that the moment of silence is an opportunity for only silent prayer or reflection. The judge is incorrect in interpreting this clause as compelling any particular content.

Furthermore, Gettleman’s decision stated that since “silent thoughts” about activities unrelated to the day’s anticipated events violates “the stated intent of the Statute,” teachers would be required to re-teach students “about prayer and its meaning and the limitations of ‘reflection.'” This suggests three erroneous ideas: First, it suggests that wandering thoughts are a result of lack of understanding. Second, it suggests that repeated instructions are implicitly mandated to keep minds from wandering. Third, it suggests that compulsory thought control is one of the purposes of the law.

Wandering thoughts are not necessarily functions of lack of understanding; reminders and re-teaching are not implicitly mandated to compel thought-compliance; and thought control is not one of the purposes of the statute.

It is critical to understand that narrow circumscription of thought content is not the purpose — either explicit or implicit — of the law. An analogy might help illuminate this point: When schools have a moment of silence to honor soldiers killed in war, and some students think instead about the movie they saw the previous weekend, no one believes that some principle or statute is violated by their wandering thoughts. By Gettleman’s silly reasoning, the moments of silence that are now imposed in Illinois public high schools to honor those fallen in war would be considered problematic because “Even silent thoughts by a student about a professional sporting event or a family vacation would appear to violate the stated intent” of these moments of silence.

Gettleman’s decision states that “The fact that no one, not even the sternest classroom teacher, can police a child’s thoughts only reenforces the necessity for the teacher to explain the option of prayer as one of the two permitted subjects of the silent period.” But nowhere in the language of the law does it state that thoughts unrelated to the activities of the day are prohibited or that those students who choose to reflect must do so only on the anticipated activities of the day. The statute states that this moment is an “opportunity” to reflect on the anticipated activities of the day. In other words, policing thoughts is not the intent of the law and re-explanation is not the solution to drifting or divergent thoughts.

Many states have moment of silence laws that have passed constitutional muster. Let’s hope — and pray — for a judge as wise as U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton who ruled that Virginia’s similar law was constitutional:

The court finds that the Commonwealth’s daily observance of one minute of silence act is constitutional. The act was enacted for a secular purpose, does not advance or inhibit religion, nor is there excessive entanglement with religion … Students may think as they wish — and this thinking can be purely religious in nature or purely secular in nature. All that is required is that they sit silently.

Oh, if only Rob Sherman would choose to sit silently for a time–and perhaps even pray. . .

Yet another bone-headed decision at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL. A few weeks ago, it was the student newspaper article on debauchery — I mean, “hooking up,”– which was approved by the newspaper sponsor Barbara Thill. And now we have the first dance for students who self-identify as homosexual, which was approved by English teacher, Bill Fritz.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this kind of corrupt event would be supported by an English teacher. Although nowadays moral mischief emerges from all quarters in public schools, taxpayers should be especially vigilant about the activities of English and theater teachers, many of whom arrogantly believe that the community members who pay teacher salaries have no right to oversee how their taxes are spent and believe that a central task of theirs is the moral reformation of other people’s children.

One theoretical view of homosexuality is that it is biologically determined and hence inherently moral. The current research, however, has in no way proved that homosexuality is biologically determined, and the hypothetical presence of biological factors in influencing feelings or impulses has precisely nothing to tell us about whether volitional conduct is moral.

For a school to permit a dance specifically intended for homosexual students means that the administration has likely taken a position on the nature of homosexuality (i.e., that homosexuality is completely biologically determined like eye color or skin color) and most certainly has taken a position on the morality of homosexuality. They had to have concluded that homosexual conduct is moral conduct, or they would not have approved the use of school property for such a dance.

These teachers and administrators are wrong. Volitional homosexual conduct is morally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically destructive to the lives of these young people who were created in the image and likeness of God and intended for heterosexuality only.

The fatuous thinking of adults who are charged with guiding students into truth render those adults complicit in the destruction of adolescent lives; and each and every Stevenson taxpayer who says nothing while their taxes subsidize this travesty are complicit in the destruction of the lives of the students who came to this dance to act upon disordered impulses.

