Sunday, May 11, 2008

Homosexual indoctrination starts in Minneapolis

Opponents tell district to leave sexuality out of social culture

A special interest program assembled by the Human Rights Campaign to promote homosexuality has been launched in the 91-school Minneapolis district, even as opponents are urging school officials to keep sexuality out of the social culture. "The government should promote and encourage strong families," said Austin R. Nimocks, a senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "When school officials have to choose between protecting children in those families or furthering the homosexual agenda, the choice is obvious: protecting our children comes first."

The issue is the "Welcoming Schools" program assembled by the HRC, which advocates for and promotes homosexuality. District spokesman Ross Bennett told WND the program already has been launched in one school and was under consideration by the district's curriculum committee for other uses. He said he knew of one principal in one school who had requested help because of "bullying" that he believed was focused on sexual orientation issues, and the district considers the HRC promotional program another tool for teachers and administrators to use. He said the district's existing anti-bullying program could not be called inadequate, but "there's always room for improvement."

The ADF's comments accompanied a legal memo to the district advising officials of the true intent of the HRC promotion. "HRC says the program is designed to stop bullying, even though its true intent is to promote the homosexual agenda," Nimocks said. "If HRC merely cared about bullying, they would simply endorse the school district's vigorous 'Bullying and Hazing Policy.'" "According to its own statistics, HRC represents only 4.1 percent of American adults who identify themselves as homosexual, but it is attempting to implement its agenda on our children and the remaining 95.9 percent of American adults who don't identify themselves as either 'gay' or 'lesbian,'" he said.

The promotional materials, the ADF said, can lead to a wide range of "practical and legal problems." "Especially within schools, bathrooms, locker rooms, and other intimate places will no longer be protected from members of the opposite sex once 'gender identity' becomes standard behavior for students," the memo states. "From an enforcement standpoint, school officials would be unable to discern whether a boy who is using the girls' restroom is a sexual predator, prankster, or one who sincerely believes that he is somehow a girl."

According to published reports in Minnesota, the district is moving forward with the plan despite opposition from parents, who complained the agenda places too much emphasis on teaching about homosexual and other lifestyle choices, and includes too little about racial and religious diversity "and that it undermines parental authority by causing confusion in children." Supt. Bill Green, however, in a newspaper, endorsed the plan. His office declined to allow WND to ask him any questions, referring all inquiries instead to Bennett.

WND previously has reported on a nationwide campaign to have parents keep their children home from schools when the institutions promote the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" activist event annually. The advanced state of California's homosexual indoctrination program for public school students also has been documented.

The MinnPost.com website reported it was the principal at Hale School in the district, Bob Brancale, who demanded the program. He said there's a need for an anti-bullying program that includes homosexual issues and he wanted the program installed and his teachers trained. The principal said there were 240 behavioral referrals this school year and 60 were for bullying, including about half involving "some form of gay slurs," the report said. The school board said it left curriculum matters to its school managers.

But the Alliance Defense Fund said the proposal will make problems. "The 'Welcoming Schools' project incorporates within itself two incorrect and dangerous assumptions - (a) that one's sex is a mental decision and not a biological fact, and (b) that individuals are born with an immutable 'sexual orientation,' including children as young as five-years-old having normal same-sex attractions." "It is clear that the goal of HRC is to implement an educational program to indoctrinate young children with social viewpoints that are extremely controversial, out of the mainstream, and rely on unproven scientific theory that runs counter to American cultural and scholastic interests," the ADF advisory said. "The indoctrination of children with HRC's anti-religion political agenda will present serious practical and legal problems, especially [as] adults are charged with the safety and security of other people's children."

Among other issues, the ADF said, presenting such indoctrination in class would violate the district's own policy addressing teaching controversial material. Further complicating the issue would be the program's targeting children ages 5-7 with a lesson "that sex is an irrelevant biological inconvenience." "In fact . HRC embraces the notion that a person can identify as neither male nor female, but instead 'intersexual,'" the ADF said.

The promotional material's use of "gender identity" is just an attempt to "socially normalize behavior flowing from a known and recognized mental illness (Gender Identity Disorder)," the ADF said. "As a society, if we were to begin ignoring the needs of those inflicted with schizophrenia, denying them treatment, care, medication, and counseling, the consequences would be devastating. The turning of a blind eye to GID is no less destructive," the letter said.

On a practical level, schools no longer would be able to segregate boys and girls for restroom needs, locker room facilities and other intimate situations once "gender identity" is fully embraced, the ADF said. "By choosing to embrace HRC's political agenda, school administrators would be forced to defer to the perceived or designated sex of each individual, without regard to their biological reality," the group said. Working under such a belief system, "there is no circumstance under which a teacher or school administrator would know whether to object to any given individual's usage of the boys or girls restroom."

