What the NEA (National Education Association) refuses to admit as it (again, below) recommends pro-homosexual “anti-harassment training” is that such training invariably undermines the firmly-held beliefs of Christian and other students who believe homosexual behavior is wrong. “Anti-bias” and “gay”-inclusive “bullying” programs rely on the very jaundiced work of groups like GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), which have a long track record of assailing and distorting Christian and conservative teachings on homosexuality.

Why can’t schools simply ban all “bullying” or abuse of ANY students without getting into the homosexuality promotion business? — Peter LaBarbera

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From NEA’s website:

Rights Watch

Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion?

How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Two federal courts tackle this thorny question.

It’s the latest battleground in the culture wars. In the wake of several high-profile cases holding school districts liable for failing to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) students from peer harassment, many schools have adopted training programs intended to reduce harassment and promote acceptance of GLBT students.

Some parents find these programs objectionable because they conflict with their deeply held religious belief that homosexuality is sinful, and they don’t want the schools to undermine their parental authority by teaching a contrary lesson.

Federal courts in Maryland and Kentucky recently struggled to resolve this conflict, with differing results.

In a dispute that is still ongoing, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Board of Education last year adopted a health education curriculum designed to teach tolerance of gays and lesbians. Among other things, course materials described as a “myth” the belief that “homosexuality is a sin” and characterized certain Christian religions as “intolerant and Biblically misguided” because they are “opposed to homosexuality.”

In a lawsuit filed in May 2005 by two groups of parents and citizens, a federal district court issued an injunction prohibiting the Maryland school district from implementing the curriculum. The court found that the course materials violate the Constitution by attacking the views of certain religions, while promoting the views of other religions that “are more friendly towards the homosexual lifestyle.”

The school district has agreed to revise the controversial curriculum. That process is still underway.

In the Kentucky case decided in February, a federal district court ruled that parents don’t have the right to have their children opt out of mandatory “student diversity training” designed to stop the harassment of GLBT students.

The program adopted by the Board of Education of Boyd County, Kentucky, consists of a one-hour video, followed by comments from an instructor and questions from students. Students who refuse to attend receive an unexcused absence.

Excerpted from The Intolerance of Tolerance, by Greg Koukl, published Dec 14, 2006, by Townhall:

Probably no concept has more currency in our politically-correct culture than the notion of tolerance. Unfortunately, one of America’s noblest virtues has been so distorted it’s become a vice.

There’s one word that can stop you in your tracks. That word is “intolerant.”

…The modern notion of tolerance is seriously misguided.

The Tolerance Trick
As it turns out, by the modern definition of tolerance no one is tolerant, or ever can be. It’s what my friend Francis Beckwith calls the “passive-aggressive tolerance trick.” Returning to the classic understanding of tolerance is the only way to restore any useful meaning to the word. Let me give you a real life example.

Earlier this year I spoke to a class of seniors at a Christian high school in Des Moines, Iowa. I wanted to alert them to this “tolerance trick,” but I also wanted to learn how much they had already been taken in by it. I began by writing two sentences on the board. The first expressed the current understanding of tolerance:

“All views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another.”

All heads nodded in agreement. Nothing controversial here. Then I wrote the second sentence:

“Jesus is the Messiah and Judaism is wrong for rejecting Him.”

Immediately hands flew up. “You can’t say that,” a coed challenged, clearly annoyed. “That’s disrespectful. How would you like it if someone said you were wrong?”

“In fact, that happens to me all the time,” I pointed out, “including right now with you. But why should it bother me that someone thinks I’m wrong?”

“It’s intolerant,” she said, noting that the second statement violated the first statement. What she didn’t see was that the first statement also violated itself.

I pointed to the first statement and asked, “Is this a view, the idea that all views have equal merit and none should be considered better than another?” They all agreed.

Then I pointed to the second statement—the “intolerant” one—and asked the same question: “Is this a view?” They studied the sentence for a moment. Slowly my point began to dawn on them. They’d been taken in by the tolerance trick.

If all views have equal merit, then the view that Christians have a better view on Jesus than the Jews have is just as true as the idea that Jews have a better view on Jesus than the Christians do. But this is hopelessly contradictory. If the first statement is what tolerance amounts to, then no one can be tolerant because “tolerance” turns out to be gibberish.

