“Education is simply the soul of a society
as it passes from one generation to another.”
~G.K. Chesterton

In her article “Trans-Friendly Preschool” that appeared in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education, Laurel Dykstra advocates ideas and recommends activities that can only be described as ignorant, radical, subversive, cruel, and pernicious. No civil society, let alone those who claim to be followers of Christ, would countenance such evil being perpetrated on our most innocent. The ideas articulated by Dykstra constitute not education, but unconscionable educational malpractice.

Virtually every cultural institution-from our churches to our courts to our legislatures to our news media to our entertainment industry to our government schools–has been commandeered by homosexuals and those who support their destructive cultural agenda. Those who hold traditional Judeo-Christian values must boldly and tenaciously oppose through word and deed efforts to normalize homosexuality–especially in government schools that our taxes subsidize.

If those who hold traditional beliefs on the nature and morality of homosexual conduct do not take action now, this is what we will see in our pre-schools in the not too distant, calamitous future:

Trans-Friendly Preschool
Laurel A. Dykstra

Children from trans families have one or more parents, siblings or other family member who is trans; these children may have a trans identity or may identify with their assigned genders. Trans kids and kids from trans families attend preschool and kindergarten, and they need educational settings that reflect and affirm their lived experience.

So what might a trans-positive preschool or kindergarten look like? What follows are some suggestions and ideas based on my experiences as a parent, conversations with friends, and some web surfing.

. . .

The binary gender system is hierarchical, with males and their gender-sanctioned activities considered superior, and females and their gender-sanctioned activities inferior. This system is harmful to everyone.

All gender expressions are valid. As most cultures are misogynist, it is important to be aware of our misogyny and not value male gender-sanctioned activities over female ones. In asserting that “girls can do anything boys can do,” we must not undervalue either the girls or the boys who participate in so-called “female” activities, like playing with dolls or dress-up.

Trans kids and trans families at school are an asset to the class, not a problem to be solved. But because North American popular culture is transphobic, these kids and families require extra support and have safety and privacy issues that need to be respected. It is not enough for classrooms, teachers, and schools to be “open” or “non-judgmental”; they need to be actively trans-positive.

Trans-positive education must be integrated into a larger anti-oppression model of teaching that is anti-racist, feminist, crip-positive, etc. A specific focus on trans issues will be a relatively small but important part of the classroom experience.

It is important to talk about difference and address kids’ questions. Clear, open, and respectful communication is critical to trans-positive education.

COMMUNICATION WITH KIDS

“Some” and “most” are the words I try to use when talking to my kids about gender. “Well, most men have penises, but some don’t.”

“Some girls grow up to be men.” “Most men don’t have breasts.”

Adults should believe kids, follow their leads, and respect their limits, but also set the tone. “Those aren’t boy shoes, those are Gina’s shoes.” Affirm kids’ experiences, but do not make a big deal. “Oh, my friend Jen is a mama with a beard too.”

Encourage kids to question their assumptions. “How do you know that that person is a woman? Could a man wear a dress?”

Point out gender benders. “I like that woman’s hard hat.”

…

Make the classroom a place where questions are allowed. It may also be important to talk about manners and cultural norms if questions clearly are not allowed outside the classroom.A teacher might say, “It is always ok to ask questions about gender in our class but at home or on the bus some people might be embarrassed. Whose family talks about gender? Whose doesn’t? Different families are different. What could you say to someone if you asked a question and they felt embarrassed?”

Encourage exploration of feelings. “What do you like about the princess dress?” Call children by the name and the pronouns they choose, if at all possible.

Emphasize the goodness of each child.

COMMUNICATION WITH ADULTS

It is important for teachers to be advocates for trans kids and kids from trans families. If the school, administrators, and families are receptive, this is relatively easy. A teacher can refer parents to resources, share information with next year’s teacher, ease the child’s transition from one class or school to another, and exchange ideas and strategies with other teachers and administrators. Teachers and parents can work together to influence school policies, such as adding the word transgender to the school’s diversity/anti-oppression statement or designating universally accessible bathrooms. In a situation where family members, administrators, other students’ parents, or a particular teacher are transphobic, a child of kindergarten or preschool age is vulnerable. To be an advocate for a child in this instance, a teacher must be careful not to make the child a focus of negative attention, not to alienate a hostile parent, and not to increase a child’s isolation by triggering removal from the class.

The simplest kind of advocacy is being clear to students, family members, and other adults that you like, respect, and accept the child. Some adults feel threatened by people who cross gender lines. A teacher who listens to other adults, parents, and educators, and who directs them to resources can foster a greater understanding of gender issues and help create a more trans-positive atmosphere.

PRACTICAL CLASSROOM SUGGESTIONS

Most programs will not have the budget for new equipment, and currently there are not many trans-friendly products at the teacher store. For example, Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be . . . (Bunnell & Reinheimer, 2004) is a gender coloring book that is useful and fun, but the language is pretty sophisticated for those under six. Most of my suggestions, therefore, involve modifying equipment or activities that are already part of the classroom. Some suggestions will only be practical in a progressive classroom setting.

• Color Days. To teach colors, have students dress in the “color of the day.” Do not skip pink and purple. Assume that all kids will participate, and have extra pink things in a basket at the door, including pink ties, vests, and hard hats. Kids who do not want to wear pink might be happy to share pink snacks or a pink drink.

• Tranny Teddy.Have a non-gendered toy/doll/puppet that is part of circle time. Do not use pronouns and give this creature a variety of gendered clothing, such as a skirt and tie. If asked, say “Oh, Binker isn’t a boy or a girl.”

• Stereotype Game. Teach kids what a stereotype is (e.g., monsters are scary, boys are noisy, girls like dolls, grown-ups do not cry) and help them to spot stereotypes in their play, in your teaching, in books, and in advertisements. This is useful for all kinds of anti-oppression education.

• Picture Day. This was always traumatic for me. Try involving parents in a photo day that is about the kids choosing to wear what makes them feel good. Be aware that there are many issues here. Who sees the photographs? Who pays for them? Is it a fundraiser?

• Butch/Femme Day. Why not teach kids language like butch/femme, as an alternative to boy/girl or male/female? You could have dress-up days to play deliberately with gender, like “Fabulous and Fearless Day” or “Capable and Campy.”

• Dress-Up Box. Make sure that it is well stocked. Move it around so that it is near the trucks one week and by the paints another time. Have a photo collage on the inside lid or around the mirror that features fire fighters, dancers, princesses, and pirates of various genders, but also include drag queens and kings, bearded ladies, and other obviously trans people.

• Bathrooms. This is a critical safety issue for some kids and a source of extreme agitation and stress for others. Trans kids need to have the option of using a bathroom that is not designated for girls or boys and to have this be available with a minimum of fuss. All kids need access to a bathroom at school that feels safe and comfortable to them.

• Non-Traditional Colors. Can you find or paint pink, purple, and pastel-colored construction blocks and trucks? What about flowered hard hats and sparkly tools?

• Special Guests. Invite a diverse cross section of people to the classroom, including people in “non-traditional” jobs, such as a woman electrician or a male ballet dancer. Invite a drag performer or transsexual person who would be willing to share their story and a photo album. Try to involve students’ family members.

• Story Time. Choose books carefully. There are many more books with fierce, brave girl characters than with gentle, creative boys. A few suggestions are: Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, Prince Cinders (Cole, 2004); The Story of Ferdinand (Leaf, 2004); The Paper Bag Princess (Munsch, 1980); and Oliver Button Is a Sissy (dePaola, 1979). When reading, try switching pronouns, avoiding them altogether, or using alternative pronouns.Ask kids to spot stereotypes in books, especially fairy tales.