"Moreover, all students possess privacy rights, even within their school.," the group said. "The law protects students . in refraining from having their bodies exposed to members of the opposite sex. . There exists no compelling interest that justifies your endangering the health, welfare, and safety of . students in order to acquiesce to a wayward and misguided political agenda."

The legal advisory also noted the HRC program lacks scientific support and usurps parental rights. "The 'Welcoming Schools' project is sex-based education - nothing more," the ADF said. "Allowing the country's largest LGBTQ advocacy and political organization to dictate elementary school curriculum will pique the curious and inquisitive minds of the school district's children, leading to disastrous consequences."

One of those consequences, according to ADF, would be an open door to damage claims. "Since everyone arguably possesses some semblance of 'sexual orientation,' nothing will prevent students from making various or inconsistent claims." ADF said, which could not be defended because the basis for such claims woudl be a perceived sexual orientation.

Source



Ontario Premier's Plan to Scrap Lord's Prayer Backfires as Groundswell Grows in Opposition

The Ontario premier's plans to scrap the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the Legislature has resulted in a groundswell of opposition. The flood of emails objecting to the proposal temporarily crashed the website of Queen's Park, and hundreds of phone calls have come in protesting the move. MPPs have complained that the time and money spent on the project could have better been spent elsewhere, especially considering there had been no calls to abolish the prayer leading up to McGuinty's decision to put the proposal to scrap the prayer before a committee.

In a move that reportedly surprised MPPs, Premier McGuinty, who continues to claim membership in the Catholic Church, told the legislature in February this year that the time had come to "move beyond" open acknowledgement of Christianity in the Ontario government. He asked a committee to draft a religiously neutral "prayer" that would better suit Ontario's "religious diversity". "I've asked for a parliamentary committee, with representation from each of the parties and the Speaker's involvement as well, to take a look at how we can move beyond the Lord's Prayer to a broader approach that is more inclusive in nature," McGuinty said.

McGuinty told media, "We're much more than just Protestants and Catholics today. We have all the world's faiths represented here." But Ontario, statistically speaking, is not as "diverse" as Mr. McGuinty might believe. Recent figures show that two-thirds of Ontario's population is Christian. In Canada overall, professing Christians still make up at least 70 per cent of the population.

McGuinty admitted that his suggestion to abolish the Lord's Prayer had resulted in a scolding from his Catholic mother. He told media today that he is "looking forward" to hearing the recommendation of the committee. But committee chairman Steve Peters told media that while the response was overwhelmingly against the idea from the public, the committee had not finished its consultation process. Various groups, including atheists and non-Christian organizations, have been given until the end of the month to make presentations.

Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop said, "The Lord's Prayer is inclusive enough that it covers a lot of different religions. It's not just about religion. It's about tradition." "You don't tamper too much with what you've got," he said. "This really irks a lot of people and gets under their skin."

NDP MPP for Parkdale-High Park, Cheri DiNovo said that "about 80 per cent" of constituents are in favour of keeping the Lord's Prayer. "Now he's getting his groundswell," she added.

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said, "I don't think there was any thirst to have a debate on this at all, certainly not compared to hospital emergency rooms or lost jobs. But now that Mr. McGuinty - for reasons best known to him - has started the debate, people are quite animated about it."

Source



The land of the almost free to speak up

I'd like to think it was the sangria talking. But the plain truth is, when Anna said she doesn't find this country to be especially free, it was Anna talking. Granted, her complaint is hardly new. People often grouse about the lack of freedom in the land of the free.

But you see, Anna is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in the Evil Empire, world's leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States where she now lives than in the once-totalitarian regime where she was born, well . . . it gets your attention. And when she says Americans sometimes remind her of the gray, fatalistic people who shuffled along under communism, unwilling to think too deeply, say too much or laugh too loudly for fear of offending the State, it is striking, to say the least.

You won't know Anna from Estonia. She is a friend's fiance, and these insights were not part of some think tank paper but, rather, came in the ebb and flow of table talk one recent night at a Mexican restaurant. Still, I think Anna is onto something. Americans, she said, love to trumpet their freedom. But it's hard to square that with political correctness that straitjackets communication for fear of giving unintended offense, hair-trigger litigiousness that requires major corporations to treat customers (''Caution: Coffee is hot'') like idiots for fear of being sued, zero tolerance policies and mandatory sentencing guidelines that remove human judgment from human encounters for fear of rendering unequal justice.

You do not have to agree that Americans compare unfavorably with the dull and dispirited Party men and women of a generation ago -- I don't -- to believe Anna has a point. A nation of iconoclasts and originals seems hellbent on becoming a nation of hall monitors. A nation born in revolution has lived to see revolution neutered and co-opted. So much so that even that which poses as a threat to the status quo (hip-hop, for example) nowadays has commercial sponsorship and corporate tie-ins.