However did we get to the point where we facilitate children in their moral and psychological disorders and call our actions loving. These teens do not choose their feelings anymore than others who are attracted to children or multiple partners or relatives or pornography choose their feelings. They no more choose their feelings than those who suffer from aggressive, selfish, impatient, greedy, or lustful feelings choose theirs. But as moral beings living for a time in a fallen world suffused with brokenness of all kinds, we are all charged with the same moral task: We all must determine which of our myriad messy feelings are morally legitimate to act upon. Adults are supposed to help children navigate those murky waters.

Leaders, especially teachers, are charged with a task of enormous gravity and consequence. They are charged with the task of teaching and leading rightly. I find repellent the silly, nescient words of dance sponsor Bill Fritz who waxed smarmily sentimental about the students at the dance, saying, “‘It was really touching,’. . . ‘They were so proud of themselves. They felt lucky.'” No adults should ever affirm teens in their pride over homosexual feelings any more than they would affirm teens in their pride over their polyamorous feelings. No adult should view a roomful of confused, vulnerable teens acting on homosexual feelings as “touching.” And these teens were not lucky; they were harmed.

Somehow foolish, superficial thinking has resulted in educators believing that affirming students in their feelings is the zenith of wisdom and compassion. These educators fail to recognize that the minds and hearts of humans are rife with thoughts and feelings that ought not to be affirmed, even as we affirm the people who experience them.

Sometimes real love and real wisdom demand that we say and do things that others don’t like. A colleague once asked if I realized that some of the things I said were hurtful. I responded that her question implies the erroneous idea that the moral legitimacy of speech is determined by the subjective response of the hearer.

The moral legitimacy of speech–as well as its compassion–is determined not by the subjective response of the hearer but by its content and delivery. If we speak truth and speak it civilly, our speech is morally legitimate–and compassionate.

Affirming through word and deed the homosexual feelings of teens is profoundly unloving. Stevenson teens deserve better.

Source: First Gay Straight Alliance dance attracts 100 students (Pioneer Press)

J. Gresham Machen saw in 1933 what many are trying to say today about the need for private education.

The only way in which a state-controlled school can be kept even relatively healthy is through the absolutely free possibility of competition by private schools and church schools; if it once becomes monopolistic, it is the most effective engine of tyranny and intellectual stagnation that has yet been devised. (J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, 167)

Why is religion taboo in American schools? Christian attorney John Whitehead addresses that question.

“God has become THE four-letter word in most public schools in the United States,” says Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute. And he explains in a commentary why that has come to pass: “An elite segment of society that views God as irrelevant has come to predominate.” (View video commentary)

Whitehead gained his legal insights into the phenomenon through the many cases of religious discrimination that have crossed his desk.

“What’s happened is [that] the elitists — the people who run American society, from the public education system to certain governmental institutions and figures — have basically decided that God is irrelevant to public discussion,” says Whitehead during an interview with OneNewsNow.

“…This ignores the 120 million-plus people in America who take their religion seriously, [who] practice it, and who pay taxes to support institutions like the public schools.”

And what that does, adds Whitehead, is force those people — along with their religious rights and their free-speech rights — into “utter subservience” to all other beliefs.

The issue, according to the attorney, is not separation of church and state — an argument frequently cited by those who assume the secular viewpoint. “The issue in such instances is the religious believer versus the secular state,” he writes. “It is also a denial of everything this country stands for in terms of the freedoms of speech, religion, and a respect for moral tradition.”

Whitehead believes that what exists now in America is akin to the old Soviet Union and China, where it is religious believers fending off the state. 

The Chicago Archdiocesan Office of Catholic Schools (OCS) has distributed its “Year in Review” Report 2009 detailing its accomplishments, data and progress in three focus areas: Catholic Identity, Academic Excellence and School Vitality.

93,286 elementary and secondary students attend Catholic Schools in Cook, Suburban Cook, and Lake counties, consisting of  78,471 Catholic and 14,815 Non-Catholic children, with racial backgrounds including White, African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Multi-Racial and Native American.