CONCLUSION

This essay is addressed mainly to teachers, but it applies to parents, administrators, and home-school groups as well. These ideas are meant to be used by parents advocating for their family or child, by teachers educating parents, administrators, and other teachers, and by administrators developing school policies. For “stealth practitioners” (i.e., teachers in a transphobic setting), these classroom suggestions can be implemented without fanfare to create a more just and welcoming classroom. With the current blossoming of transgender life, more and more of us are concerned that children not be educated in an environment that harms or maligns transgender individuals, whether those individuals are students, family members, or part of the greater community. My basic desire for my kids and all kids is that, if they turn out to be some gender we have not even heard of yet — or if they grow up perfectly happy with the cultural gender norm-they will know that they are good just as they are, they will realize that they have made a choice, and they can admire and respect the gender choices of others.

If ever there was a time for weeping, it is now. If ever there was a time for righteous indignation, it is now. If ever there was a time for uncompromising courage, it is now.

Next week, the Chicago Board of Education will vote on the proposed Social Justice High School-Pride Campus that Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan has endorsed. Rumors are circulating that, despite Mayor Richard Daley’s explicit opposition to the school, the board intends to vote in favor of it.

The Windy City Times, a Chicago newspaper serving the homosexual and “transgender” population, explains that “the school will exist as a training hub on LGBT issues and social-justice curricula for teachers, both locally and nationally. Social-justice history, practices and discussion will be embedded in the curriculum, allowing for all students, including LGBTQ youth, to find representation in the courses they are taking in school.” (See “Social Justice or Educational Injustice“)

It is critical to understand that the taxes of all Illinoisans, not just Chicagoans, will be used to subsidize this subversive project, because all public schools receive state funds. Arne Duncan and any member who agrees with Duncan that the state should subsidize this school had to have come to prior conclusions that homosexual conduct is safe and moral. If Duncan had concluded otherwise — if he had concluded that homosexual conduct is neither safe nor moral-he would never have recommended approval of this proposal.

It is clearly far outside both Duncan’s area of expertise and his professional responsibilities to make implicit proclamations on the nature and morality of homosexuality, and it is inappropriate to demand that taxpayers subsidize his controversial and unproven philosophical and moral conclusions.

The Windy City Times has taken notice of IFI’s efforts to oppose this school and is urging its readers to fight back, calling our letter-writing and email campaign “negative.” Our opposition to this school is only negative if our beliefs are wrong. If, however, our beliefs that homosexual conduct is volitional, unsafe, and immoral are correct, then our opposition to this school is a positive effort to protect teens, preserve a proper understanding of the nature and morality of homosexuality, and prevent our money from being used to promote radical, subversive ideas about homosexuality that will ultimately destroy marriage, destroy the natural family, and undermine fundamental First Amendment speech and religious rights. 

It is cruel and tragic that those in positions of authority today are so bereft of both knowledge and wisdom that they claim that sexually confused teens deserve to have a homosexual identity affirmed. It is cruel and tragic that, despite the absence of any supporting research, so-called “educators” tell sexually confused teens that they were “born that way” And it is a grievous offense to demand that the public subsidize this ignorance, arrogance, and cruelty. If we truly love these teens, we will speak the truth. 

Public schools must stay away from subjects that fall far outside the appropriate purview of public education. We have one week left to express not merely our opposition to, but our outrage about the proposed Social Justice High School-Pride Campus.

TAKE ACTION: Contact CPS Chief Arne Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education to express your opposition to the use of public funds to subsidize a school that affirms disputable and divisive views on homosexuality and gender-confusion.

Additional Contact Information
E-mail Arne Duncan at aduncan@cps.k12.il.us with your letter of opposition. To cc the Chicago Tribune, e-mail ctc-tribletter@tribune.com. To cc the Chicago Sun-Times, e-mail mcooke@suntimes.com. 

To mail or fax a letter, send it to:

Mr. Arne Duncan, Chief Executive Officer
Chicago Public Schools
125 S. Clark, 5th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603

The fax number is 773-553-1502.

To send to the board of education, mail a letter to:

Chicago Board of Education
125 S. Clark, 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603

The fax number is 773-553-1601.

“Teachers should teach their subjects. They should not teach peace or war or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda that might properly be taught by a political leader or a talk-show host”
(Stanley Fish http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2003/01/2003012301c.htm).

I sincerely hope that the notoriety of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers that has been resurrected as a result of his affiliation with Barack Obama will result in a more critical look at the content of his “social justice” theories that undermine the legitimacy of public education.

Up until this past August, I worked at Deerfield High School (DHS) which is located in a suburb north of Chicago. For too many years the public has been unwittingly subsidizing the efforts of a small group of academic activists who arrogantly believe that their job description includes transforming the culture.

What is even more troubling is the direction in which they seek to transform the culture. Their socio-political vision comes straight out of Bill Ayers’ playbook. In fact, one of the preeminent social justice activists at Deerfield High School has signed the “Support Bill Ayers” petition.

Unfortunately, the presence of social justice advocacy is not a problem at just Deerfield High School. This cancer has metastasized throughout our nation’s public schools via our teacher-education programs, like the one at University of Illinois (Chicago) where Bill Ayers teaches.

If the innocuous term “social justice” referred to helping those in need who are incapable of helping themselves, then we should support it in both theory and practice. The problem is that the “social justice” movement in public education refers to a very particular set of beliefs that are anything but innocuous.

In regard to economics, it’s essentially repackaged socialism with its focus on income redistribution. Its other dominant features pertain to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation/sexual identity/ or sexual expression. Social justice theory encourages students to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to who are the “oppressors” and who are the “oppressed.” It has nothing to do with individual acts of actual persecution or oppression.

For example, as one of the social justice proponents at DHS has said nauseum, “If you’re white, male, and heterosexual, you are automatically an oppressor.” Apparently, he doesn’t notice that this is a prejudiced, racist, sexist, heterophobic stereotype.

Social justice theory robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lot in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through an appropriate degree of guilt on the parts of the purported oppressors. It cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of the “oppressors.”

There are a number of influential social justice “educators” (or grievance-mongers) whose names taxpayers would be wise to know: Paulo Freire, a Brazilian Marxist whose book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been hugely influential; Bill Ayers (Teaching for Social Justice); Asa Hilliard, bell hooks, Jane Elliot, Peggy McIntosh (SEED), and Glenn Singleton (Pacific Education Group, Courageous Conversations).

In an Oct. 28, 2008 online Education Week article, “Election Renews Controversy Over Social-Justice Teaching,” writer Kathleen Kennedy Manzo writes that the fact that social justice teaching tends “to highlight the more unseemly details of U.S. history as well as the nation’s enduring problems, is what most disturbs critics of the movement.” One student I worked with on the writing center at DHS told me that at the end of her first semester in an American Studies class, she hated America and hated being white.

Despite claims made by Bill Ayers, social justice “educators” do not in practice demonstrate a commitment to intellectual inquiry. Ayers wrote on the blog “eduwonkette” that “in a democracy one would expect . . . commitment to free inquiry, questioning, and participation.” But social justice teachers rarely, if ever, introduce resources that challenge their own biased view of American history, their controversial theories on how to think about race, or their arguable, unproven theories about the nature and morality of homosexuality.

In a new book by well-respected–not conservative–scholar Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time, he chastises educators who use the classroom for purposes for which they were not hired:

Teachers can also put students in possession of the analytical tools employed by up-to-date researchers in the field. But teachers cannot, except for a serendipity that by definition cannot be counted on, fashion moral character, or inculcate respect for others, or produce citizens of a certain temper. Or, rather, they cannot do these things unless they abandon the responsibilities that belong to them by contract in order to take up responsibilities that belong properly to others. But if they do that, they will be practicing without a license and in all likelihood doing a bad job at a job they shouldn’t be doing at all. When that happens–and unfortunately it does happen–everyone loses. The students lose because they’re not getting what they paid for (it will be said that they are getting more, but in fact they are getting less). The university loses because its resources have been appropriated for a nonacademic purpose.

