The following is merely an excerpt from Nightmare at Franklin, by Tom Mountain, published Nov 8, 2006, by Newton Tab; we encourage you to continue reading the full story…

Emer O’Shea knew something was wrong the minute she picked up her daughter from Franklin Elementary School. The third-grader was normally very perky upon seeing her mother and new baby sister, but this time she glanced at her mother without indicating what was wrong, except to say that the school’s social worker had visited the class. But Emer soon heard from another parent about what had happened in her daughter’s class that day, and she was both stunned and mortified. The next day her young daughter finally opened up with a question that would baffle most parents of an 8-year-old child, “Mommy, is it possible for a man to have an operation to become a woman?”

Transgenders and transvestites. These were the topics that a staff member at Franklin School in West Newton chose to teach to a class of third-grade children. The school’s social worker described to the children that some men like to dress up as women, and yes, some men even have operations to change into women.

The opportunity for this “teachable moment” – the kind that Superintendent Jeff Young likes to portray as merely responding to some child’s “random questioning” – occurred when the social worker was describing various families outside of the traditional mommy-and-daddy norm and showed the class a picture of a woman with two children, asking what they saw in the picture. A child then raised his hand to tell her (are you sitting sit down for this?) that he thought the picture was of a man who had a sex change operation and was now a woman. Apparently, the child’s own father was undergoing such an operation (which he/she has since completed).

The social worker then elaborated on this “teachable moment.” But this wasn’t just any social worker employed by the Newton Public Schools. This was Laura Perkins, former board member of GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network; or rather, “Laura Perkins, MSW, Franklin School and the Newton Early Childhood Program,” according to the GLSEN Boston Conference, where she hosted a seminar in which the “Rationale for integrating GLBT (Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender) issues in the early elementary years will be presented” and “classroom lessons demonstrated.” (See 5C.)

As a result of this particular “classroom lesson,” Emer’s daughter was petrified. For an 8-year-old accustomed to a child’s world of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, the little girl had nightmares, and explained to her mother she was scared that her baby sister could turn into a boy.

So Emer did what any normal responsible parent would do – she demanded an explanation from the principal, Cynthia Marchand (617-559-9500). She and several other parents from this class met with the principal who, according to Emer, responded defensively and fully backed her staff member.

Emer then went to Superintendent’s Young’s office with her concerns. She handed Mr. Young a written description of what happened, whereupon the superintendent promised to respond to her soon. He didn’t. So after three weeks, she called to make an appointment. As Emer described it, Mr. Young remarked that the Parental Consent Law didn’t apply to this situation because, he claimed, the topic of discussion was not planned for. He concluded that it was really just “a teachable moment.”

Continue reading at TownOnline…

Excerpted from Hawaii Elects Nations Highest-Ranking Openly Transgender Official, published Nov 8, 2006, by Associated Press:

Kim Coco Iwamoto, a 38-year-old attorney, did not tout her gender status in the campaign but has advocated for transgender youth and related issues. She came in third Tuesday in the competition for three seats on the 14-member board, which governs the islands’ 285 public schools.

Iwamoto would be the highest-ranking openly transgender person elected in the United States, said Denis Dison, a spokesman for the Victory Fund, a Washington-based group that tracks lesbian, gay and transgender candidates and helps fund their campaigns.

Continue reading at Fox News…

This one is incredible: Two adult men are advertising on the internet, including on MySpace, and hosting weekly parties for “gay” youth (age 17+) at their home (10:30 pm every Saturday night at 438 W Algonquin Rd, Algonquin, IL), where they openly welcome alcohol. One of the ads shows a boy standing, holding another boy whose legs are wrapped around him.

Even so, parents allow their children to attend – or are oblivious to their teen’s whereabouts. Have they seen the photos that Mark and Adam post online? Police are well aware both of the parties and the repeated violation of various laws by the homeowners and by party goers. But each week, the party goes on…

Now a young man is hospitalized after being stabbed eight times in the neck and chest at the party. His friend writes:

I have seen Adrian at the hospital. He has been stabbed eight times throughout his chest and neck. He arrived with a collapsed lung and severe loss of blood. He was read his last rights shortly after he arrived to the hospital. He is in a lot of pain. He has a strong will to live and is in for the fight of his life…

Even so, the regular party guests are defending the home as “a VERY safe place” and swearing to continue hanging out there…demonstrating just how deceived these young people are.

Where is the leadership in Algonquin?

