From our friends at MassResistance: A letter to the editor from a Massachusetts United Church of Christ “pastor” who is responding to Tom Mountain’s article about a GLSEN activist/grade school social worker explaining “transgender” to a class of third graders, without their parents’ permission.

Likewise, here in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, “Parish Minister” Julie Denny-Hughes of Palatine’s Countryside Unitarian Universalist “Church” passionately defended the use of “Perks of Being a Wallflower“ by teachers in District 214. “Perks” is written at a third or fourth grade reading level, but was planned for a high school class. Should you find this “book” on your child’s required or recommended reading list, you might be interested to know that it offers quite an education in masturbating with a hot dog, forced oral sex, forceable sodomy, voyeurism, attempted drunken sex with a dog, and so on. (Read the excerpts for yourself.)

We’ve heard quite enough from the UCC and Unitarian leaders. Where are the Bible-believing pastors and youth ministers (the ones like Pastor Vincent Fields)? Their voices are sorely needed. — Sonja Dalton

New low in narrow-mindedness
By Reverend Richard Malmberg/ Guest column
Published Nov 15, 2006, in Newton Tab

Flaunting his biases with characteristic reliance on hearsay information, Tom Mountain accused Franklin School Principal Cindy Marchand of overreacting to an irate parent. As a Franklin parent, I know her to be a competent and knowledgeable principal. She was right to defend her staff, especially such a dedicated and professional social worker as Laura Perkins. Further, Ms. O’Shea should have been reprimanded for humiliating a Franklin family and attempting to derail a school meeting to press her own agenda. Other parents present at Curriculum Night confirm that Ms. Marchand handled an awkward situation calmly and capably. I generally try to ignore Tom Mountain’s weekly bitter tirades. They do little to edify, and nothing to enhance the civility of public discourse in Newton. At the risk of responding in kind, I have to say that his column in the Nov. 8 TAB reached a new low in mean-spirited narrow-mindedness.

I have had kids in Franklin School for more than eight years, and had numerous contacts with the family whose presence seems to so outrage Mr. Mountain and Ms. O’Shea. It might surprise them both that my first conversation with the parent who underwent gender reassignment took place at a Little League game. Our sons were on the same team. As we sat in our folding chairs, we had a friendly and stimulating conversation. When I told him I was a minister, the conversation turned to Biblical scholarship. He (then still living as a man) was obviously quite well-read and genuinely interested in the subject. I learned that he is an active lay leader in his own church.

Only after the “teachable moment” Mr. Mountain described did I learn through the Franklin grapevine that this other Little League dad was going through a gender reassignment. I confess that for a while after that, I felt a little awkward – my problem. I regret not being more openly supportive during what must have been a difficult time for their family. I admire the quiet dignity and courage they display through it all. They have not allowed the self-appointed sexuality police to harass them out of full participation in the community. Newton is fortunate to have such solid citizens, active in their congregation, supporting their kids, their school and pursuing happiness in our midst. Their modest refusal to hide makes our city safer for diversity.

I find it interesting that Mr. Mountain, champion of traditional family values, hints at snarky disbelief that this couple remained married after gender reassignment. With divorce rates what they are in our society, he should celebrate a durable commitment and intact family. Mindless devotion to a “Leave It to Beaver” mirage of “traditional family” is simply idolatry. Our fixation on an imagined norm undermines our ability to value real families whatever shape they take. We endanger the actual relationships that sustain us, while damaging our psychic and spiritual well-being. Consider the tragically self-loathing, self-destructive Rev. Ted Haggard. He crusaded against gay marriage in public, and engaged in risky gay sex and drug abuse in secret. This man of deep faith and extraordinary charisma was twisted by intolerant theology that had no room for the man God created him to be.

Excerpted from Transgender Teachers Growing In Numbers, published Nov 23, 2006, by the pro-homosexual news source 365Gay:

For nine years, he was Mr. McBeth, a substitute teacher who kept things moving along in the classroom and filled in ably when the regular teacher was out sick.

And then one September, he was Miss McBeth.

The sex-change operation William McBeth underwent in 2005 roiled this rural, conservative area when she applied to be rehired as a substitute in Eagleswood Township. Parents packed a school board meeting last winter, some decrying what they termed an experiment, with their young children as guinea pigs; others supported her right to be who she is and work at what she does best.

But then a strange thing happened a few months later: When McBeth was up for a job at a different school in the area, no one protested. In fact, no one voiced an opinion at all when she was hired.

About 20 transgender teachers are working in classrooms across the country, but more are in the process of “transitioning,” experts estimate. That opens up a host of issues the teachers – and their employers and students – have to deal with.