He further argues that “Higher education loses . . . when teachers offer themselves as moralists, therapists, political counselors, and agents of global change.”

Taxpayers should do as I did: Send an email or letter to the superintendent, principal, assistant principal, library staff, and all department chairs of your public schools, urging them to purchase, read, study, and discuss this important book during staff development time. The exploitation of the classroom by “social justice” advocates who use our money to effect “social change” in the direction of their socio-political vision must stop now, and it won’t unless taxpayers speak up.

“Propaganda Is To Democracy
What A Bludgeon Is To A Totalitarian State.”
~Noam Chomsky

An alumnus of District 113, an affluent school district on the North Shore of Chicago, recently informed Illinois Family Institute that once again public money is being used to fund activities that articulate only one side of the cultural debate on homosexuality.

It’s fascinating to see our “progressive” public educators — our foes of conformity; devotees of diversity; teachers of tolerance; defenders of dissent; spurners of censorship — in action. And they are busy little beavers when it comes to propaganda. When it comes to the sacred cow of homosexuality, the “progressive” educators among us are intolerant, conformist censors, deeply committed to using public funds in the service of eliminating intellectual diversity and silencing dissent from their subversive dogma.

Students in District 113 cannot make it through their freshman year without being exposed to resources that affirm controversial, unproven, and bleakly deterministic theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality. And yet they make it through the entire four years of high school without ever being exposed to a single resource or activity that affirms or articulates conservative views.

For example, every year students from the gay and straight alliance pay a visit to all the mandatory Freshman Advisory classes to “share their stories” with freshmen. These presentations are intended to generate sympathy for what many consider to be immoral, volitional behavior. The students who self-identify as homosexual never share with freshmen the fact that there is no research proving that homosexuality is biologically determined. Nor do they share with freshmen that “queer” theorists believe that homosexuality is not biologically determined.

In 2006 at Deerfield High School, the Freshman Advisory curriculum included the whimsical “Terminology Match-Up” game wherein freshmen were given either cards with terms or cards with definitions, and then asked to “mill about and find their matches.”

The terms included the following: cross dressers; down low, which refers to married men having homosexual sex on the side; genderqueer; homophobia (complete with Freud’s idea about repressed homosexuality); MSM, which means men having sex with men; transphobia; pansexual; androgyny, and sex reassignment surgery.

The good news is the Freshman Advisory curriculum has been revised. The bad news is the administration placed all curricular and “supplementary” resources on a password-protected computer portal for which no parent or community member may have the password. When asked to make it accessible to all, the administration said that parents may make an appointment with the principal to come to her office to view resources. Of course, the beauty of having all resources on a secret password-protected portal is that documents can be added or dumped at a moment’s notice. Oh, if only we had an Orphan Annie decoder badge.

Both of District 113′s high schools, Deerfield and Highland Park, have taught the egregiously obscene, blasphemous, pro-gay screed titled Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by homosexual playwright Tony Kushner.

The Pulitzer prize-winning play revolves around two couples: married Mormon couple Harper and Joe whose marriage is disintegrating in large measure due to Joe’s repressed homosexuality, which he eventually acts upon; and a homosexual couple, Louis and Prior. Louis leaves Prior when he finds out Prior has AIDS, and then has a month-long affair with Harper’s husband Joe.

There’s also Roy Cohn, the unscrupulous, foul-mouthed, closeted, Jewish, Republican lawyer, who dies of AIDS; the black, homosexual, ex-drag queen nurse with the heart of gold, Belize; and the Angel with “eight vaginae” whose visits prompt sexual arousal and orgasm. The play is replete with references to orgasms, fellatio, semen, ejaculation, and f******. It includes the line “Suck my ****, Mother Theresa.” Jeff Berger-White, the teacher who taught this artistic “masterpiece,” was also able to arrange a conference call between all of his students and the homosexual playwright Tony Kushner.

The historically inaccurate pro-homosexual play The Laramie Project has been taught for several years in English classes at Deerfield High School; the spring 2008 play at DHS was The Laramie Project; and the theater teacher arranged to have one of the original cast members, a lesbian, come to DHS to speak to students.

A U.S. History teacher taught a pro-homosexual essay entitled “American Things” by none other than  Tony Kushner.

Another social studies teacher had her students read an article from the pinnacle of scholarly erudition, People Magazine, that was sympathetic to transgender teens.

Surely, you say, the librarians in such prestigious academic institutions would recoil at the very idea of censorship, but as of a year ago at Deerfield High School, though the library subscribes to the homosexual periodical The Advocate, and though it has over sixty books that espouse liberal views of homosexuality, it had nary a single book from a conservative perspective on homosexuality-zero, zilch, zippo.

The administration, leaving no stone unturned, offers pro-homosexual propaganda to staff and faculty through professional development activities like the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network’s film That’s a Family and Peggy McIntosh’s “Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity” (SEED) seminars-all of which are paid for by the public.

The alumnus mentioned at the start of this commentary informed IFI that this year Highland Park High School is performing both the pro-gay musical Rent and the pro-gay play The Laramie Project.

I have yet to find one piece of literature, one essay, one fine arts production, one speaker, one professional growth opportunity, one panel discussion, one newspaper article, one seminar or workshop, or one book in the library that embodies or articulates conservative views on homosexuality. What’s even more disturbing, and it should be disturbing to all who value the free exchange of ideas, is that District 113 is not alone.

Many, probably most, public schools suffer from the subversive efforts of activists whose intolerance, whose demands for ideological conformity, whose utter disregard for intellectual diversity, whose unfettered use of censorship, and whose palpable distaste for dissent threaten the legitimacy of public education and transform it into indoctrination and political advocacy.

Exactly how do schools purport to teach critical thinking in the absence of ideas?

Brief filed by ADF attorneys and allied attorneys asks court to dismiss lawsuit, declare law constitutional.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys and allied attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief in federal court Thursday in defense of an Illinois law allowing a “period of silence” for students attending the state’s public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the atheist who filed the suit, which seeks to have the law declared unconstitutional.

“A period of silence is not unconstitutional just because an atheist fears a student might use it to pray,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “There is clearly no constitutional violation here, and we hope that the court will see through the ACLU’s attempt to use this case to further its secularist agenda. The emotional response of one offended atheist does not amount to a violation of the Establishment Clause.”

Since 1969, the state of Illinois has had a law that allows public school students a “period of silence” to engage in voluntary prayer or reflection. In October 2007, an atheist whose teenage child is enrolled at Buffalo Grove High School sued the school district in federal court over its implementation of the law.

On Dec. 17, the court allowed attorneys with ADF and the Chicago firm of Mauck & Baker to participate in defending the law through briefing and oral argument. On March 28, the court issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which effectively suspends it while the case moves forward.

“Clearly, a moment of silence cannot be interpreted as an establishment of religion,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “No one is forced to pray against their will. Students have a brief period of time to reflect on whatever they choose, whether through prayer, silent reflection, or some other silent method.”

A copy of the friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Sherman v. Township High School District 214 is available HERE.

Chicago Sun Times reporter Fran Spielman writes that Mayor Daley has expressed his opposition to the Social Justice High School-Pride Campus (see article below).

It looks like the tide may turn against this foolish proposal that would further harm teens who already suffer from their own sexual confusion, the cruelty of peers, and the ignorance of society that offers them only a bleakly deterministic view of the future.

The solution to the real problem of harassment must never include affirmation of immoral conduct. To affirm that which is immoral is itself an immoral and unloving act.

IFI has been heartened by the response of Illinoisans who, as of Thursday afternoon, have sent more than 860 emails to members of the Chicago Board of Education and CEO Arne Duncan, expressing their opposition to the use of their tax dollars to subsidize destructive, immoral, unproven moral propositions that undermine truth and harm teens.