In the area of Academic Excellence, for the second consecutive year, the OCS has earned the distinction of being the school system with the largest number of “No Child Left Behind – Blue Ribbon Schools,” with six in 2008 and 21 receiving this award since 2003.  OCS has received national honors from the National Catholic Educational Association for Distinguished Teacher, as well as local honors for the Golden Apple Awards of Excellence in Teaching.  Maintaining a high school graduation rate of 98%, and 95% of that number college-bound for the class of 2008, with $150 million in college scholarships offered .  Yearly student attendance is 98% with a 17 to 1 student/teacher ratio.

The 2009 OCS theme is “Catholic Schools Celebrate Service,” which highlights its mission to provide a faith-based education that supports the whole child academically and spiritually with a continual focus on service to others. Last year, 500,000 hours of Christian service had been provided by student outreach programs.

Revenue sources include:  Private Tuition and Fees, Local Fundraising, Investment Income, and Big Shoulders donations to inner-city OCS High School students.  The annual cost of education is $4,283 per each Elementary School student and $10, 565 for each High School student.  Taxpayer’s money saved by students attending Catholic Schools amounts to $1,001,298,824 – based on public school cost comparisons 2007-2008.

With this remarkable record of achievement in mind, Catholic School parents are justified in supporting legislation increasing the Illinois Education Expense Tax Credit from $500 to $1000 annually.  For a copy of the full report, phone the Archdiocese of Chicago at 312/534-8200.

Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL has found itself in the midst of a mini-tempest as a result of a recent article in the student newspaper, the Statesman, on the topic of hooking-up. For the uninitiated, hooking up refers to casual sexual encounters between individuals who are not in committed relationships. Hooking up is a relatively new euphemism for an old phenomenon. It’s a euphemism for what in the days when people discriminated between moral and immoral behaviors would have been called profligate or promiscuous behavior.

I have not yet had the opportunity to read the article, but for the purposes of my comments, reading it is irrelevant. I’m not taking a position on the particular perspective of the writer or writers. Rather, I want to suggest that the entire topic is inappropriate for a student newspaper that is written by students enrolled in a curricular class.

Public relations spokesman Jim Conrey has stated in multiple contexts that the administration has no opposition to the Statesman addressing controversial topics, citing a previous Statesman issue that took on the topic of oral sex as evidence that the school is not interested in censorship. But that raises the thorny question: Should there be topics that are off-limits in public school newspapers that the taxes of diverse people subsidize and that minor students will be reading?

I would argue that there are topics that school administrations should prohibit, and fortunately the Supreme Court has decided that they may, indeed, do just that.

In the 1988 Supreme Court Case, Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, schools were granted a significant degree of authority to limit student speech in school newspapers. If the context (e.g., student newspaper) is school-sponsored and not considered a public forum, then school administrations have a fair amount of leeway for circumscribing content.

The Court used the following criteria to determine whether a publication is school-sponsored: “1) Is it supervised by a faculty member? 2) Was the publication designed to impart particular knowledge or skills to student participants or audiences? 3) Does the publication use the school’s name or resources?” According to these criteria, Stateman is a school-sponsored publication and thus covered by Hazelwood.

Furthermore, if the newspaper is part of the curriculum, in other words, if it is produced my students enrolled in a journalism class, it is most likely not considered a public forum, and therefore the school is permitted to limit content:

“the Supreme Court . . . gave several examples in its decision of what might be censorable: material that is “ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable for immature audiences.” Potentially sensitive topics, such as “the existence of Santa Claus in an elementary school setting,” “the particulars of teenage sexual activity in a high school setting,” “speech that might reasonably be perceived to advocate drug or alcohol use, irresponsible sex, or conduct otherwise inconsistent with the ‘shared values of a civilized social order'” may also be censored. In addition, the Court said school officials can censor material that would ‘associate the school with anything other than neutrality on matters of political controversy.'” (Source)

The Statesman’s journalistic exploration of “sex games,” “oral sex,” and “one-night stands” in a school-sponsored non-public forum may legitimately be proscribed in that it is arguably “unsuitable for immature audiences,” and inarguably details “the particulars of teenage sexual activity in a high school setting.”