By Sonja Dalton

I ran across this MySpace blog (below) a few days ago. It merits note. I have sat in a number of school meetings where board members, administrators, and teachers insist that 15-16 -17 year old high school students are “mature” and “wise.” This teenager’s post will henceforth suffice as my response to that claim. It is full of typos, misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and (most importantly) misplaced emotion, arrogance, ignorance, poor logic, misinformation, and lies. To set the record straight:

• Americans For Truth (AFTAH) has never used the term “The Solution to the Gay Problem” and never would, except in response to this lie. There is a “solution” to homosexuality, but it’s certainly not akin to the one mentioned below. The solution to homosexuality — and to all sin — is redemption in Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:13-14, 21-23, 3:1-7).

• Why does this young man suggest that Americans For Truth advocates a homosexual holocaust? The claim is absurd; AFTAH and its president, Peter LaBarbera, have condemned all abuse and violence against homosexuals, and have also condemned unbiblical messages such as Fred Phelps’ “God Hates Fags” protests (which are now targeting the funerals of American soldiers). More than likely, this youthful MySpace writer is repeating nonsense that he heard from pro-homosexual teachers or adult “gay” activists. He didn’t read such a thing on this website.

• This teenager claims that AFTAH has taken a position against the violence in Iraq, yet AFTAH has not addressed Iraq.

• Contrary to our young friend’s assertion, homosexual activists are indeed asking for society’s blessing — something most would admit. Not only do they want to redefine marriage and family to accommodate their aberrant lifestyles; they advocate teaching homosexuality and transgenderism as positive lifestyles to very young children. Moreover, homosexual activists routinely smear those who disagree with them as “haters” and ultimately will push for “hate speech” laws against those who affirm the truth that God condemns homosexual practice. (Already, Christians in foreign countries like Canada, Great Britain and Sweden are being persecuted under such pro-homosexual “hate speech” laws — yet American homosexual activists for the most part are not renouncing the growing pro-“gay” totalitarianism abroad.)

• Affirming God’s Word by teaching that homosexuality is physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive is not hate but Truth. There is abundant secular research to confirm these aspects of the homosexual lifestye (see the website of NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality). And people can overcome homosexuality, as proven by countless ex-“gays” living contented lives across the world.

If teenagers are so “mature” and “wise,” then why do we send them to school to learn? Maybe these “educators” should spend less time adoring youthful impudence and more time with adults to regain proper perspective. The fact is that teenagers are not yet mature or wise, but they can attain both qualities in due time, through prayer, studying God’s word, and experience, including actually researching what groups like Americans For Truth believe rather than making up lies about us.

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MySpace posting bashing Americans For Truth:

Doc Holid?y

Male
16 years old
Naperville, ILLINOIS
United States

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Rodney Dangerfiled was right
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Life

There simply is no respect anymore. No respect for beliefs, no respects for individualism, no respect for humanity. I just read my friend Emily’s note about a group called ‘Americans For Truth’ and I visited their website. It made me want to vomit and cry. This group is dedicated to ‘educating’ America and the world about what they call “The Solution to the Gay Problem”. This made me remember something else along those lines, it was called “The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”. The ‘Final Solution’ to this imaginary malady was thought up by none other than Adolf Hitler. The solution as he saw it was mass extermonation and genocide. I want to know, where does all this hate come from. The same people who run this orginization also claim to be devout christians adn against the violence in Iraq and many other places in the world. Yet they fail to realise that just because it isn’t neccesarily physical, that doesn’t mean it is any less disgusting or violent. One thing every parent tries to preach, or at lest should try to, is understanding and compassion. Where is the understanding and compassion anymore? When did it become acceptable to shout hate and ignorance becasue you don’t understand teh way someone live’s their life. They are not asking you to take part in anything you don’t want to, they aren’t even asking for your blessing. all tehy are asking is that you let then life their life, and live it in peace. You may not agre with it, in fact i guarantee there are things in this world that make you want to spriral into blind rage at the near mention of, but I ask you, I beg you, do not hate something because you cannot understand it. Do not hate because the masses dictate that you should, groupthink is genocide of the mind. Finally, I ask you, love your neighbor like your brother and love the world like you love your friend. I have always made sure above all else that my friends know one thing about me if nothing else, that is that I would readily take a bullet for them, that no sacrifice is too great, and that nothing comes before them.

Press release from our friends at American Family Association of Pennsylvania, published Jan 4, 2007:

Ambridge Area School District Partnership With GLSEN Is a Mistake, Traditional Values Group Says

(Pittsburgh) – The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has invited Ambridge Area Senior High School principal Alan Fritz to attend diversity workshops they offer. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA) has expressed concern with this partnership in a letter to Mr. Fritz.