But the battle is not yet over. We cannot allow this hopeful sign to lead to complacency. Now is the time to redouble our efforts to oppose this high school. Remember, all Illinoisans will be compelled to subsidize this school-not just Chicagoans. So, if you have not done so already, please contact Mayor Daley (MayorDaley@CityofChicago.org), Arne Duncan, and the members of the Chicago Board of Education to express your opposition to the Social Justice High School-Pride Campus. 

 

 

Daley nixes plan for gay high school
October 23, 2008

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Mayor Daley on Thursday put the brakes on the Chicago Board of Education’s controversial plan to open the city’s first high school serving gay and lesbian students.

One day after his handpicked school board put off a vote on the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, Daley explained why — by expressing his misgivings.

RELATED STORIESDecision delayed on gay high school Gay-friendly high school may open here in 2010 A school where gay students could feel safe

“You have to look at whether or not you isolate and segregate children. A holistic approach has always been to have children of all different backgrounds– in schools. When you start isolating children and you say, ‘Only 50 percent here, 40 percent here’ — same thing we went through with the disabled — then you want to do that when they’re adults,” Daley said.

“It’s controversial. Some people are for it. Some are against it– The Board of Education has to make the decision whether it’s good for isolating children. I don’t know– I’m just saying that’s one of the problems– You start identifying them.”

Daley insisted he was not behind the board’s decision to put off a final vote on Social Justice High until Nov. 19. The school would serve a 50/50 population of gay and straight students.

But he said, “It’s something that the Board of Education has to work out and really understand what it’s trying to do.”

Schools CEO Arne Duncan had hoped to open the school in the fall of 2010 to offer parents and students more choices and a feeling of safety. He has argued that gay and lesbian students have higher drop-out rates because they feel ostracized.

Duncan was emboldened by a national survey of 6,000 middle and high school students released by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. It showed that nearly 90 percent were harassed at school and that 61 percent felt unsafe.

Daley’s opposition to the school is somewhat surprising because he has long been a champion on gay and lesbian issues.

He supported gay marriage, sponsored domestic partner benefits for city employees, appointed Chicago’s first openly gay alderman, welcomed the 2006 Gay Games and increased city support for AIDS funding.

The mayor even engineered $5.4 million in loans and subsidies to pave the way for the Midwest’s first permanent community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The center has a rooftop garden that bears Daley’s name. In June, 2007, on the day the center opened, Daley got a hero’s welcome.

Next Wednesday, October 22nd, the Chicago Board of Education will consider a proposal for a “gay”-friendly high school for homosexual and gender-confused students. The proposal already has the recommendation of School CEO Arne Duncan.

Despite the fact that 70 percent of Chicago high school students are testing below state standards and the sad reality that almost half of Chicago high school students fail to graduate, Chicago Public School (CPS) officials are seriously considering investing time, energy, and hard-earned tax dollars toward social engineering and the promotion of controversial views of homosexuality. 

TAKE ACTION: Contact CPS Chief Arne Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education to express your opposition to the use of public funds to subsidize a school that affirms disputable and divisive views on homosexuality and gender-confusion. 

Pasted below is a copy of a certified letter IFI’s Division of School Advocacy sent to the Mr. Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education.

RE: Social Justice High School-Pride Campus

Members of the Board of Education, 

The Illinois Family Institute strongly urges you to vote against the creation of a new and controversial Social Justice High School-Pride Campus. Subsidizing this school would represent a gross misuse of public funds. 

Public educators have no business taking a position on the nature and morality of homosexuality and “transgenderism,” which Arne Duncan necessarily has done in recommending approval of this school. 

Will the board of education also consider a high school for students who are harassed for myriad other reasons, most of which, unlike homosexuality and “transgenderism,” have no moral implications? 

Will the board of education and administrators in this high school commit in written policy to allotting equal time and equivalent resources to all sides of the cultural debate on homosexuality and cross-dressing? 

Will you ensure that curricula that address these topics are unbiased and uncensored, or will you permit only biased, censored curricula that exclusively affirm controversial, unproven theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality? 

How will the faculty and administration teach critical thinking skills on the divisive issue of homosexuality and gender identity disorder if they have previously committed only to affirm homosexuality as normative and morally defensible? 

Are the board of education and administration prepared to provide justifications and evidence for claims that homosexuality is biologically determined or that disapproval of behavior constitutes bullying?

Are the board of education and administration prepared to provide justifications and evidence for the implicit claim that volitional behavioral choices that may emerge from biologically influenced impulses are inherently moral?

Are you prepared to apply consistently to all behaviors the principle that disapproval of behavior makes students “unsafe”?

It is an outrage that Mr. Duncan would recommend and the board of education consider using the hard-earned money of Chicago taxpayers to subsidize a school whose curricula will violate fundamental educational principles regarding intellectual diversity and exploration that give public education legitimacy. 

And it is an outrage that Mr. Duncan and the board would consider using public funds to undermine the values of many members of the community who supply those funds.

If this school is approved, it will become obvious to all that the promulgation of controversial, unproven socio-political theories has replaced academic inquiry as the guiding principle of the Chicago Board of Education.

Again, we strongly urge you to vote against this proposal.

Sincerely,

Laurie Higgins, Director
Division of School Advocacy
Illinois Family Institute

On Oct. 3, 2008, the Washington Post covered the story of some high school students in Virginia who attempted to expose the “book banning” activities engaged in by their high school librarians who censor virtually all resources that express conservative perspectives on homosexuality. The librarians offered the usual embarrassing defenses for their censorship of ideas, trying futilely to mask their utter hypocrisy regarding censorship.

Perhaps the weakest and most embarrassing justification proffered was that conservative books would make “gay students ‘feel inferior’ ” which is another way of saying that ideas are controversial. I hate to break it to library ideologues, but subjective “feelings” do not take precedence over ideas in the academic world. And before library ideologues sputter some specious comparison between conservative ideas on homosexual conduct and racism, let’s be clear that homosexuality is not equivalent to race, and expressions of disapproval of homosexual practice are not equivalent to racism.

I imagine that students who use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco “feel inferior” when they are exposed to resources critical of drug, alcohol, or tobacco use. And I imagine that promiscuous and aggressive students “feel inferior” when exposed to resources critical of promiscuity and aggression. And I imagine that students whose conservative faith traditions are central to their identities, including Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and Protestants, “feel inferior” when they see 50-150 resources on their library shelves that implicitly and explicitly criticize their deeply held religious beliefs on homosexuality. Librarians apparently have little concern about the feelings of those students.

Fortunately, there are a few librarians left in this country who have the integrity to reject demands to conform to the propagandist impulses of the ALA.

Here’s just such a one. She’s a blogger who goes by the name “Annoyed Librarian,” and the Library Journal has just started carrying her blog. In this recent post, she takes the ALA to the woodshed in a biting and sarcastic piece that exposes all or most of the chuckleheaded justifications that the ALA uses to defend their censorship of conservative ideas.

For clarification, here are some explanatory notes on terms used in the article below:

AL= Annoyed Librarian
ALA = American Library Association
LJ = Library Journal

Enjoy this piece, and then please send it to your community and public school library staffs.

 Some “Censorship” is Good

http://blog.libraryjournal.com/annoyedlibrarian/2008/10/08/some-censorship-is-good/

Now down to business. Somehow I missed this story in the Washington Post a few days ago, but that’s what I have readers for, to send me stuff like this. “Banned Books, Chapter 2” is quite a fun read.

“During a week that librarians nationwide are highlighting banned books, conservative Christian students and parents showcased their own collection outside a Fairfax County high school yesterday — a collection they say was banned by the librarians themselves…. Titles include Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting and Someone I Love Is Gay, which argues that homosexuality is not ‘a hopeless condition.'” We sure wouldn’t want those kinds of books in a high school library! We want people to think homosexuality is a hopeless condition!