It's hard to imagine an Elvis Presley happening in such an era. Or a Malcolm X, a Miles Davis, a Marlon Brando, a Bob Dylan, a Walt Disney, a Betty Friedan or any of the other American originals who poleaxed the 20th century. After all, originality is anathema to uniformity and, make no mistake, uniformity is what we're talking about here, the campaign to regulate language, law, culture and every other aspect of human intercourse in the hope of thereby removing from that intercourse every hint of risk or danger of unequal treatment.

To put it another way: You can hardly accuse the cashier of being rude to you because of your sexual orientation if the cashier is a keypad; you can hardly sue the maker of the vending machine you rocked until it fell over on you if it bears a sign that says rocking this machine will cause it to fall over on you; you can hardly say the judge gave you a harsh sentence because you're Hispanic if the judge had no role in choosing your sentence.

And if this impulse toward uniformity sounds noble in theory, what it leads to in practice is kids kicked out of school because Midol violates the zero-tolerance drug policy, or a parolee getting 25 to life because the pizza slice he stole violates the three-strike law.

And, too, it leads to Anna from Estonia making it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No. Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up. ''Caution: Coffee is hot.'' Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don't need a sign to know this.

Source



Change That Kids Could Believe In

Among the many items that presidential hopeful Barack Obama lists in his agenda for lowering American poverty is legislation that would "promote responsible fatherhood" by, among other measures, stricter enforcement of laws requiring absent fathers to support their children. Perhaps Obama should take a look at the latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics on child custody and child support. The data might prompt him to revamp his legislation in support of a broader reform--responsible parenthood among both sexes.

The recently released data indicate some progress, after a decade of tougher enforcement of court-ordered child support by certain localities. While the overall share of parents with custody of kids who received at least some child support in 2005 (the latest year statistics are available) grew slightly--to 77.2 percent, from 75.8 percent in 1995--the percentage of parents receiving all the support due them increased to 47 percent, from only 37 percent a decade earlier. Those gains are significant, because the data show that single-parent households that get full child support from absent parents are far less likely to wind up in poverty.

But below the surface of the census report is a troubling trend that has as much to do with mothers as with fathers: the rapidly rising percentage of custodial single parents who have never married. These parents, mostly mothers, are far less likely to have support agreements with the child's absent parent, because their relationships are less solid than those between formerly married couples who raised children together for some time before splitting. Only 48 percent of never-married parents have such agreements, compared with 62 percent of all other parents. Further, these never-married parents are far less likely to receive child-support payments even when arrangements are in place--only 40 percent received everything due them in 2005, compared with half of all other parents.

What's most troubling is that unwed parents represent the fastest-growing segment of single parents: their numbers have increased by a quarter since 1995, and they now make up 30 percent of all parents with court-ordered custody of children when the other biological parent is absent. The growth in out-of-wedlock births is a serious impediment to reducing child poverty in America. Whereas fewer than 10 percent of children living with two parents live below the poverty line, about 37 percent of those living with single mothers do. Kids born out of wedlock are particularly likely to wind up in poverty. In 2007, half of all women who had children out of wedlock were in poverty, ensuring that their children wound up there, too.

Over the years, society has tried to make absent parents, mostly fathers, contribute to the support of their children. But the image of a rich deadbeat dad enjoying the high life while his kids and ex go hungry is a fanciful one that applies to only a small percentage of families. A far larger problem is fathers who can't support their children because they're unemployable for a host of reasons, ranging from incarceration to drug addiction. Gleaning lessons from welfare reform, some social entrepreneurs are developing programs, like Philadelphia-based Public/Private Ventures's Fathers at Work, to make these fathers more employable and hence better able to support their children. If such efforts prove successful, they could play an important role in reducing child poverty.

But the problem of unwed parents is even more complex. According to 2007 census data, only 28 percent of unwed mothers who gave birth last year were living with a partner. Such arrangements do not augur well for men's making lifetime commitments to their kids' support and development.

So while enforcement programs haul the deadbeat dad--or the occasional deadbeat mom--into court, something more is needed. Obama's agenda aims to encourage marriage with more tax credits for working-poor married couples and other family-friendly initiatives, but the rise in out-of-wedlock births is not a function of tax policy. We long ago destigmatized this form of parenthood: young men boast about the children they've fathered illegitimately, and young women seem unaware that such births are a superhighway to lifetime poverty for them and their kids. But there's nothing cool about the terrible consequences that rising out-of-wedlock births are having for America's children. It would be refreshing to see a natural leader and strong father figure like Obama talk frankly about this problem. Such a discussion is long overdue.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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