Not with MY Tax money!

Radical ‘Thought Crimes’ Bill, Ted Kennedy’s S. 1105, Up for Vote TODAY; Call Your Senators

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

“The leaders of America’s anti-gay industry are directly responsible for the continuing surge in hate violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. … The right went into demonic, anti-gay hyperdrive following the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision in July of 2003. Since then, church pews have been awash in ugly, anti-gay rhetoric and fear-mongering. … The literal blood of thousands of gay people physically wounded by hatred during 2004 is on the hands of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Tony Perkins and so many others who spew hate for partisan gain and personal enrichment.”
–Statement from Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, April 26, 2005, blaming “anti-gay crime” on “America’s anti-gay industry”

Dear Readers,

The preposterous and astonishingly bigoted rant above by Matt Foreman, head of the second largest homosexual organization in America, illustrates the dangerous potential of pro-homosexual, pro-transsexual “hate crimes” legislation, S. 1105, which reportedly could come up for a vote before the U.S. Senate TODAY.

TAKE ACTION : Call your U.S. Senators today at 202-224-3121, or write then via www.congress.org. Urge them to oppose the Kennedy-Smith-Reid Hate Crimes Bill, S. 1105. Pass this message on to your friends and contact list.

A strengthened federal “Hate crimes” law — which would include transsexuals (perceived “gender identity”) for the first time in federal law — would provide a powerful foundation for politically-motivated, pro-homosexual prosecutors to go after people of faith, based on their alleged “anti-gay” speech.

Foreman is lying about the link between Christians and violent, despicable crimes, just as the homosexual lobby is lying about the supposedly pressing need for this legislation (see below). The last thing America needs is to put the power of the federal government behind a system of law that creates a politically correct hierarchy of victims — in a country where homosexual victims already receive far more media attention than religious victims like Mary Stachowicz.

S 1105 would also spend YOUR tax dollars on biased “anti-hate” programs that invariably discriminate against faith-based opposition to homosexuality.

No need for this bill

A thorough report on S 1105 by the Traditional Values Coalition states that S. 1105 “makes the following fraudulent and ridiculous claims in [its] Findings:

  • Homosexuals are fleeing across state lines to avoid persecution;
  • Perpetrators are crossing state lines to commit crimes against them;
     
  • Homosexuals are so persecuted they have trouble purchasing goods and services or finding employment. [now that’s a whopper–Editor]
     
  • These false claims about homosexuals fleeing across state lines are being used as a hook to justify federal involvement in local law enforcement through the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
     
  • No Epidemic Of Hate Crimes Exists! S. 1105 falsely claims in The Findings, without any evidence, that “the incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim poses a serious national problem.”
     
  • FBI statistics from 2005 (the latest available) reveal that there is no national epidemic of hate against minority groups or against homosexuals:
     
  • According to the FBI, in 2005 there were only 5,190 hate crimes directed against all persons. Of this figure, only 1,171 were sexual orientation bias crimes. Out of this 1,171:
     
  • 301 were listed as “intimidation.”
     
  • 333 were listed as “simple assault.”
     
  • 177 were listed as aggravated assault! There was one forcible rape and no murders based on sexual orientation in 2005.
     
  • 1 forcible rape; 30 robberies; 10 burglaries; 27 larceny-theft; 2 motor vehicle theft; 1 arson; 275 damage/vandalism; 3 other; 5 crimes against society.
     
  • Nationwide there were 862,947 aggravated assaults against all persons. (Source: FBI Crime in the United States 2005, Aggravated Assault)
  • Out of 862,947 cases of aggravated assault, only 177 were motivated by sexual orientation bias. This is 0.000205 percent of all aggravated assaults in 2005.
     