TAKE ACTION (CORRECTED):

• Call Village President John C Schmitt at (847) 658-7643 or e-mail him.
• Call Director of Police and Public Safety Russell Laine at (847) 658-4531 or e-mail him.
• Let them both know that this sort of debauchery is completely unacceptable to you! Ask them what more they need to stop this illicit activity in your community.

The following is excerpted from LITH Man Stabbed 8 Times, by Dave Fitzgerald and Rob Phillips, published Nov 6, 2006, by Northwest Herald:

A 21-year-old man from Lake in the Hills remained in fair condition Monday at Sherman Hospital after being stabbed eight times in the chest early Sunday morning at an Algonquin home that advertises weekly parties on the Internet…

Algonquin police said they had previous problems at the home where the stabbing happened. A Web site www.party69.net directed people to a weekly house party on Saturday nights. In addition, the hosts have MySpace.com accounts that promote the parties.

The parties are advertised as a place for gay youth, and the house is publicized as a “club-like atmosphere” where partygoers must be 17 to get in and 21 to drink. A $5 donation at the door is requested, and identification is required to prove age, the ad says. Partygoers are asked to bring their own alcohol.

Algonquin police said they were aware of the parties and said they brought in a mix of people. Party organizers who live at the home, Mark Davidson, 36, and Adam Conard, 24, were charged July 16 with selling alcohol without a license and providing alcohol to minors. Davidson also was charged with obstruction of a peace officer, and Conard was charged with resisting a peace officer. A trial on those charges is scheduled for Nov. 17, according to court records.

Also, in 2005, Davidson was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a child, stemming from his hosting of an underage drinking party at the same home, according to court records.

“It’s not illegal to have a party,” Algonquin Deputy Chief Ed Urban said.

Continue reading in Northwest Herald…

Excerpted from Gay History Month in City Schools Seen Part of Trend, by Susan Brinkmann, published Nov 6, 2006, by The Catholic Standard and Times:

…For the first time, this year ninth-grade students will read a collection of short stories titled, “Am I Blue?” which is about people who have been affected by the coming-out experiences of youth…

Until two parent groups hired Liberty Counsel lawyers to stop it, a Maryland school district curriculum was about to teach 8th- and 10th-graders that Jesus condoned homosexuality because He never mentioned it by name, that Christians often use the Bible to justify hatred and that being homosexual is similar to being left-handed.

Some of the fuel behind the movement is coming from what many believe is an overly cozy alliance between the National Education Association (NEA) and gay activist organizations, such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the nation’s leading pro-homosexuality education group.

“GLSEN is very closely aligned with the Gay-Lesbian caucus inside the NEA,” said Jeralee Smith, a California school teacher and the outgoing chair of the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators Caucus.

“When the NEA’s Gay Lesbian Caucus started, I’m sure they wanted to see a gay president in charge of the NEA,” Smith said. “Well, that happened when Bob Chase became president. Chase was outed as a gay man by the Washington Blade around the end of his term as NEA president.

“It was during Bob Chase’s presidency that the Sexual Orientation Task Force was initiated, giving a whole arm of NEA leadership to gay- lesbian -bisexual -transgender (GLBT) causes,” Smith said. “In 2002, a 60-page document detailing NEA’s support of GLBT causes was adopted by the NEA executive committee, and handed to NEA delegates as a report which, technically, didn’t even require a vote.”

Since that time, pro-homosexuality curricula have been steadily creeping into schools across the country, says Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).

“Programs like this are in all 50 states, and probably in every major county in the country,” Griggs said…

What if a student later becomes ill, after having been encouraged to embrace the lifestyle by a school program that deliberately withheld information about the risks? Could the student sue?

“I was recently contacted by somebody who, because of one-sided information being provided by doctors, went through a sex-change operation. His mental issues just got worse, and he now realizes this isn’t the choice anyone should make. He wants to sue because he wasn’t provided with full information.”

In the meantime, Lindevaldsen said,

“This is all politics. It’s all politics in the courts and it’s all politics in the schools. And the pawns are our children.”

Excerpted from N.Y. Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice, by Damien Cave, published Nov 7, 2006, by The New York Times:

…Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.

“Surgery versus nonsurgery can be arbitrary,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “Somebody with a beard may have had breast-implant surgery. It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most.”