…David Nielsen, a librarian at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, began living as a woman in the spring of 1998 and came to school one Monday as Debra Davis.

…72-year-old William McBeth…had a sex change operation in May 2005, after a long process of psychological evaluation, hormone therapy and electrolysis.

[Photos of McBeth are posted with the ABC News story dated Mar 3, 2006.]

She said she erred by not keeping her certification as a substitute teacher current while she was out of work during the surgery. That required her to reapply, and set the stage in February for a contentious school board meeting in Eagleswood, a community near Atlantic City. One parent, Mark Schnepp, took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper urging parents to oppose the hiring.

Continue reading at 365Gay…

TAKE ACTION – E-mail the new USA House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or call her at (202) 225-4965 and ask her to intervene so that San Francisco teenagers who want to participate in ROTC and to prepare for a future in our nation’s honorable military retain the opportunity to enjoy that privilege.

Excerpted from S.F. School Board Set to Pull Trigger on JROTC, by Jill Tucker, published Nov 5, 2006, by San Francisco Chronicle:

A majority of the seven-member San Francisco Board of Education is poised to end the district’s 90-year relationship with the U.S. military and its widely popular Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, with a vote expected next week.

The proposal before the board on Nov. 14 would phase out the 1,600-student program after two years, with no new cadets added after this semester.

Four board members — Dan Kelly, Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar and Sarah Lipson — oppose the program on two grounds: the military’s stance on gays and the desire to keep the armed forces out of public schools.

…”I don’t think the military should be involved in civilian life,” said Kelly, a self-described pacifist who served two years in prison for resisting the Vietnam draft.

“I know that children, the students, like the program,” Kelly said. “I know they enjoy it. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing a good thing for them.”

About 10 percent of the students in the seven participating high schools are enrolled in the district program, which includes one for the Navy and six for the Army. Students often enroll for two years to get state-required physical education credits needed to graduate.

…Most critics acknowledge that the JROTC helps reduce dropouts. Students learn leadership and problem-solving skills, first aid, money management, geography, civics and how to be a team player, among other topics — some of which they learn in other required classes.

Continue reading in San Francisco Chronicle…

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…

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 Student: Teacher Gave Me HIV, published Nov 3, 2006, by WNBC Channel 4:

…Hassan Vann, 29, a former music teacher at West Side High School in Newark, was indicted Thursday, accused of sexually abusing a student who now has AIDS, the Essex County prosecutor’s office said.

Vann faces up to 30 years in prison and 14 charges, including sexual assault and contact, official misconduct, child welfare endangerment, giving drugs and alcohol to a child and failing to notify a sexual partner that he had a sexually transmitted disease.

“Mr. Vann’s alleged conduct involving his former student was vile and has forever changed this young man’s life,” said Essex County Prosecutor Paula T. Dow…

Paul Loriquet, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said the victim told authorities he’s only had unprotected sex with Vann and that prosecutors plan to ask a judge to order Vann to undergo an AIDS test. The student believes the frequent, unprotected sex with Vann led to him contracting the virus, Loriquet said.

Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Mark S. Ali said the indictment covers a period from September 2000 to June 2004, with the initial incident happening in December 2000 when the then-14-year-old male was pushed against a high school wall and sexually abused.

The student graduated in 2004 and tested positive for HIV in May 2005, which is when the prosecutor’s office said it was notified.

Continue reading at WNBC Channel 4…

From our friends at PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)…

PFOX executive director Regina Griggs emailed the letter below to the Missouri School Counselor Association (MSCA) to ask why MSCA rejected PFOX’s application for a booth at the Nov. 5 conference.

On August 14, MSAC’s executive director called Regina Griggs to tell her not to send the Association any more emails. When Regina Griggs asked why PFOX had been rejected, she slammed the phone on Regina Griggs.

Evidently, the school counselors association in Missouri allows for pro-“gay” information but not ex-gay information. This dangerous policy means school counselors steer confused students exclusively to “gay affirming” sources without providing alternatives.

Since MSCA won’t answer Regina Griggs, maybe you should join in asking why PFOX was rejected as an exhibitor and if pro-“gay” exhibit booths were also rejected as well:

LETTER FROM PFOX TO MSCA

Dear Ms. Kosteck Bunch:

This is our third inquiry. Please respond.

We are in receipt of your letter denying Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) an exhibit booth at the Missouri School Counselor Association’s fall conference. However, your letter did not provide a basis for the denial of our application for a booth. Please explain why the Missouri School Counselor Association has denied PFOX an exhibit booth.