  • In a nation of 300 million, this is no epidemic of hate against homosexuals that needs federal involvement in local law enforcement. (Source: Tables 2 and 4, FBI Hate Crime Stats, 2005)

My good friend Bob Knight lays out the basic problems with expanded, pro-homosexual federal “hate crimes”, arguing that legislation like S. 1105:

  • violates the concept of equal protection under the law by designating special classes of victims, who get a higher level of government protection than others victimized by similar crimes.
  • politicizes criminal law, leading to pressure on police and prosecutors to devote more of their limited resources to some cases, at the expense of other crime victims’ cases.
  • vastly expands the power and jurisdiction of the federal government to intervene in local law enforcement matters, once a crime is called a “hate crime.”
  • has a chilling effect on free speech by making unpopular ideas a basis for harsher treatment in criminal proceedings. More than half of the so-called “hate crimes” in the last U.S. Justice Department report were categorized as “intimidation” or “simple assault,” which do not necessarily involve anything more than words.2 In terms of the proposed national hate crimes bill, this makes name-calling literally a federal case.
  • confuses law enforcers, because the definition of what constitutes a “hate crime” is clear in some instances but unclear in others. This burdens prosecutors and opens up endless opportunities for defense attorneys to invoke technicalities.
  • is not necessary. There is no evidence to substantiate the claim that “hate crime” victims are receiving less justice than other crime victims.

The last thing America needs is to expand federal power unnecessarily while creating the foundation for dubious federal “rights” based on homosexuality and gender confusion. Read the full TVC report on S. 1105 HERE. And call your Senators today at 202-224-3121, or e-mail them at http://www.congress.org/.

This “hate crimes” bill has already passed the House, so if it passes the Senate, we will be urging President Bush to wield his presidential veto: call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or use the Contact Page on the presidential website.

Thank you for standing up for truth and freedom.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera

Americans For Truth

 

Get Taxpayers Out of the Homosexual Tourism Business: Chicago’s ‘Market Days’ Promotes ‘Gay’ Promiscuity

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

steamworks_bathhouse_chicago_market_days_2005.jpg 

Steamworks, a 24/7 homosexual bathhouse — where men go for anonymous sex with other men — in the heart of Chicago’s homosexual Boystown neighborhood, had a booth at the city’s 2005 “Market Days” street fair. The fair was promoted by Illinois’ tourism agency. Other booths at the event hawked “gay” porn and an anti-traditional-Catholic homosexual organization. More photos at: Illinois Family Institute’s website.
  

By Peter LaBarbera 

We missed Chicago’s “Market Days” earlier this month in the city’s homosexual neighborhood of Boystown. So will have to rely on an account I wrote in 2005 for the Illinois Family Institute to illustrate the perils of using taxpayer dollars to promote homosexual tourism.

When states like Florida and cities like Chicago promote “gay” tourism, invariably they promote (mostly male) homosexual sexual promiscuity and anti-Christian homosexual activism — such as the counterfeit Catholic homosexual group ‘Dignity Chicago,’ which had a booth at Market Days, as shown in the IFI story. 

Where else but a homosexually-oriented street fair would you see a bathhouse sponsor a booth in which people (presumably including children) lined up to play “Skeeball”; a booth right on the street hawking hundreds of “gay” porn videos; a sadistic sex store table featuring to its own life-sized wax dummy — a fat, hooded “leatherman” standing in a cage; a heretical “gay Catholic” booth — and a “health” group passing out booklets informing teenaged “boyz” that “BEING QUEER is something SPECIAL. Something to CELEBRATE”?

All that and more was found at the 2005 Chicago “Market days.” Yep, sounds like a great use of tax dollars to me.

The truth is, “gay” tourism — and homosexual events sponsored by major corporations — are unlike most other special interest promotions because they celebrate sexual immorality. Pushing the sexual (and now gender) envelope is part and parcel of the modern “GLBT” movement.

Mayor Naugle is right

Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle is urging his state’s tourism officials to stop promoting homosexual bathhouses — 24/7 walk-in sex clubs where men go for anonymous sodomitic encounters with other men — as a way to reduce HIV infections (apparently, at his urging, Florida is now going to remove the bathhouses from their “gay”-oriented travel guides). He is right. But the larger problem with governments promoting “gay” tourism is that it puts the average citizen in the position of financing — and, thus, in a way, condoning — homosexual lifestyles. Governments act on behalf of citizens.

For Americans and politicians who worship at the shrine of the Almighty Dollar, sponsoring homosexuality-oriented events is not a  problem. “Gay” dollars are green, not lavender, and broke cities need cash, while local businesses benefit, they say. But I suspect that most taxpayers would not want to subsidize and celebrate pro-homosexuality events with their hard-earned dollars.