The AFA of PA, a statewide traditional values group, also provided Mr. Fritz with a copy of anti-bullying curriculum developed by Dr. Warren Throckmorton, Associate Professor of Psychology at Grove City College. GLSEN’s goal is to normalize the homosexual lifestyle and to demonize those who do not agree with that normalization.

In the letter sent to Mr. Fritz, the AFA of PA referred to a March 5, 1995 quote from Kevin Jennings, Executive Director of GLSEN, where he admits to using the ‘safety’ issue as a way of convincing the Massachusetts legislature to adopt a pro-homosexual agenda for their schools. Two years ago the father of a kindergarten student was arrested for objecting to homosexuality being discussed in his son’s class. Is Pennsylvania far behind?

“School boards and school administrators at Ambridge Area School District and beyond, need to be fully aware that it is in their best interest not to partner with homosexual organizations such as GLSEN. Pushing the acceptance of homosexuality ultimately will target the First Amendment rights of those with deeply held religious beliefs which believe that lifestyle is sinful,” Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA, noted.

Also mentioned in the letter were books that GLSEN encourages students to read:

• Two Teenagers in Twenty which is a compilation of true first-person ‘coming out’ stories of teens. In the book one boy relates that he has a 23-year-old lover, a homosexual man he met at a subway stop. The boy telling the story is 15 (p. 81).

• In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth has been available for purchase on the GLSEN web site. In this book, a boy named Todd recalled having a 25-year-old male sex partner when he was 16. They met when the boy went to the Sonoma County “gay” youth group (pp.58-59). He shortly began a different relationship with a 27-year-old male, a friend of the first partner (p.141).

• A novel called Rainbow Boys [by Alex Sanchez] is currently available for purchase on the GLSEN web site. In this book, three teen boys are featured as they explore homosexual relationships with each other and others. Besides numerous graphic scenes of masturbation, sex between homosexual teen boys, a 29-year-old “meets” a 17-year-old in an online chat room (p.112). They eventually go on a “date” and teen readers are treated to an explicit sex scene involving anal intercourse without a condom.

“Any school which partners with GLSEN is agreeing with their efforts to normalize homosexuality. A lifestyle which shortens the lives of the male participants by up to 20 years, sees increased substance abuse and psychological and eating disorders.

“GLSEN’s goal is to make Pennsylvania and all states similar to Massachusetts in pushing homosexuality in the classroom. Schools should provide a safe learning environment for all students, but teaching that ‘gay is okay’ is not being truthful about the dangers and could pose potential danger to students,” remarked Gramley.

“It is also a chance
to wholly transform the definition of family
in American culture.

It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes,
get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools,
and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us.”

— Michelangelo Signorile in I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,
published May 1996 by OUT magazine (page 30)
(cited by Robert Knight at Talking Points on Marriage)

Merry Christmas to all of our readers! Please consider making a year-end, tax-deductible gift to Americans For Truth. There’s a reason liberal-left groups like People for the American Way are monitoring AFTAH’s every move: they don’t want the radical “gay” agenda that endangers and corrupts children exposed. We need your help to keep standing for truth, as exemplified by the heartwarming story below…

The stakes of the cultural battle over homosexuality are never made clearer than when God reaches down from heaven to bring radical change in a person’s life — in the case below, a gender-confused suburban Chicago high school student who has recovered his masculine identity through Christian rebirth (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Only a sophomore in high school, “John” last year went by the name “Joanna” and was known in school for his feminine behaviors, like putting on women’s make-up. (We will not use his real name or identify his school to protect his identity as a minor.) He was headed towards living a life as a female-imitating, “transgendered” she — when God intervened and John was “born again” through faith in Jesus Christ, he told his student newspaper.

Now “transgender” Joanna is no more and John is reestablishing his true, God-given male nature at his high school. His newfound reality is precisely the sort of story that homosexual/transsexual activist groups like GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) do not want other teenagers to hear. Because GLSEN knows that such stories undermine the “gay” myth that people are born GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered), and that such aberrant identities are mere natural and innocuous “orientations.”

In GLSEN’s “gay” activist world, “Joanna” deserved to be recognized and celebrated based on his/her “transgendered” lifestyle. GLSEN encourages teachers and school counselors to confirm highly impressionable youth in gender-confused identities: in fact, it’s quite common now to hear teachers of young students identify gender non-conforming children as future “transgendered” adults.