If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender…

Transgender advocates consider the New York proposal an overdue bulwark against discrimination that recognizes an emerging shift away from viewing gender as simply the sum of one’s physical parts…

“They should not change the sex at birth, which is a factual record,” said Dr. Arthur Zitrin, a Midtown psychiatrist who was on the panel of transgender experts convened by the city…

The change would lead to many intriguing questions: For example, would a man who becomes a woman be able to marry another man? (Probably.) Would an adoption agency be able to uncover the original sex of a proposed parent? (Not without a court order.)…

Continue reading at The New York Times…

From Gay Culture and the Riddle of Andrew Sullivan, by Dr. Albert Mohler, published Oct 27, 2006:

Andrew Sullivan is a man of ideas. In recent years, Sullivan has emerged as one of the most influential intellectuals in American public life. Furthermore, he has been identified with some of the most controversial issues of our times–a fact that is hardly surprising given his libertarian view of morality, conservative views of politics, Roman Catholic views of Christianity, and the fact that he is a prominent homosexual advocate…

In the October 24, 2005 issue of The New Republic, Sullivan writes about “The End of Gay Culture.” Of course, Sullivan’s perspective on homosexuality and gay culture is deeply rooted in his own homosexuality and his ardent embrace of his own homosexual lifestyle. He is anything but a dispassionate observer…

As he reviews the impact of the HIV crisis, Sullivan points to some patterns that emerged in its aftermath–patterns that would likely be missed by those outside the gay subculture. The emergence of lesbians as leaders of the major gay rights organizations was, Sullivan suggests, largely due to the fact that the gay male leaders were largely dead…

“Gay marriage is not a radical step,” Sullivan insisted…

But, even as Sullivan argued for the acceptance and legalization of same-sex marriage, more radical homosexual theorists were dismissing marriage altogether. As Sullivan explained,

“Marriage of all institutions is to liberationists a form of imprisonment; it reeks of a discourse that has bought and sold property, that has denigrated and subjected women, that has constructed human relationships into a crude and suffocating form. Why on earth should it be supported for homosexuals?”

Sullivan’s 1995 book, and his most recent article, must be read in light of his 1998 testimonial, Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival. This book was written after Sullivan had been diagnosed as HIV-positive. As he recalled:

“I contracted the disease in full knowledge of how it is transmitted, and without any illusions about how debilitating and terrifying a diagnosis it could be. I have witnessed first-hand a man dying of AIDS; I have seen the ravages of its impact and the harrowing humiliation it meant. I had written about it, volunteered to combat it, and tried to understand it. But I still risked getting it, and the memories of that risk and the ramifications of it for myself, my family, and my friends still forced me into questions I would rather not confront, and have expended a great deal of effort avoiding.”

When a high school friend asked Sullivan how he had contracted the virus, Sullivan informed him that he had no idea which sex partner had been the source of the viral transmission. “How many people did you sleep with, for God’s sake?,” his friend asked. Note Sullivan’s answer carefully:

“Too many, God knows. Too many for meaning and dignity to be given to every one; too many for love to be present at each; too many for sex to be very often more than a temporary but powerful release from debilitating fear and loneliness.”

In other words, the public Andrew Sullivan emerged as a major proponent of responsibility, stability, and self-control, while the private Andrew Sullivan was deeply involved in homosexual promiscuity.

All this broke into public view in 2001, when a homosexual columnist discovered that Sullivan had been posting advertisements for unprotected homosexual sex at internet web sites. The ensuing controversy within the gay community was vitriolic, even as it was revealing.

“The End of Gay Culture” is an eye-opening essay. As an exercise in cultural analysis, it demonstrates genuine insight and an insider’s perspective. More than anything else, Sullivan’s article should awaken thinking Christians to the fact that homosexuality is being normalized in the larger culture. This surely represents a matter of urgent missiological concern, for the normalization of sin represents a progressive hardening of the nation’s heart against the Gospel.

At a more personal level, this article reminds me to pray for Andrew Sullivan. I say this even as I realize that he may be more offended by my prayer than by anything else. In most of his writings, Mr. Sullivan demonstrates a consistent and ardent determination to celebrate homosexuality as central to his own self-discovery and personhood. Yet, he also reveals significant doubts. When he explains that he “never publicly defended promiscuity” nor publicly attacked it because “I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold,” I detect a glimmer of doubt. I have faced Mr. Sullivan in public debate on issues related to homosexuality. I consider him to be among the most gifted, thoughtful, and unpredictable intellectuals on the current scene. More than anything else, I want Mr. Sullivan to find his self-identity and deepest passions in the transforming power of Christ–the power to see all things made new. Without apology, I pray that one day he will see all that he has written in defense of homosexuality, and all that he has known in terms of his homosexual identity, as loss, and to find in Christ the only resolution of our sexuality and the only solution to the problem we all share–the problem of sin.