So let the private sector finance these dubious festivals — and the sex-filled “gay” tourism industry — on their own dime. Moral-minded and fiscally prudent taxpayers want out of the homosexuality promotion business.

 

Drug-Heavy Gay ‘Circuit Parties’ as HIV/AIDS Fundraisers? The White Party in Miami

Monday, August 27th, 2007

white_party_week_graphic.bmp  At right is an online ad for the annual hedonistic “White Party” in Miami, Nov. 21-26, that appeared on a popular homosexual news site.

By Peter LaBarbera 

Now here’s a curious concept: promote all-night, all-weekend, orgiastic dance parties featuring rampant drug and alcohol use — which fuel risky, unnatural homosexual sex by people under the influence — as “HIV/AIDS Fundraisers” (see ad at right).

That’s sort of like raising funds for abstinence education at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion. Only in the surreal “gay” world — which is rarely held accountable by ‘mainstream’ media — would this be allowed to thrive.

A few homosexual writers like Michelangelo Signorile and academics alike have described what goes on at “circuit parties” such as the annual “White Party Week” in Miami, scheduled for Nov. 21-26. Signorile has crusaded for AIDS groups to end their affiliation with the circuit bashes — which are a study in an of themselves of the hedonistic homosexual male subculture.

And yet, the “AIDS prevention”-circuit party linkage continues: proceeds from the White Party go to Care Resources, “South Florida’s oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization,” according to the White Party website.

Crystal meth and condomless sodomy 

Here’s a description of “circuit parties” by two researchers from that bastion of homophobia, Northwestern University, as reported by NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality):

The authors describe circuit parties as weekend-long erotically charged “drug-prevalent dance events attended by up to 25,000 self-identified gay and bisexual men who socialize and dance nonstop, sometimes for 24 hours or longer.”

NARTH’s summary of the Northwestern researchers’ paper continues (emphasis added):

Ghaziani and Cook state that circuit parties originally began as AIDS awareness events in the mid-80s, but, “Although it is unconfirmed, circuit parties may have ironically become potential sites for HIV serotransmission.” They maintain that the idea of a link between circuit parties and HIV transmission is “not unfounded, even if it remains speculative.”
 

They note that as many as 25% of the circuit party attendees admit they are HIV positive and use crystal meth as well as ecstasy in risky sexual behaviors.
 

Most circuit party attendees (95%) admit using psychoactive drugs. Of these, 61% ingested three or more drugs in one night. In addition, 67% reported engaging in anal or oral sex. Only 21% reported engaging in “safe anal sex.” Twenty-nine percent had multiple sex partners during a weekend. Of these, 47% reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI).
 

Reasons for attending circuit parties varied with 97% saying they wanted to attend to “celebrate and have fun”; 68% wanted “to be wild and uninhibited”; 43% said they wanted sex; and 14% wanted to “forget about HIV/AIDS.”
 

The authors noted that the use of crystal meth at circuit parties is at epidemic proportions.  

Yikes. Why isn’t our our taxpayer-funded CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) condemning these drug-infested perversion parties — or at least assailing their being marketed as AIDS fundraisers? Why isn’t our federal government moving aggressively to expose this farce — just as it it did with cigarette companies that used cartoons to market to young people? 

Read the rest of this article »

Answers to Liberal Teachers’ Arguments — for Parents Challenging Objectionable Books in Schools

Friday, August 24th, 2007

angels_in_america_not_appropriate_for_schools.jpg

 

Tony Kushner’s anti-Reagan, pro-homosexuality propaganda play, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” is simply not appropriate for schools.

Even people without children or grandchildren in schools will find Laurie Higgins’ excellent arguments below compelling. Also, click HERE to read her take on “Angels in America,” which was studied in Deerfield High School, north of Chicago.– Peter LaBarbera

By Laurie Higgins

As a new school year begins, here are some of the arguments that parents may encounter when they challenge books (e.g. The Chocolate War, Fat Kid Rules the World, The Laramie Project, or Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes) for their problematic ideological messages, the nature and extent of profanity and obscenity, or the nature and extent of depictions of sexuality, followed by brief responses.