But banned by the librarians themselves? They obviously don’t understand what a “banned” book is. Just for the “conservative Christian students and parents,” I’ll explain this whole process. First, the library has to buy the book. Then, some “conservative Christian” student or parent has to complain about the book. Thus, the book is “challenged.” Though the books are never removed from the library, after 24 hours the “challenge” is automatically upgraded to “banned,” because it sounds more provocative. That explains those announcements you’re always hearing over the library loudspeakers: “In accordance with ALA regulations, the status of Frisky Gay Squirrels has now been upgraded to ‘banned.’ Any copies of Frisky Gay Squirrels left unattended will be randomly checked out to anyone who happens to be in the library.” Librarians love this, because then they get to fight “censorship.”

But what if the library never acquires the book in the first place? Then ipso facto it can’t be “banned.” That’s the first thing you need to get through your conservative Christian heads. The question, then, is why wasn’t the book acquired, or added to the collection if it was a gift? The conservative Christians think it was for political reasons, to deliberately make sure their side in a debate wasn’t being represented in the library collection. Those conservative Christians can be sooo cynical sometimes. It had nothing to do with politics. If the selection decision had anything to do with politics, why then the ALA would say these librarians were “censors.” The ALA hasn’t called these librarians censors. Thus the books weren’t rejected for political reasons. QED. Besides, we can’t have the ALA coming out and accusing librarians for censorship just for keeping those mean old conservative books off the shelves. That’s not censorship. That’s just good sense!

Since it’s obvious that politics had nothing to do with the decision not to add the books to the collection, what could have been the reason?

“Most of the books were turned down after school librarians said they did not meet school system standards.” Ooh, that’s a good one! It has such an official tone to it. “School system standards” sounds so impressive. I bet that school system has high standards indeed!

But that’s not all. “Fairfax County’s policy on library book selection says ‘the collection should support the diverse interests, needs and viewpoints of the school community.'” Hmm? That sure sounds like they should add at least some of the books. I’d be willing to bet there’s at lease one homophobe in that high school, and don’t we want homophobes to read books, too? I guess not, because apparently there are factors more important than supporting “diverse” interests, like not supporting the interests you don’t like.

“Library officials said donated and purchased books alike are evaluated by the same standards, including two positive reviews from professionally recognized journals.” This is another great one. I seriously doubt that every book purchased or donated really does need “two positive reviews from professionally recognized journals” to be added to the collection. But just for argument’s sake let’s take this statement as truth. Notice the wording of it. It needs two reviews in professionally recognized journals. The sweet logic of this is very impressive. “Hey,” say the conservative Christians, “we found fifteen journals that reviewed Marriage on Trial!” “I’m sorry,” say the librarians, “we don’t professionally recognize those journals.” It could be the case — and I’m only making the suggestion — that these librarians only “professionally recognize” the sorts of journals that review the sorts of books they already agree with. It’s possible, right? Hardly likely, knowing how earnest librarians really are about representing “diverse” viewpoints, including the viewpoints of those mean old conservative Christians, but still possible.

“None of the donated titles met that standard, said Susan Thornily, coordinator of library information services for Fairfax schools.” I know this comes as a huge surprise to all of you. “Some librarians also said that the nonfiction books were heavy on scripture but light on research, or that the books would make gay students ‘feel inferior,’ she said.” That was the line that stunned me. Those school librarians were moving along so well, putting up cleverly circular arguments that sounded almost librarian-like. And maybe I can see rejecting a book as “light on research,” because I’m sure every anti-conservative nonfiction book in that library is heavily researched and that none of them just state the politically correct opinions of the authors without much argument. That high school must have a rigorous research collection, indeed. But how are we supposed to take seriously the caveat that the books would make gay students “feel inferior”? How is that not a politicized reason not to accept the book? First of all, is it likely these gay students will read the books? Is it just having them on the shelves? Does that make them “feel inferior”? Or is it just knowing that some people out there disapprove of homosexuality? How could any gay students not already know this?

And how is that any different than African American students feeling inferior by having Huckleberry Finn on the shelves? Or conservative Christians feeling “inferior” because every book on homosexuality in their library says exactly the same thing, that every opinion they have is wrong and they are bad people for being so intolerant? Whatever happened to that old librarian standby that just because a book offends a portion of the population doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be in the collection? They sure like to trot that warhorse out when “conservative Christians” complain about Heather Has Two Very Excited Daddies.

“Thornily said school librarians have rejected other books that ‘target minority groups’ and would offend African Americans or other nonwhite students.” Is a book arguing homosexuality is wrong “targeting a minority group”? Targeting? Are these books advocating violence against homosexuals? That seems unlikely. Why isn’t the Office of Intellectual “Freedom” barking loudly in the direction of Fairfax County and explaining to these librarians that just because some group is “offended” by a book, this is no reason not to have it. In fact, this is a reason to have it, in order to show how much we value “intellectual freedom” and “diversity.” Conservative Christians are a minority group, and no one cares about offending them. “In this case, librarians were concerned about the level of scholarship in the books, many of which come from small church publishers.” Uh huh. I’m sure that’s all it was.

If the politics were reversed, no matter the level of “scholarship,” you know the ALA would be swooping down on these poor librarians screaming “Censor!” at them. This example just goes to show the tortured logic some librarians can apply when they don’t like the viewpoint of the book. What the conservative Christians need to understand is that librarians can always find a legitimate sounding reason not to add a book to the collection. Personally, that doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t see why a librarian can’t just say, “this looks like a really stupid book and I find it offensive. Out to the recycling bin with it!” What’s the big deal really? So what if homophobes don’t have any books affirming their views? The library isn’t there to support diverse views. It’s there to put forward the views librarians approve of. That’s why people become librarians in the first place, because they love that power. After all, these books are still available and Focus on the Family would probably be happy to send you a copy. Only the ALA and their minions call it “censorship.”

In fact, what’s refreshing here is that there was a slip in the bureaucratic explanation. They had that beautiful, circular “professionally recognized journal” argument. Then they had to come out and say they reject books they think might offend some people, especially the librarians. We knew it all along. I’m just glad someone finally admitted it. Come to think of it, since they haven’t turned on these librarians, maybe the ALA OIF has finally admitted it as well. A brave new world indeed.

For the past 26 years, the increasingly radical American Library Association (ALA) has celebrated a week dedicated to the myth of book banning and censorship in public libraries. In truth, the books that are supposedly ‘banned’ are readily available for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.

Ironically, the ALA fails to recognize that public and school libraries across the nation do, in fact, engage in censorship of conservative worldviews and scholarship. For example, why is it that Deerfield High School has over 60 pro-homosexual books on their shelves, but not one book articulating a traditional view of this contentious topic?

TAKE ACTION: Search the database of your local public high school library for evidence of book-banning on the topic of homosexuality.

Following that search, contact us HERE, so that we can compile a list of schools that appear to engage in systematic book-banning. Please provide the following information:

• Name of the high school
• Approximate number of books on the topic (including both fiction and non-fiction)
• Approximate number of books that appear to include both conservative and liberal viewpoints
• Approximate number of books that appear to embody, espouse, or be written from only a liberal perspective
• Approximate number of books that appear to embody, espouse, or be written from only a conservative perspective.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please send IFI’s Division of School Advocacy an email HERE.

Background
Every time a parent musters the courage to question the inclusion of a book in a middle or high school curricula, our perfervid protectors of academic freedom and defenders of diversity start squawking about censorship and book banning. They raise the specter of Fahrenheit 451 in their efforts to scare one segment of the population and humiliate another. What their squawking conceals, however, is a pervasive and near absolute censorship of conservative ideas and scholarship on the subject of homosexuality.