Andrew Sullivan has been a focus of my prayer since I first learned of his HIV-positive status. I do pray that God will give him strengthened health and the gift of time. After all, our Christian concern should be focused not only on the challenge of homosexuality in the culture, but the challenge of reaching homosexuals with the love of Christ and the truth of the Gospel.

Continue reading at Albert Mohler…

Excerpted from Halifax Teacher Marshalls ‘Pride’ Parade, published Jul 22, 2006, by Canadian Press:

…DevaStation and DynaMight, a pair of drag queens who wore go-go boots, shiny miniskirts and headdresses about a half-metre tall, said the day is just about having a good time.

“We’ve been here for the last six years and people almost expect us to go crazy now,” said DevaStation. “We just like to have fun — strut ourselves down the road and make everybody take notice.”

Scott Brison, an openly gay MP who is also a candidate for the federal Liberal leadership, shook hands with people lining the streets as he walked in the parade.

“This is not just a celebration of rights for gays and lesbians and bisexual and transgendered Canadians, it’s a celebration of Canadian rights and our Charter (of Rights and Freedoms),” Brison told CTV News.

Continue reading at CTV…

Be sure to read The Confession (Part I) posted below…

“Many if not most of the major gay and lesbian organizations who have signed on to the fight for same-sex marriage would instantly sign off at any suggestion that they were actually encouraging gay men and lesbians to marry.” – Gabriel Rotello, in his 1997 book on the AIDS crisis, Sexual Ecology

Excerpted from The Confession, Part II, by Stanley Kurtz, published Nov 1, 2006, by National Review:

…Around the time the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement was released, a controversy broke out over news that the Boston Globe had told its gay employees to marry their partners or face losing their domestic-partnership benefits…

According to [Globe journalist Zak] Szymanski, “Many national LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] groups, despite their large investment in securing gay marriage, agree that there is a problem with a society that values marriage over all other family forms.”

For example, Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a major spokesman in the battle for same-sex marriage, said, “We’re deeply disappointed by the Globe’s decision, and >we do not feel that benefits should flow only from marriage, because a married couple does not reflect the reality of the American family, gay or straight.”

Michelle Granda, of GLAD, which Szymanski calls “the group that is widely credited with winning same-sex marriage in Massachusetts,” said, “We have always believed families are configured in many ways and that marriage is not the answer for all families.”

…Here we have a clear indication of the family radicalism that hides beneath the only apparent conservatism of same-sex marriage advocacy groups…

A Striking Development
In late 2005, I published a piece entitled “Here Come the Brides,” about the role of bisexuality in the drive for legalized multiple-partner marriage. It’s notable that the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto justified its radical platform, in part, by lamenting the short shrift historically given to bisexuals by the broader LGBT movement. Among the signers of the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto were a number of bisexual activists. In “Here Come the Brides,” I also noted the role of Unitarian polyamory activists, and the potential role of arguments made by Yale law professor Kenji Yoshino in a pro-polyamory movement. Sure enough, the Beyond Same-Sex Marriage manifesto was signed by a number of Unitarian ministers and by professor Yoshino…

A Political Future
…Jonathan Rauch offered some remarkably frank concessions: “I had originally hoped that the [same-sex marriage] debate would not be followed by a polygamy debate, but clearly it has been. Some [same-sex marriage] advocates maintained that there was no significant constituency for polygamy, but that’s proving to be wrong as well.”

…This all means that in a post-gay-marriage world, the political organization of the gay community will shift. For now, “conservative” proponents of same-sex marriage are out in front, supported by a vast array of considerably less conservative activists and lobby groups. Meanwhile, the radicals are marginalized and/or intentionally keeping a low profile. In a post-gay-marriage world, this situation will flip. The radicals will step out in front, supported by largely the same coalition of activists and lobby groups who currently support same-sex marriage. At that point, the conservatives, no longer needed to run interference for the larger movement, will be quietly put out to pasture. By then we shall be well beyond same-sex marriage. Listen carefully to the words of same-sex marriage supporters, and they confess as much themselves.

Continue reading at National Review…