Parents who challenge a book because of language need to bear in mind that many of the parents and teachers who approve of these objectionable texts use the same obscene and profane language commonly and casually in their personal lives, even with their children, though they will not likely admit it. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that they will concede that profanity and obscenity are objectionable, for conceding that would constitute a personal indictment:

1. Parents are taking words out of context, and it is the context that justifies the language.

Response: There is no context that renders frequent and excessively obscene language acceptable in texts selected by public school teachers for minor children. In other words, the extreme nature and pervasiveness of obscenity renders the entire text unsuitable for public schools whose mission is to cultivate the best behavior in students.

2. Profane and obscene language is justified because it represents authentic adolescent language.

Response: If the author is justified in using this language to portray authentically adolescent culture and the emotional experiences of adolescents, then surely students are justified in using this language in school in order to be authentic and to express adequately and accurately their emotional truths. Teachers too should be allowed to use this language because it also represents authentic adult language and experience. In fact, society often erroneously and euphemistically refers to profanity and obscenity as “adult language.”

3. Counting numbers of swear words constitutes an immature or silly evaluative mechanism.

Response: Taking into account the extent of foul language is neither silly nor juvenile. There is a substantive difference between one incident of “f**k” and one hundred. The incessant drumbeat of obscenities desensitizes readers to their offensiveness and normalizes their use. Moreover, although adults may distinguish between literary use and endorsement, many adolescents do not.

First, the prevalence of foul language should be taken into account. Second, the nature of the obscenity or profanity should be taken into account. Third, who is using the offensive language should be taken into account. Is it the hero or the antagonist? Fourth, parents and educators should realize that books with profuse obscenity and the willingness of educators’ to teach them convey the message that there are justifiable reasons and contexts for using extremely foul language.

4. Since students mature at different rates, some students are mature enough for these texts. Parents, therefore, should decide what is appropriate for their child.

Response: Whoever makes this argument should be asked to define maturity. If they are referring to intellectual development, then it is irrelevant to the discussion in that parents who challenge texts because of language, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages, are not doing so because they find the material intellectually inaccessible.
If educators are referring to emotional maturity, meaning that students are emotionally stable enough to read and discuss emotionally difficult material without being traumatized, that too is likely irrelevant, for few parents who object to language, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages are concerned that their children will be emotionally traumatized.

The concern conservative parents have is with moral development. They recognize that all adolescents, including even mature high school seniors, are not yet adults. They are still constructing a moral compass. They are impressionable, malleable, and much more vulnerable to external influences than are adults whose moral compass is likely fixed and stable. For a teacher to contend that there is any 12-18 year-old whose moral compass is fully developed, mature, and fixed represents an ignorant and hubristic assertion.

Every parent should be able to send their child to school confident that their beliefs regarding decency and morality will not be challenged by educators or curricula, especially since this confidence can be secured without compromising the academic enterprise. It is even more important today in a culture in which profanity, obscenity, and sexual imagery relentlessly bombard our youth that schools stand as one of the last bastions of integrity, civility, and temperance.

5. A small minority group is trying to impose their morality or religious beliefs on the whole community.

Response: Since schools are ostensibly committed to honoring the voices of all in the community, there is no justifiable reason to ignore the concerns of even minority voices. Schools should respect the values of people of faith, especially when doing so does not compromise student learning. In addition, objections to obscenity, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages can be either religious or secular in nature. If objections to, for example, the use of obscenity represented the imposition of religious belief, then why do virtually all school districts have policies against its use by students in school?  It is the mark of a civilized society to honor the concerns and values of people of diverse faiths and to aspire to decency.

6. There are other options for those who object to particular texts.

Response: First, opting out of reading an assigned class text results in a diminished, isolated academic experience for students. But equally important is the issue of whether taxpayers, even those who have no children in school, should be required to fund the teaching of offensive material. A text like Angels in America contributes to the debasement of an already vulgar culture, and schools should never in any way contribute to the baser aspects of culture. This does not mean that texts must avoid looking at the flaws and evil that afflict man. Rather, it means that we should choose texts that look at the presence of ignobility and evil but do so in ways that inspire, edify, chasten, and point us in the direction of truth, beauty and righteousness. Texts like Angels in America do none of this.

