Utah’s “Common Ground” package, Illinois “civil unions” bill would help courts impose “same-sex marriage”

“Recent court decisions in other states have similarly made clear that providing benefits to same-sex couples, no matter how minor and even if accompanied by statement of intent meant to protect marriage, will be treated as evidence that the legislature does not object to redefining marriage.

“In each of the State high court decisions mandating a redefinition of marriage (in Massachusetts, California and Connecticut), the majority opinions have pointed to the extension of benefits to same-sex couples in those States in support of its conclusion.[3] This was the case in Massachusetts even though the legislature had specified in one bill that “[n]othing in this act shall be construed so as to legitimize or validate a ‘homosexual marriage’, so-called.” — William Duncan, Marriage Law Foundation

TAKE ACTION:  “Civil unions” and “domestic partner” bills are used by activist judges to legalize “same-sex marriage,” as Bill Duncan of the Marriage Law Foundation shows below. Such bills are being considered in several states. “Sexual orientation/Gender Identity” bills create the foundation for artificial, homosexuality-based “rights,” culminating in homosexual “marriage.”  A “civil unions” bill just advanced in Illinois, and several pro-homosexual bills will be considered soon in Florida. Take action in the following states (this list is not comprehensive):

This article by my friend, Laurie Higgins, Director of School Advocacy at the Illinois Family Institute, deserves wide circulation. Kids are being propagandized relentlessly in our nation’s schools — public and private — and what’s the evangelical church’s response? Soften your approach toward homosexuality — deal with the Church’s “antigay” image problem. We suggest the guilt-ridden Church would be wiser to get back to the life-changing Gospel, stop obsessing about “image,” and deal with the pro-homosexual indoctrination problem among young people. That certainly includes many who identify as Christians but, due to agitprop like The Laramie Project, have drifted away from a Biblical worldview on homosexuality — to the point where they now view “homophobia” as a bigger sin than the homosexual behavior itself. — Peter LaBarbera

This article first appeared on the Illinos Family Institute’s website:

Intolerant “Progressive” Educators

10/30/2008 7:36:00 AM
By Laurie Higgins, DSA Director –Illinois Family Institute

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

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

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

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

Schools can protect all students from abuse and harassment without promoting homosexuality and gender confusion.

The campaign for passing an anti-bullying law was stopped in its tracks by concerned citizens of North Carolina in the final days of the short session of the NC General Assembly last week.

Fayetteville-based Donna Miller, Americans For Truth’s Special Projects Director and a leader for CWA (Concerned Women for America)-NC, coordinated an effort in her county to alert members between CWA-NC and the NC Federation of Republican Women of the impending legislation.

News Release

Americans For Truth
www.americansfortruth.org
April 25, 2008

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

NAPERVILLE, Illinois –– Americans For Truth (AFTAH) President Peter LaBarbera today called on schools, the media and opinion-makers to “break the silence” regarding the serious health risks of homosexual behavior, and said Americans deserve an official government investigation into the matter.

“Today, thousands of schools across the country are encouraging the homosexual activist ‘Day of Silence,’ and doing it in the name of protecting students’ safety,” LaBarbera said. “While schools can and must protect every child from harassment and abuse, it is contradictory to promote homosexuality in the name of ‘safety’ because the evidence is so overwhelming that same-sex behavior is a serious health risk –– especially for males.”

AFTAH has joined a coalition of pro-family organizations encouraging parents to pull their children out of schools that endorse the “Day of Silence” or allow students not to participate in classroom activities. [For a list of DOS-participating schools, see www.missionamerica.com.]

“How many government-funded studies have there been on the dangers of smoking?” LaBarbera said. “Yet homosexual men similarly are dying prematurely due to risky, unnatural same-sex practices –– but taxpayer-funded public schools are promoting this lifestyle to students through propagandistic exercises like the ‘Day of Silence.’”

Naperville, Illinois’ Neuqua Valley High School’s ban on students wearing “Be Happy, Not Gay” t-shirts — in opposition to the pro-homosexuality “Day of Silence” — has been overturned. Photo: Alliance Defense Fund.

An important victory for free speech here. Who knew that the social leftists’ “Question Authority” mantra of yesteryear would be turned against them today as adults? Congratulations to ADF and Alex Nuxoll for not backing down to the PC Thought Police. — Peter LaBarbera

Illinois School Must Allow “Be Happy, Not Gay” T-shirt

Illinois Family Institute website, 4/24/2008 10:13:00 AM –Alliance Defense Fund

7th Circuit rules unanimously in favor of student represented by ADF attorneys in vital student free speech case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reversed a lower court’s ruling against an Illinois student Wednesday, saying the district court must order a Naperville high school to suspend its ban on a T-shirt that reads “Be Happy, Not Gay” while the student’s lawsuit proceeds. School officials prohibited student Alex Nuxoll, who is represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, from wearing the clothing.