Most parental challenges arise from concern about obscene language, graphic sex, and the promotion of biased, unproven theories on homosexuality. It’s troubling enough that librarians and other academic activists apparently believe that book selection criteria should never include the nature and extent of obscene language or the nature and extent of sexual scenes. After all, rejecting a text because it includes egregiously obscene language or sexual scenes of such graphic nature that in a movie they would necessitate an “R” rating does not constitute the exclusion of ideas. In other words, if a department chooses not to include a novel or play because of language or sex, they are not censoring an exploration of ideas.

What should be troubling to all citizens concerned with freedom is that while academic activists are unwilling to reject a text because of language and sex, they are deeply committed to censoring important ideas. They are unequivocally committed to banning books and all other resources that espouse conservative or traditional views on homosexuality or “transgenderism.” They will not purchase nor will they teach any resources that challenge the current dogmatic orthodoxy on the nature and morality of homosexuality. They censor with carefree abandon all scholarship that presents a dissenting view. All of their commitments to intellectual diversity, academic freedom, and tolerance are as conspicuously absent as the books, articles, essays, and films they ban.

Just this past August, I resigned from my full-time position as a writing tutor in my local public high school’s writing center. This is also the school from which all four of my children graduated. I learned over the years that while our freshman cannot make it through their freshman year without being exposed to resources that seek to normalize homosexuality, our students make it through all four years without ever being exposed to a single resource that articulates conservative or traditional views on homosexuality. No teacher ever brought in a single resource-not an excerpt from a book, not an essay, not an editorial, not a speaker-nothing that presents an opposing viewpoint.

Meanwhile, teachers have brought in articles from popular magazines, taught plays (Heidi Chronicles, The Laramie Project, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes), taught essays, provided panel discussions with gay and transgender students, played games, led activities, mounted theatre productions, arranged field trips (e.g., Anti-Defamation League’s “World of Difference”), and shown films all of which promote one biased view of homosexuality and “transgenderism.” How, pray tell, can students learn to think critically when all they see, hear, and read represents one perspective? This clear, inarguable bias transmogrifies public education into indoctrination. And this indoctrination depends on censorship for its success.

Check for yourself!
Parents, search your local school libraries from your home computer using the following search terms: homosexuality, sexual orientation, gay, lesbian, transgender, gender identity, gender expression, GLBT, and LGBTQ. See what turns up. The last time I checked my public school library, there were approximately seventy-four books, including both fiction and non-fiction, on the topic of sexual orientation. Of those, there were about ten that are used for debate and therefore include both liberal and conservative viewpoints. Of the remaining sixty-plus books, every single one embodies or espouses a liberal viewpoint. There was not one book written by a scholar, essayist, or popular writer that articulates a conservative position. This, in my humble opinion, exposes a deeply troubling commitment to censorship.

If or when you address the troubling imbalance in your curricula and library book collections, you will likely hear the embarrassing and feeble rationalization that I heard from my administration and library staff. They stated that the library uses certain selection “protocols,” explaining that they order books that have been reviewed favorably by certain review journals. I countered that if their review journals are not reviewing any books from conservative scholars or are not reviewing favorably any books by conservative scholars, then they need to move outside their protocols, because relative balance in the book collection is more important than protocols. It would seem that having one book out of sixty-five might be a good start.

Next week is the America Library Association’s “Banned Books Week.” Their website carries this statement:

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met. [Emphasis added.]

Please use this opportunity to make your case that books from a conservative perspective on homosexuality are being banned with troubling regularity from both public school curricula and libraries.

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It is only because of concerned citizens like you that we are able to continue promoting pro-family values in the Prairie State.

Thank you for helping us to reach more families!

I recently attended a town hall meeting during which an impassioned public debate ensued regarding the very controversial decision of our public high school superintendent and school board to permit the exceedingly obscene, pro-homosexual play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes to be taught in some senior English classes. 

During this debate, the issue of censorship was brought up several times, following which I made the point that if the community were genuinely concerned about censorship, they would be in high dudgeon about the pervasive censorship of conservative ideas and scholarship on the topic of homosexuality. I pointed out that in our school, students cannot make it through freshman year without being exposed to liberal views on sexual orientation, and yet they make it through all four years without ever being exposed to conservative scholarship on this topic. 

Following the community discussion, I spoke with a high school student who was covering the story for the student newspaper. I asked her what her peers would think about the censorship of conservative ideas on this topic and was discouraged to learn that high school students would not be offended by this pervasive censorship because they view conservative thought as hateful.

That is tragic and frightening. It’s tragic because these students have likely never read the ideas of conservative scholars. They have not read intelligent, compassionate, erudite arguments, and yet they’ve formed judgments. And it is frightening because it reveals a profound indifference to the process of intellectual inquiry which is essential to ascertaining truth and portends a future of disturbing ignorance. 

Moreover, to censor the ideas of conservative intellectuals who are thinking deeply and writing intelligently, cogently, and eloquently is a pedagogical travesty and simply dangerous. Who decides which ideas embody truth and wisdom? Critical thinking cannot take place in an intellectual vacuum. And thoughtful, well-informed, challenging intellectual debate cannot take place without all positions being fairly presented. On the issue of sexual orientation, public schools are neither educating nor cultivating critical thinking. Activist ideologues are indoctrinating using the most superficial of ideas.

I think even our bright, mature, uber-sophisticated high school students might be surprised at what they don’t know. There are Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant scholars who hold conservative views on homosexuality, and there are purely secular arguments against the legalization of same-sex marriage. There are many conservative scholars who are writing from their positions in prestigious colleges, universities, law schools, and think tanks. Their arguments are well-reasoned, sophisticated, compassionate, challenging, and informed by logic, philosophy, history, theology, science, and literature. 

If students think they know what the arguments of conservative intellectuals are from the sound bite-driven popular media, they are sadly mistaken. From our popular media, they will not glean even the skeleton of an argument. What they will get is an unsophisticated, editorial comment on an argument that a biased journalist has likely not even read. 

I find interesting the oft-repeated suggestion that those parents who object to the inclusion of Angels in America ought to pull their kids out of public schools and send them to private schools. Well, actually, it’s not a very interesting suggestion; it’s a rather tired and tiresome suggestion. 

I would like to suggest the radical proposition that when public money is used, those who have a deep longing to have their children study what most people on all ends of the political and philosophical spectrum acknowledge is an extremely obscene and controversial text, should pull their children out of public schools and send them to private schools. 

People who are struggling against a depraved culture to inculcate in their children their faith, the beliefs that emerge from that faith, and what were once commonly shared values should not be compelled to subsidize the teaching of a text that undermines everything they hold to be true and good and beautiful. With public money, we should respect the voices of all, which is relatively easy to do with the plethora of truly great texts available that can cultivate sophisticated and critical thinking without assaulting the sensibilities of anyone. Even those who have no children in schools should not be compelled to subsidize ideas and images that they view as pernicious. Advocates and supporters of public education need to understand that they cannot take the public’s money and use it any old way they please. They ought not even attempt to teach material that much of the taxpaying public finds reprehensible. 

It is those who seek to teach and study material that violates the consciences of many who ought to pursue private education. Those of us who are willing to accommodate the beliefs of most people by choosing resources that are rich, complex, compelling, but neither extremely obscene nor extremely controversial have the proper understanding of the freedom, limits, and ethical obligations that attend the use of public funds.

A broad coalition of individuals and organizations is urging parents to oppose the Day of Silence (DOS), a political action sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), because it politicizes the classroom for ideological purposes. 

The explicit purpose of DOS is to encourage sympathy and support for students involved in homosexual behavior and cross-dressing whose voices have been allegedly silenced by the disapproval of society. The implicit purpose is to undermine the belief that homosexuality is immoral. Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.

Parents should call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration and/or teachers will be permitting students to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence. If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence. 