 7. Refusing to offer this book will lead ineluctably to the world of book-burning à la Fahrenheit 451.

Response: This is an irrational, alarmist, specious canard. There is simply no evidence that including in selection criteria the nature and extent of obscene language or sexuality, or a consideration of highly controversial political messages will result in wholesale book banning. There is, however, ample evidence, that a steadfast refusal to ever take into account these elements will result in a slippery slide down the other slope to the use of corrosively vulgar and polemical texts.

8. This book has won prestigious literary awards or has been approved by the American Library Association (ALA).

Response:  This justification begs the question: Who serves on committees that award prizes or review texts? And this argument calls for a serious, open, and honest examination of the ideological monopoly that controls academia and the elite world of the arts that for decades has engaged in censorship of conservative scholarship. To offer as justification for teaching a text the garnering of literary prizes or ALA approval without acknowledging that those who award the prizes and belong to the ALA are generally of the same ideological bent is an exercise in sophistry.

What school committees, departments, administrations, school boards, the ALA, the National Education Association (NEA), and organizations that award literary prizes desperately need is the one form of diversity about which they are least concerned and to which they are least committed: ideological diversity.

9. Kids relate to this book and, therefore, it captures and holds their interest.

Response: If this criterion has assumed a dominant place in the selection process, then teachers have abandoned their proper role as educators. Appealing to the sensibilities and appetites of adolescents should not be the goal of educators. There’s another word for capitulating to the tastes of adolescents: it is called pandering. Schools should teach those texts that students will likely not read on their own. We should teach those texts that are intellectually challenging and offer insight, wisdom, beauty, and truth. We should avoid those that are highly polemical, blasphemous, and vulgar.

10. To remove this text constitutes censorship.

Response: Parents who object to the inclusion of texts on recommended or required reading lists due to obscene language, sexuality, or highly controversial messages are not engaging in some kind of inappropriate censorship. All educators evaluate curricular materials for objectionable content, including language, sexuality, and controversial themes. The irony is that when teachers decide not to select a text due to these elements, the choice constitutes an exercise in legitimate decision-making, but when parents engage in it, they are tarred with the label of “censor.”

Furthermore, virtually no parents advocate prior restraint and only rarely are they asking for the removal of a text from a school library. Rather, parents are suggesting that it is reasonable to include the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, and sexuality when selecting texts to be recommended and/or taught to minors in public schools.

Are those teachers, administrators, and school board members who disagree with that suggestion saying that they will never take into account the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, and sexuality? If they are claiming that they will never take into account these elements, then parents should reconsider their fitness for teaching.

In all four years of high school English, students read approximately 28-32 books. From the dozens and dozens of texts available, it seems unlikely that any student’s education would be compromised by teachers, in the service of respect for parental values, comity, and modesty, avoiding the most controversial texts.

Laurie Higgins is a writer and public school teacher in the Chicago area.

Richard John Neuhaus Skewers Kushner’s ‘Angels in America’

Friday, August 24th, 2007

Richard John Neuhaus, writing in the journal First Things (Feb. 2004), on Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America:
 
“The theater world is abuzz with the effort to mainstream Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The show was wildly acclaimed on the Great Gay Way that Broadway has become. It is titteringly asked whether dumb, plodding, pious, bourgeois, so very ordinary America is ready for this scintillating inversion of its old certitudes and fixed creeds, in the half-hope that the answer is in the negative, thus providing further proof of the genius and, yes, the courage of Mr. Kushner and, by extension, of the herd of independent minds who join in his contempt for our repressive society that would, don’t you know, jail him if it could. Mr. Kushner has also written a little book, Save Your Democratic Soul!: Rants, Screeds, and Other Public Utterances. Civil discourse is not his shtick. His agent says that in his many campus appearances Mr. Kushner “prefers to speak to progressive audiences open to change.” But of course. Because old certitudes are no longer certain and fixed creeds no longer so fixed, people who cannot help but know better nervously applaud the assault on what they used to call their convictions, thus appeasing the great god Progress who might otherwise be displeased. Their nervous approval is offered in the hope of avoiding the terrible judgment of the priesthood of comic inversion that they are too witless to join in the fun of trashing what, to their embarrassment, they know they believe. They are keenly aware that their every response is ruthlessly scrutinized by the queer eye for the straight guy. Their laughter is forced, however, for, try as they might, they cannot quite rid themselves of the suspicion that they are being watched also by those large and awful and unsmiling faces from beyond.”