GLSEN’s warped ideology has become official policy at many schools across the country.

But, of course, change is possible, because God is in the business of changing repentant sinners. If the Christ of Christmas can turn around the lives of drug addicts, murderers, and drunks, He certainly can save men and women — and adolescent children — trapped in gender confusion and homosexuality.

As you read this story, say a prayer of praise and thanks to God for working in the life of this young man. Merry CHRIST-mas, John! — Peter LaBarbera

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The following is excerpted from an article that appeared in “John’s” high school newspaper in the fall of 2006; we have changed his name and omitted source identification to protect his identity as a minor for now:

Comments left on the Myspace website of [John] displayed messages such as “Why are you moving?” and “Please don’t move away!”

Despite concerns that [John] might not begin his sophomore year at [unnamed Illinois high school], he is back, armed with a new wardrobe.

“All my friends were afraid that I was moving away. I’m not moving. Joanna [his female persona’s name] is moving,” said [John].

At the end of last year, [John] was concerned with properly applying eyeliner and picking a lip gloss that matched his belt.

[John] sold his old clothes and is now clad in [male] outfits from his new favorite stores…

The decision to change his appearance wasn’t a quick transition. Losing his feminine appearance took [John] the entire summer.

He became inspired after becoming more involved with religion and his church. [John] calls himself a “born-again Christian.”

“I started reading passages from the Bible this summer and I finally understood messages that didn’t make sense to me when I was younger,” [John] said. “Now I realize I can be who I want to be. Everybody can be who they want to be.”

…He also will remain active in his church because he feels that religion helped him decide what kind of changes to make in his life.

According to [John], although the start of the school year was “exciting” for him, he is disappointed that he received negative feedback about his changes from some of his friends.

“Mostly they say things like ‘Whoa, what happened?’ I understand that they might be shocked by my new look or that they don’t necessarily like it, but it doesn’t matter what they think,” [John] said.

According to [John], he spent “too much time” allowing his [Joanna — female] persona to be teased and mistreated last year.

“People couldn’t decide if they were going to accept me then, so I’m cautious of people who are eager to meet the new me,” [John] said.

Despite mixed reactions during the first days of school, [John] feels that his family and “true friends” have been accepting and encouraging of the changes he decided to make.

“I feel that the blessings have been pouring down on me recently,” [John] said. “Now I can finally be who I’m meant to be.”

And to that we at Americans for Truth say, Amen!

For background on this debate, see PFOX Official: Homosexual Activists Want to Censor Ex-‘Gay’ Message, by Jim Brown, published Nov 16, 2006, by Agape Press.

From MCPS [Montgomery County, Maryland, Public Schools] Flyer Distribution Policy: Should Organizations Be Allowed to Distribute Material with Report Cards?, Pia Nargundkar vs Iliya Smithka, published Nov 28, 2006, by Silver Chips (student newspaper at Montgomery Blair High School):

Iliya Smithka says YES: Organizations have the right to free speech within schools.

According to the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) website, flyers can be sent home with Blair students when report cards are handed out, on Nov. 10, Feb. 1 and April 11. On Nov. 10, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) distributed an inoffensive and informational flyer about the organization, much to the displeasure of many students and parents. These same students and parents must realize that the flyer policy supports nonprofit organizations’ right to free speech and a free market society.

Excerpted from Teacher Fails Girl for Stand on ‘Gays’, published Oct 7, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…The class at Windaroo Valley State High School, made up of 13- and 14-year-old girls, was given the scenario and told to answer 10 questions, including how it felt to be a “minority” and what they would do to cope with their situation. They were also told to discuss where ideas about homosexuality came from.

While many of the students were uncomfortable with the assignment or said they didn’t understand the questions, one girl instantly refused because of her religious faith.

“It is against my beliefs and I am not going there,” she told the teacher.

For this, she was given her first-ever failing grade in a health and physical education class…

“It’s no wonder our kids are struggling with the basics when the government is allowing this sort of rubbish to be taught in the classroom,” Queensland, Australia Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney said. The government “has created a system that tries to tell kids what to think instead of teaching them how to think,” he said.

“It is completely out of line for students to be graded on their moral beliefs. It’s not the job of our schools to politicize our children. It is their function to provide our kids with the basics, like reading, writing and math.”

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…