School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The DOS requires that teachers either create activities around the silence of some or many, or exempt silent students from any activity that involves speaking. Furthermore, DOS participants have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom. 

Some administrators assert that DOS merely seeks to promote “acceptance.” They fail to clarify, however, what precisely they want students to accept. While 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 acceptance of people, meaning that we should treat all with civility, it is not appropriate to suggest that students need to accept the view that homosexual conduct is moral. These important distinctions are rarely, if ever, made in public school discussions of “acceptance.”

One oft-repeated mantra is that the goal of DOS is to keep LGBTQ students safe. The problematic rhetoric of “safety,” however, substitutes speciously for the more accurate term of “comfort.” To suggest that in order for those who self-identify as homosexual or “transgender” to be “safe,” no one may disapprove of homosexual conduct is both absurd and dangerous. If this definition of “safety” were to be applied consistently, virtually all statements of disapproval would be prohibited.

Day of Silence participants claim they seek to end discrimination. There is, however, a problem with the way “discrimination” is defined in public discourse today. Groups like GLSEN believe that statements of moral conviction with which they disagree constitute prejudice or discrimination. While relentlessly promoting this view, administrators are never asked to provide evidence for the dubious presuppositions on which claims of discrimination are based. They are never asked to provide evidence for the arguable claim that homosexuality is equivalent to race; or that disapproval of homosexual conduct is equivalent to racism; or that homosexual impulses are biologically determined; or that the presence of biological influences in shaping desire renders a behavior automatically moral. The time is long past that parents demand justification for those claims.

If we allow schools to define discrimination so expansively as to prohibit all statements of moral conviction, character development is compromised and speech rights are trampled. And if administrators continue to define discrimination in such a way as to preclude only some statements of moral conviction, they violate their pedagogical commitment to intellectual diversity and render the classroom a place of indoctrination. 

Finally, DOS supporters contend that one of their purposes is to end harassment. What they fail to acknowledge is that the worthy end of eliminating harassment does not justify the means of exploiting instructional time. There are myriad other ways to work toward that end. DOS participants have a First Amendment right to wear t-shirts, or put up posters, or host after-school speakers, or set up tables from which to distribute informative materials. They ought not to be allowed to manipulate instructional time in the service of their socio-political goals.

Here are responses to some common concerns about calling children out of school on DOS:

• Some parents believe that there is value in having students who hold traditional views on sexual orientation in class on the DOS. This belief is flawed for two reasons. First, the adolescent culture is liberal, and adolescents desire to fit in. The vast majority of conservative kids do not feel comfortable vocally opposing their culture and will not do so. As those who are more public in opposing the normalization of homosexuality can attest, very few adults have the courage to oppose the dominant culture; we cannot expect teens to do what adults don’t do. 

  Moreover, the goal of calling students out of school on DOS is not to communicate an alternative message to that of DOS. The goal is to remove GLSEN-sponsored political action from taxpayer-funded classes.

• Some parents express concern over the possibility of teachers exacting revenge through grading. First, it would be highly unethical for a teacher to treat a student punitively because of the teacher’s subjective assessment of the parents’ reason for calling a student out. If a teacher were to attempt to punish a student in such a way, parents should address the problem with the administration. Second, some students are willing to accept this possibility, viewing the cause as worthy of the sacrifice. Finally, those parents and teens who are not willing to risk even the remote possibility of teacher retribution can call their child out of school and not send a letter expressing their objections to DOS. 
• Some have argued that calling students out of class represents an attempt to deny free speech. Calling students out of class does not represent an attempt to deny free speech to students; rather, calling students out of class represents opposition to the exploitation of instructional time for socio-political action. Students are free to express their views in multiple ways mentioned above.
• Some claim that those who oppose DOS must not care about the suffering of LGBTQ teens. It is utterly specious to suggest that parents, teachers, and administrators who oppose political action in the classroom support harassment. Put another way, this claim implies that the only way parents, administrators, and teachers can prove they oppose harassment of homosexual or transgendered teens is to allow the politicization of the classroom. It also represents a classic ends justifies the means argument: If the ends, in this case, combating harassment of homosexual teens, are good, then any and all means are justified. 

  There are countless worthwhile goals that should not be promoted during class. Some might consider ending the tragedy of teen drunk-driving deaths, or the war in Iraq, or abortion to be worthwhile goals, and yet it would be equally inappropriate to use the classroom to promote them. The truth is that parents, teachers, and administrators can oppose harassment while concomitantly opposing the politicization of instructional time.

Schools have the right to prohibit student silence in the classroom if they deem it “disruptive.” It is our hope and belief that if schools have one group of students silent and another group called out, they will eventually decide that classroom silence is “disruptive.”

SEE EXCERPTS BELOW —– **WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT**

References: Excerpts, Character Summary, Letter from a Mother

North Shore Student Advocacy has learned that Deerfield High School is offering the books Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (Part One & Two) — laced with graphic sexual content, including gay sex, pervasive expletives, religious denigration and mockery — in English classes this spring.

“After almost 15 years of school advocacy and reviewing many objectionable books and curricula, I have never seen anything this vulgar and harmful to students,” says Lora Sue Hauser, Executive Director of North Shore Student Advocacy. “Parents, taxpayers, and concerned citizens must force themselves to read these excerpts, as horrific as they are, so you know what kids are being exposed to. The school justifies this egregious choice because of its themes of hope. Evidently, all great literature with themes of hope have already been exhausted so teachers need to start offering pornography. We say – enough.”

North Shore Student Advocacy (NSSA), an organization to help parents and students when they run into problems in public schools, was made aware of these books last fall when a parent complained. The books were part of required reading until NSSA filed a formal complaint with the school, asking the books to be reviewed by committee. The committee decided to remove the books from required reading, but they continued to offer them in the classroom as an optional title. “Optional Title,” according to the principal, means that the student may select the books to study with peers and be guided by the adult, male teacher. A parental permission slip will be required but without full disclosure of the sexually explicit content. This conclusion is unacceptable to the complaining parent and to NSSA. They are asking that this pornographic book be removed from curriculum completely.

After contacting the State’s Attorney’s office of Lake County, Illinois, they deemed the books “obscene” according to Illinois obscenity laws, violating the “distributing harmful materials to minors” statute. But, state and federal obscenity laws exempt schools and libraries under “affirmative defense” so it becomes impossible to prosecute a teacher or school.

Deerfield High School, an upscale suburban community on the North Shore of Chicago, has had a long history of presenting inappropriate curricula to students. They continue to have faculty who push their own personal agendas and are unresponsive to parents and taxpayers in the community. Not surprisingly, the administration has a very high turnover rate; 4 principals and 3 superintendents in 6 years.

Please contact Deerfield High School, District 113 and the Lake County District Attorney to give your opinion on yet another violation of trust.

Principal, Dr. Sue Hebson: (224) 632-3000
Superintendent, Dr. George Fornero: (224) 765-1000
Lake County State’s Attorney: Mr. Mike Waller: (847) 377-3000

For more information, contact North Shore Student Advocacy here.

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Please share this information on social media and with your like-minded friends and neighbors.  Only a strong response from Illinois citizens can stop this tax exploitation from going through.

It is only because of concerned citizens like you that we are able to continue promoting pro-family values in the Prairie State.

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Now in its 18th year, “See you at the Pole” is an annual event to “bring students to their school flagpoles to intercede for their leaders, schools, and families, asking God to bring moral and spiritual awakening to their campuses and countries.” Students all across America gather at their school flagpoles to pray for our nation.

We’re blessed that we live in a country in which we have the freedom to exercise our religious rights. We should take advantage of this freedom that so many in other countries don’t enjoy. While Christians in other countries must practice their faith in hiding or risk imprisonment and even death, we can practice ours freely.