Practical Arguments Emphasized in John Biver Series: ‘Bad News for the Gay Rights Movement’

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

There are many practical, secular-oriented arguments against creating legal rights based on aberrant sex and gender-confused “identity.”  I encourage you to read my friend John Biver’s excellent series, “Bad News for the Gay Rights Movement,” on the Family Taxpayers Network (FTN) website.  John (info@familytaxpayers.net) is FTN’s president, and a very smart guy who is not religious but would risk going to jail to defend my religious freedom to oppose homosexuality.  I’d do the same for him.

We who are religious should understand that you do not have to be a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Jew, to see the absurdity of revolutionizing civil rights law to accommodate historically taboo and destructive sexual behaviors that can be changed.  Please share these articles with your friends. — Peter LaBarbera 

Click on the individual links below for each article:

Bad News for the “Gay Rights” Movement

 

Get over your Moralityphobia

 

Right and Wrong isn’t Dead Yet

 

Privacy v. Revolution

 

Successes, Parades, and Leaven

 

The Broken Window Theory

 

Psychology and Morality

 

The Plight of the TriSexual  (A Parody)

 

Gender Identity Disorder

 

Friends, Family, and Children

 

Health Realities

 

Resetting the Proper Context

 

Morality and the “Gay Rights” Debate

 

Educational Malpractice: Waubonsie Valley High School in Naperville, IL, Promotes GLSEN’s ‘Day of Silence’

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

By Peter LaBarbera

wv-dos-card.bmp

At right is a facsimile of the “Day of Silence Card,” which Waubonsie Valley High School in Naperville, IL is urging students to pass out in school tomorrow (Wed., April 18th); to view a clear version in PDF, click HERE.

The following is excerpted from a letter I sent to school authorities at Waubonsie Valley High School (WVHS) in Naperville, Illinois, concerning their promotion and endorsement of the “Day of Silence,” an in-school pro-homosexual protest in which students go silent all day [to protest alleged anti-homosexual oppression]. My children attend public schools in Naperville.

To read Waubonsie’s online announcement about the Day of Silence (DOS), click HERE. To view a PDF of the “Day of Silence Card” that WVHS is promoting to students (to present to their teachers and fellow students), click HERE.  For more information on the parental/student boycott of schools promoting the Day of Silence, go to the NotOurKids.com website. And for information on Alliance Defense Fund’s “Day of Truth” designed to counter the DOS, click HERE.

___________________________

April 7, 2007

Re: Waubonsie Valley HS web announcement: “Second Annual Day of Silence”: http://www.ipsd.org/newsevents/news_item_detail.asp?id=14568

Dear District 204 Faculty & Waubonsie School Administrators and Teachers,

I was deeply distressed to read the web posting concerning Waubonsie High School’s outright promotion of GLSEN’s national Day of Silence (tomorrow). Because you have chosen to embrace and officially endorse this event — which clearly advances one side of the controversial moral issue of homosexuality and will disrupt the learning environment at WVHS — my wife and I will be pulling our son … from school tomorrow (Wed, April 18th), and will encourage other parents to do the same.

We will also work to advance a policy of strict neutrality [at WVHS] on the issue of homosexuality and other moral conscience issues at Waubonsie and District 204 in the months and years ahead….

We respectfully ask: how does it promote an environment that is conducive to learning to encourage students to present a card to their teachers informing them that they will “remain silent for the entire day, including class….” (emphasis added) on the Day of Silence, Wed., April 18th? What about the students who do not agree with homosexual behavior, for religious, moral or other reasons? Or what about students who come to school to learn, and are not interested in crusading for social causes during school hours? Doesn’t it concern you that these students will be unfairly subjected to this propaganda exercise — and that their right to be educated in a non-politicized atmosphere will be violated?

We are concerned because the “gay” student club at WVHS, Identity — alone among all the extra-curricular student clubs — deals with a highly controversial moral and social issue that has severe implications for students’ health and spiritual well-being. Nobody doubts the merit of the other student clubs. It is as dubious to portray Day of Silence as an innocuous event about tolerance as it is to say that Identity is like any other student club.