By Peter LaBarbera

It will be my privilege to stand tomorrow with Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) at a grassroots “Rally for Sally” at the state capitol — to defend her against the vicious homosexual activist onslaught unleashed by those who confuse opinion with “hate speech”:

DATE: Wednesday, April 2
TIME: 12:00pm Noon
WHERE: Rotunda of the Oklahoma State Building
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City Oklahoma

Dozens of pro-family groups and leaders outside of Oklahoma have come to Kern’s defense, and she has not backed down, while demonstrating grace toward those who seek to destroy her.

Incidentally, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund — which launched the web campaign against Kern and alleged in a public letter that she is somehow partly responsible for the murders of homosexuals (“your words give aid and comfort to those who would hurt, maim and even kill people who are different from you”) — conveniently edited out the part of her speech where she said that, “the book that I base my life upon is God’s word. And it says to love everybody and I try to love everybody.”

You can see below in this portion from the full Kern speech transcript where the GLVF stripped out that phrase — highlighted in red — from the half-sentence (in blue) that followed it, and which was used in the online “hit-recording” against Kern:

Now, I don’t know about you, but the book that I base my life upon is God’s word. And it says to love everybody and I try to love everybody but not everybody’s lifestyle is equal. Just like not all religions are equal. Okay. All money isn’t equal. You know, we have this dumb idea now days, that tolerance means that everything is equal. Well, everything is not equal. We see that in many areas of our lives. You know, all things are not equal. All religions are not equal.

So, you blind-side a public official with charge that her speech is of the sort that leads to heinous murders, but you leave out the part where she tries to follow God’s command to love everyone? (Of course, the media engage in this type of selective editing all the time to make Christian conservatives and others look bad.)

Below, our good friend Gary Glenn of Michigan shows how to stop “Trojan Horse,” pro-homosexual “bullying” bills in state legislatures. Obviously, we share Gary’s view that all students can be protected from bullying, abuse and harassment without regard to any specific or special criterion. School administrators can and must protect all students, but they can do so without politicizing education by promoting the acceptance of homosexualism and gender confusion. — Peter LaBarbera

News Release
American Family Association of Michigan
Friday, March 28, 2008
CONTACT: Gary Glenn: 989-835-7978
Sen. Randy Richardville 517-373-3543

Trojan Horse “Bullying” Bill in Michigan Loses 2nd GOP Sponsor

Richardville: “I will in no way support” bills as written; further blow to bill following homosexual activists’ “lobbying day”

LANSING — Two days after homosexual activist groups gathered at the state Capitol to pressure lawmakers to support a bill purported to protect public school students from bullying, a second Republican state senator who originally co-sponsored the legislation announced that he no longer supports the bill and would vote against it as written.

Click HERE for the SB 107 original co-sponsors.

Sen. Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, one of only four Republicans listed among twenty co-sponsors of Democratic Sen. Glenn Anderson’s Senate Bill 107, said Friday in an e-mail to the American Family Association of Michigan that while he supports protecting students from bullying, he no longer agrees with the legislation’s segregation of students into special “protected class” categories.

Homosexual superintendent defends disgusting play

Whatever happened to “heartland” values? Concerned parents and citizens across the nation are aghast at the news that a teacher in Deerfield High School (north of Chicago) would assign a homosexual activist-authored play, “Angels in America,” with graphic depictions of sodomy, etc., to students in AP English class. District 213 Superintendent George Fornero (gfornero@dist113.org) — who apparently is a homosexual, based on his participation on “gay” websites — defends the use of the play. (AFTAH received information from several sources about Fornero’s postings on a “gay sports” website and another related to the homosexual group Dignity, which purports to serve homosexual “Catholics” but which defies Vatican teachings on homosexuality.)

Laurie Higgins has written before for Americans For Truth, including this review of “Angels in America.” She is a writing instructor at Deerfield High, where she is also a bold and eloquent critic of politically correct nonsense at the school. Below is Higgins’ take on Deerfield’s and Fornero’s folly in defending the use of Tony Kushner’s homo-pornographic and anti-religious play in a senior AP English class — Peter LaBarbera:

________________________

Click HERE to read excerpts of “Angels in America,” which cannot be read over the air but are supposedly OK for teenagers

Click HERE for contact information for Superintendent Fornero (gfornero@dist113.org) and other District 213 officials

________________________

By Laurie Higgins

The administration of District 113 has sent out what they call a “Fact Sheet” regarding the obscene play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes that is being taught at Deerfield High School. Below is the “fact sheet” with my responses in blue:

Dear ——-,

Here are the facts pertaining to the selection of this play:

Angels in America Facts

• Students studying the play are second semester seniors in Advanced Placement English. (Translation: “We save the most offensive tripe for the most intelligent.”)
• This play has been taught to similar classes in other high schools. (Translation: “Everyone else is doing it, and we’re lemmings and conformists who cannot think for ourselves.”)
• The College Board oversees all Advanced Placement testing; the class syllabus, including all readings was approved through the Board’s audit process. (Translation: “Of all the readings offered through the College Board, we’re including the most offensive.”)
• Parents received information about Angels in America that specifically addressed the mature content and potential for offense. (Translation: “We’re using the inaccurate euphemism ‘mature’ for the more accurate term “obscene.” Reality: The use of obscene language represents the very antithesis of maturity. It is intemperate, puerile language. In addition, the information given parents did not adequately convey exactly how obscene and perverted the material is. Moreover, there are different kinds of maturity that are being deliberately conflated. If by “mature,” one is referring to intellectual maturity, then it is irrelevant. No one objects to this play because the material is intellectually inaccessible. If educators are referring to emotional maturity, meaning that students are emotionally stable enough to discuss emotionally challenging material without being traumatized, then that too is irrelevant in that most people who object to Angels are not concerned about students being too immature to handle it, although some students will likely be deeply troubled by the language, images, and ideas.The concern many have is with moral maturity. Many people recognize that adolescents, including even bright, 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 compasses are likely fixed and stable. For a teacher to contend that there are any eighteen-year-olds whose moral compass is fully developed and fixed represents an ignorant and hubristic assertion. Activist ideologues recognize this developmental fact and seek to influence the moral development of other people’s children using other people’s money to do it.)
• Parents were asked to make an informed decision about the text their child would read. Two viable choices were presented: Angels in America and Albert Camus’ The Plague. They were also given the option of having their students read both texts. Letter to parents requested that they provide permission for their student to read the selected text(s). (Reality: Many parents have neither the time nor interest in reading the entirety of Angels in America; This teacher is much beloved by students, and teens are rebellious, therefore, even parents who don’t want their children to read Angels may feel the force of social pressure, compelling them to allow their children to read the provocative, controversial text. The school has potentially set parents up for conflicts with their own children.”)
• The Pulitzer Prize-winning play is set in the 1980s at the beginning of the AIDS crisis in this country. It deals with social and political themes around that issue. In addition, the play won Tony and Emmy Awards (Translation: “Be impressed by prizes that are awarded by arrogant, elitist organizations that hold in disdain the traditional values of provincial, philistines regarding sexuality and language.” Reality: This is a common fallacy called “argument from authority” which relies on the word of an expert or authority rather than on evidence.)
• Excerpts taken out of context from the play by NSSA are being used to diminish the work’s social and political themes. (Reality: There is no context that can justify or render acceptable the teaching of the most extreme violations of decency and truth that occur in this play. Put another way, can the administration or school board imagine any text in which the sexual vulgarity, obscenity, profanity or sacrilege is so extreme or offensive that its very presence would render a text unsuitable for teaching, no matter what positive elements may also be present? Or will positive literary elements always trump issues of obscenity, profanity, and sacrilege? Are administrators saying they will never, under any circumstances take into account the nature and extent of obscenity, profanity, and sacrilege?)
• Although there is strong language and obscenity, the teacher raises questions for student discussion that include: How do we respond to the illness of a loved one? What does it mean to abandon that loved one? How do our personal beliefs clash or coincide with our politics? To what extent do we truly know ourselves? To what extent are we blind? What does it mean to be willfully blind? What is the role of forgiveness? (Translation: “We are able, in the midst of this odious miasma of a text, to extract something of value.” Reality: Another text could easily be found that explores these or other important questions, and does so without the features that assault religion, goodness, truth, and beauty, including the virtue of modesty.)
• This gifted teacher was recently named a Teacher of Distinction from Golden Apple. (Translation: “Once again, be impressed by prizes.” Reality: Once again, this represents the fallacy of appealing to authority. In essence the fallacy goes something like this: This teacher made the decision to teach this odious text, and he is a “Teacher of Distinction.” His intelligence or gifts as a teacher, however, do not serve as justifications for the decision to include this text. Really smart people can make really chuckleheaded decisions.)
• According to Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Waller, the reading and discussion of the material is not a violation of the obscenity laws, or any other laws, of the State of Illinois. (Reality: The fact that it may not technically violate obscenity laws does not mean it is not obscene. I guarantee that if I start using Kushner’s language in the writing center where I work, or if students start using it in their classrooms, faculty members and administrators will curtail it due to its obscene nature. And if I or students refuse to cease and desist, we will be disciplined.)
• It is the belief of this district that our teachers and parents, not an outside group such as NSSA [North Shore Student Advocacy], are best equipped to determine whether or not our students should read the text. (Reality: NSSA, some members of which are District 113 taxpayers, former parents or future parent, knows more about the inner workings of DHS than most parents in the community. Furthermore, the administration and faculty members, especially liberal activists, want little to no feedback from parents, unless it’s affirmation of and support for the curricular incarnations of their liberal dogmas. Liberal activists covet absolute autonomy and depend on parental ignorance and cowardice to maintain it.)