IFI wants to encourage you students to join together with other students who love Christ to pray for your friends, your classmates, your teachers, your families, our soldiers, our country, and those in other countries who suffer unimaginable persecution for Christ.

Remember Jesus’ words:

“Where two or three are gathered together in my Name,
there am I in the midst of them.”
(Matt.18:20)

IFI realizes that for many of you in many communities, participation in this event takes courage. Taking your faith seriously and acting on your faith in such a public way is wildly countercultural. But God will honor your countercultural acts and answer your prayers.

And know that while you are praying at the pole, your parents, pastors, and priest will be praying for you.

To learn more about See You at the Pole, visit www.syatp.com

I’m speechless. I’m also beginning to understand how a homosexuality-affirming middle school was by default approved by the Milwaukee Board of Education. Wisconsin public schools are permitting radical ideologues to use public money to promote their subversive, unproven moral conclusions and political goals about homosexuality. These propagandists, who should be teaching history or literature or writing, are instead pursuing their illegitimate goals of transforming the views of other people’s children on the contentious issue of homosexuality.

Here is the most recent manifestation of educational malpractice:

Sarah Arnold who teaches 11th grade English in the Elkhorn, Wisconsin area, generously shares with readers of Teaching Tolerance, a publication of the social justice organization Southern Poverty Law Center, her grand sexual re-education scheme. Disturbed that her students “cracked jokes about anything that defied gender stereotypes,” she embarked on a 37-day indoctrination program to transform her students’ views on homosexuality — a 37-day unit. The average school year is 180 days, and she spent 37 of them on homosexuality.

Here are some of the activities from the unit she titled, “Exposing Hidden Homophobia”:

• Students “conducted an in-depth exploration of depictions of the GLBTQ community in the mass media”
• Students “watched the film Trevor (about the struggle of a gay teen in the Bible Belt in the 1970s)”
• Students “viewed a PBS special about the anti-gay murder of Billy Jack Gaither“
• Students “did Internet research on the nature of homophobia”
• Students “selected and read a book from a short list of young adult works about gay issues” (including Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, Rainbow Road, Getting It, A Tale of Two Summers, The Laramie Project, So Hard to Say, Geography Club, Alone in the Trenches)
• “Students watch 60 Minutes ‘Gay or Straight'”
• Students watch and discuss “MTV’s True Life: Gay Parents video“
• Faculty Advisor from the Gay/Straight Alliance comes in to speak to the class about questions they may have and what happens at a GSA meeting. Students are offered extra credit to go to a GSA meeting and participate in the discussion.
• Students “watch Race, Gender, and Sexuality“
• Students “watch The Laramie Project (takes three days)”
• “Arnold recalls how she sparked a lively discussion by simply providing her students with a copy of a newspaper story about a hate group that protests at the funerals of gay people and soldiers killed in the Iraq war.” (Ah, yes, another instance of sexual subversives trotting out the fringe character of Fred Phelps as representative of all those who believe homosexuality is wrong. I’m sure Ms. Arnold neglected to inform her students that conservative Christians all across this nation find the activities and beliefs of Fred Phelps reprehensible. And I doubt whether she told her students that his “church” is composed of about twenty members of his own family. Those two bits of information wouldn’t likely serve her purposes.)
• Ms. Arnold had students take this “Homophobia Questionnaire” that fairly oozes bias: Click HERE.
• Ms. Arnold had students define the following terms: “homophobia, heterocentrism, heterosexism, and erasure.” Their homework was to “write one paragraph providing examples of behaviors relating to each term listed above.” How central those terms are to the teaching of literature is not quite clear.
• Ms. Arnold had students take the “Heterosexual Questionnaire” in which they were to take “questions commonly asked of homosexuals and ask them of heterosexuals (example: When did you decided to become heterosexual?).”
• Students read “A Rose for Charlie,” “A nonfiction account of an anti-gay hate crime.”

Wow. Vietnam’s re-education camps got nothin’ on Sarah Arnold.

The article in Teaching Tolerance reported that:

“Her students resisted at first. . . . Some parents also balked: many people in Elkhornattend churches that interpret the Bible as condemning homosexuality. In addition, administrators fretted about devoting more than a month of instruction to a single theme.

“Still,Arnold had done her homework. When parents or administrators questioned the plan, she was able so (sic) show how it supported higher-order thinking skills. She had each student assemble and present, in a professional manner, a portfolio on their research. Students had to define sociological and literary terms used in the unit, analyze examples of gay themes in the media, do qualitative research to examine the changing culture within their schools and in the world outside, and write a letter explaining what they learned from the unit.”

For academic ideologues, that’s the beauty of teaching English: they can always find ways to rationalize the teaching of controversial texts that undermine traditional values. They just assert that these texts cultivate higher order thinking skills, or critical thinking skills, or research skills or the teaching of literary terms or that they connect thematically to other texts being taught. These are all subterfuges to conceal the true goal of societal transformation. And we fall for it every time. We’re spineless dupes. Virtually any piece of writing could be used to fulfill those purposes.

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

English teachers, unlike, for example, math teachers, can far too easily design their curriculum around their personal beliefs. For academic ideologues, the central criterion for text selection becomes a text’s social and political content. Arnold, like countless other English teachers, bases her text selections on whether the ideas conform to and advance her socio-political goals and her particular moral convictions. And she’s doing this with public money.

Perhaps she would have served the educational goals of her students a wee bit better had she asked them to research Fred Phelps. They could have contacted theologically orthodox churches to find out what they think about his activities. They could have found out more about his fringe church. Perhaps Ms. Arnold could have provided her students with names of intelligent, articulate scholars like Professor Robert Gagnon at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; Robert George at Princeton; Anthony Esolen at Providence College; J.Budziszewski at University of Texas; Francis Beckwith at Baylor U.; Hadley Arkes at Amherst; Christopher Wolfe at Marquette U.; Stanton Jones at Wheaton College; Gerald Bradley and John Finnis at Notre Dame; Dennis Prager; or Michael Medved to interview or whose works they could read. Oops, I forgot-critical thinking, research, and education weren’t her real goals: they were just the cover.

Lest you think Ms. Arnold’s educational malpractice is a problem just for the Elkhorn area, Teaching Tolerance reported that “Teachers and administrators who have seen Arnold’s work have been inspired to incorporate it into their own curriculum. Colleen Rafter, principal of Raritan High School in Hazlet, N.J., said that after seeing Arnold’s approach, she encouraged her English department to adopt a similar curriculum.”

“‘We really want to make a change in how people think and act,’ Rafter said. ‘I will try to be more brave on these issues myself.'”

There is something parents whose children are placed in Ms. Arnold’s class can do: Insist that their child be moved into the class of a teacher who truly respects diverse views and who has the humility to understand what a teacher’s proper role is.

And there is something that taxpayers can do: Express their unequivocal opposition to the use of their taxes to subsidize socio-political indoctrination. They should express their views to Ms. Arnold, her department chair, her administration, the school board, and their local press.

Ms. Arnold apparently does not understand that a number of her implicit or explicit presuppositions are just flat out wrong:

• Homosexuality is not equivalent to race, which many African Americans and queer theorists will confirm to her if she doesn’t believe me.
• There is no research proving that homosexuality is biologically determined.
• Even if it were found that there are some biological factors influencing same-sex attraction, it would not follow that volitional homosexual conduct is automatically moral. Biology tells us precisely nothing about morality.
• Expressions of moral disapproval of conduct do not constitute hatred or incitement to violence.

Ms. Arnold apparently also does not see what Stanley Fish sees, which is that academics should begin with “the understanding that they are first and foremost academics and not wise men, gurus, and saviors.” Understanding their proper role, Fish asserts, will prevent teachers from being “tempted to cross the line between pedagogy and activism”–something thatArnoldhas clearly and unfortunately done.