We do not view homosexuality as an issue of innate identity but changeable behavior which is immoral in the eyes of the Creator. Some common “gay” sexual behaviors are also very high risk (unsafe), as evidenced by this quotation — not by Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson — but by homosexual writer Jack Hart (pardon the graphic content):

Many sexual transmitted diseases (STDs) occur more often among gay men than in the general population. Several factors contribute to this difference: Gay men have the opportunity to engage in sex with more people than do most heterosexual men, and some practices common among gays — especially rimming [anal-oral intercourse] and anal intercourse — are highly efficient at transmitting disease. (Gay Sex: A Manual for Men Who Love Men, Allyson Books, 1998, pp. 212-213)

There are countless other credible resources I could cite documenting the health risks of homosexual behaviors. (See Dr. John Diggs’ paper, “The Health Risks of Gay Sex.”)  Are the GLBT and “questioning” students at WVHS made aware of these risks? Do parents know about them? (I was told by [a Waubonsie Valley HS official] that a student can attend Identity meetings without his or her parents’ knowledge or approval.) Moreover, because I have personally met or interviewed dozens of former homosexuals, I do not view this as an issue of “civil rights.” (There are no ex-African Americans or ex-Latinos.) In fact, I am concerned that homosexual activist groups like GLSEN — the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, an acronym which you failed to define in your web posting about the Day of Silence — are strongly prejudiced against tradition-minded students and their parents.

Consider this highly “intolerant” and bigoted quote disparaging religious conservatives from GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings made in a church in 2000:

“Twenty percent of people are hard-core fair-minded [pro-homosexual] people. Twenty percent are hard-core [anti-homosexual] bigots. We need to ignore the hard-core bigots, get more of the hard-core fair-minded people to speak up, and we’ll pull that 60 percent [of people in the middle] … over to our side. That’s really what I think our strategy has to be. We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit — … I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘[F–k] ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think! [audience laughter] Drop dead!” (Source: audiotape from event, cited in a paper I wrote for Concerned Women for America, “When Silence Would Have Been Golden”)

When schools delve into the promotion of one side of a controversial moral issue like homosexuality, or join with controversial groups like GLSEN, it naturally discriminates against students on the other side.  Several weeks ago, I attended a District 204 Diversity meeting dealing with gay issues. I voiced concern about the biased nature of the presentation — which was reliant on information provided by GLSEN — hardly an objective source and in fact one that has a record of radical activism. Here are just two more black marks on GLSEN’s record (please forgive the graphic content, but this is what pre-teen children were exposed to):

1) GLSEN-backed 2000 “Fistgate” scandal in Massachusetts: (see http://massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/massnews.html) At a GLSEN-sponsored conference at Tufts U., on March 25, 2000, three homosexual activists employed by the Massachusetts Departments of Health and Education led a youth workshop titled “What They Didn’t Tell You about Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class” — part of the annual Boston-GLSEN “Teach Out” conference held at Tufts University. The “Queer Sex” session, advertised to “youth only ages 14 to 21,” was attended by Massachusetts family advocate Scott Whitemen, who taped it while standing in the back of the room.

In the workshop, instructor Michael Gaucher, prompted by a teen’s question, verbally guided the students on the mechanics of “fisting” — a homosexual slang term for a sadistic sex act in which a man inserts his hand and arm into another person’s anal cavity. Another instructor, Margot Abels, said fisting “often gets a really bad rap,” and described it innocuously as “an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with.” Abels and Gaucher also guided the students on techniques of oral sodomy and lesbian sex.

[NOTE: I think I am correct that GLSEN never issued an apology to the public for sponsoring this heinous event that corrupted innocent children.]

2) At GLSEN’s conference in Arlington Heights, IL [a suburb of Chicago], in 2000, all participants, including dozens of high school-aged kids, could pick up a homosexual “Visitor’s Companion” — which advertised Chicago’s gay “leather” bars, a gay sex club and a homosexual bathhouse (where men go for anonymous sexual liaisons with other men) called “Steamworks,” which was advertised as a “24-hour men’s gym/sauna.”