When school administrations permit school newspapers to discuss topics like oral sex and hooking up, they have abandoned their responsibility to establish appropriate boundaries for students, to civilize students, and to demand standards of decency that our increasingly debased culture is abandoning with nary a backward glance. The Stevenson administration, or perhaps just the journalism adviser Barbara Thill, is allowing a base culture rather than some objective standards of decency to determine the permissibility of content.

A Chicago Tribune article entitled “A Teaching Moment” extolled the Statesman’s “long list of awards,” implying that exceptional journalistic skills mitigates the offense of offensive, inappropriate content. That’s analogous to the teacher at Deerfield High School who last year attempted to justify the teaching of an egregiously obscene, graphically sexual play by asserting that the play is a “heartbreaking, inspiring play, one that challenges us as much emotionally as it does intellectually. It is . . . harrowing and mystical, lyrical and beautiful.”

Somehow, all taxpayers are expected to accept–and fund–the philosophical view that concerns with standards of modesty or decency are automatically subordinate to other assessment criteria.

This same Trib article suggests condescendingly that the Stevenson High School administration “take a deep breath and back off.” One might offer that same suggestion to the Trib. First Amendment Rights are not absolute. Those adolescents who want to enlighten the world about the intricacies of hooking up are certainly entitled to do so, but they are not entitled to government money for their endeavors. They may freely research any ideas that pop into their fertile minds, freely employ their exceptional journalistic skills, and freely fund a newspaper that will illuminate both young and old on this new manifestation of debauchery. But unencumbered access toIllinois taxpayers’ money is something to which they are not freely entitled.

An elementary school in — where else — Massachusetts, sent a letter to parents in August 2008 informing them that “Our night custodian has informed us of his decision to change his gender and, as we begin the school year, he will begin living and working as a woman.”

Superintendent Ernest Boss and Principal Norman Yvon further stated that “if [students] ask at school, they will be given a simple and straightforward answer. The best thing to tell them is that our custodian used to be a man. She has changed her gender role and is now a woman.”

So now this one man’s psychologically and morally disordered desire to live publicly as a woman and the school administration’s complicity in facilitating his disorder exposes an entire school full of children to ideas and images to which no elementary child should be exposed and forces parents to explain what no parent should have to explain to 5-10 year-olds.

No government employee should be permitted to tell other people’s children that this man “used to be a man… and is now a woman.” That statement is not factual and not true. It is false, controversial, unproven, values-laden, and faith-based. The belief that amputating healthy parts of one’s sexual anatomy and taking hormones appropriate to the opposite sex changes one’s sex constitutes a pernicious delusion or fiction. No government employee should be permitted to make such statements to children.

The administrators who demonstrate such astonishing hubris, foolishness, and lack of integrity offer as their pitiful defense this: “it is important to note that the Oxford Public Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability.” “Sexual orientation,” an invented concept used to paint deviant sexual desires with a patina of moral legitimacy, has been added to school anti-discrimination policies all around the country. Now volitional sexual behavior is being treated like immutable characteristics that carry no behavioral implications. Taxpayers should demand that school boards and administrations provide evidence for their unjustifiable claim that volitional sexual behavior is ontologically equivalent to sex or race.

All taxpayers in Oxford, MA should rise up in righteous indignation that their taxes are paying the salaries of administrators who make such chuckleheaded decisions. They should demand that the deceitful phrase “sexual orientation” be removed post-haste from the school’s anti-discrimination policy. They should demand that this custodian’s employment be terminated. They should demand that no unproven, non-factual, faith-based, values-laden statements about this man’s disordered condition be made to children. And church leaders in that community who remain silent while children are being exposed to such deviance should be ashamed and taken to the woodshed by their congregations.

Illinois taxpayers: Check out your school’s anti-discrimination policy. If it includes the phrase “sexual orientation,” work courageously and selflessly to get rid of it or be prepared to pay — literally and figuratively — for sexual deviance in a school near you.

We are the proverbial frogs complaisantly cooking while the cultural waters in which we’re immersed become lethal.