If GLSEN were a conservative or Christian group and committed such reckless acts endangering youth, do you think they would still be promoted as a credible source by public schools? Were you aware of GLSEN’s scandals? Do you think Naperville and Aurora parents would countenance any WVHS involvement with GLSEN if they know of this organization’s reckless and radical track record? (For more information on GLSEN’s 2000 conference, click on this link: http://www.geocities.com/sirokai/shininglight/gradeschoolkids.htm.)

Frankly, I am stunned that after another concerned 204 parent and I voiced our objections to District 204’s bias on homosexual issues at the 204 Diversity meeting, you have chosen to so blatantly promote an activist pro-homosexual event like the DOS that has angered parents across the nation.

We regard your promotion of GLSEN’s Day of Silence event as educational malpractice and the misuse of your authority granted to you by tax-paying and voting parents (most of whom probably have no idea that Waubonsie VHS is being used for this pro-gay social protest tomorrow). By promoting this massive, in-school distraction, despite claims that this is merely about “tolerance,” you are harming the educational process and directly undermining parents’ rights to guide their own children’s understanding on this important moral question.

Please also consider this document by the Citizens for Community Values on the “Legal Liability Associated with Homosexuality Education in Public Schools.”

I would like to request a meeting to discuss this matter … Also, I would request any data you have on GLBT students being harassed at WVHS in this and the past few years. If there is truly a problem of WVHS administrators and teachers being unable to protect gay-identified kids, the public deserves to know about it.  For the record, our position is that no child should be abused or harassed, but that schools can safeguard all kids without reference to any special criteria such as “sexual orientation.”

Thank you for your urgent consideration of this matter. Needless to say, it is no small thing for us to intentionally pull our child from school, but we feel that you have given us no choice by endorsing this activist, pro-gay protest.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera

Naperville, Illinois parent

Parents Run Second Ad Regarding Deerfield’s “Freshman Advisory” Class

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

A second full-page ad ran today:

D H S
WHAT’S GOING ON IN
FRESHMAN ADVISORY?
PART 2.

As more students and parents come forward with their experiences
relating to the gay students’ panel presentations, the poor judgment and
abuse of authority by school officials becomes even more astonishing.

• CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT
Freshman students (14 year olds) were asked to sign a CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT promising not to share what has transpired in the classroom. Presumably, this would include parents. This is unenforceable, probably illegal, and certainly poor judgment. [A portion of the confidentiality agreement was inserted — you can read the entire document HERE.]

• HIDING MATERIALS

  1. A parent, a teacher and NSSA have all requested to see the pool of instructional materials offered to Freshman Advisory teachers. The requests were DENIED and, in fact, the materials are hidden behind a password-protected portal. Can you imagine any other class where materials are hidden from parents?
  2. F.O.I.A. — NSSA filed a Freedom of Information Act request for complete instructional materials which was DENIED. Illinois State School Code, 105 ILCS 5/28-19.1 says: “Any member of the public may inspect all text and instructional material used in the public schools.”

• VIDEO TAPE
When a parent of a Freshman requested to observe the gay panel presentations, she was DENIED. A video of the class was offered but now that the panels have concluded, suddenly, there is no video available. What are they hiding?

• PROFESSIONAL PANEL
DHS students requested another panel presentation, this time including medical professionals — instead of teenagers — who could speak to the complex health issues surrounding homosexuality. DENIED.

• DANGEROUS ASSUMPTIONS
Students have revealed that during the gay panel presentations, a link is made to normal teenage struggles and homosexuality. For instance, gay students shared that they struggled with a number of emotional disorders but the real problem and solution was found when they realized they were homosexual. The teachers evidently allowed this dangerous assumption so that the students in the class inevitably wondered if their normal teenage problems could mean that they are gay. Students were encouraged to explore this possibility without mention of the obvious health and emotional risks.

If these issues concern you, please contact:
District 113 School Board — (224) 765-1000

Helene Herbstman HEHCUBS@aol.com — Ken Fishbain ken_fishbain@ghr.org
Jeffrey Annenberg jeff@monteropartners.com — Harvey Cohen HCohen4940@aol.com
Joel Hurwitz hurwitz4@aol.com — Marjie Sandlow Msandlow@aol.com
Bonnie Shlensky DBLBadger@aol.com — Supt. George Fornero gfornero@dist113.org

NORTH SHORE STUDENT ADVOCACY
NSSAdvocacy@aol.com


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