A quote from GLSEN’s founder and executive director Kevin Jennings — the same GLSEN which designated this week (Jan 22-26, 2007) as No Name Calling Week, an opportunity for homosexual activists to influence your children.

TAKE ACTION — Make your school administrators aware of the origins of No Name Calling Week and of Kevin Jennings’ comments which reveal his character and (in)sincerity about tolerance/diversity…and then demand that GLSEN be refused access to students in your community.

Excerpted from When Silence Would Have Been Golden, by Peter LaBarbera, published April 10, 2006, by Concerned Women for America:

GLSEN’S JENNINGS: !&%#! THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT!
Addressing a church audience on March 20, 2000 in New York City — just days before “Fistgate” — GLSEN Executive Director Kevin Jennings offered a stinging (and quite intolerant) assessment of how to deal with religious conservatives:

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—] ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think! [audience laughter] Drop dead!⁹

It should be noted that GLSEN and Jennings make heavy use of the words “respect” and “tolerance” in their public rhetoric and in descriptions of their programs.¹⁰

Continue reading at CWA…

Two of eleven men arrested for public masturbation at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport:
UNC Professor & CDC Advisor Dr. Hugh Tilson (left) and Spellman Art Professor Lev Mills (right)

Excerpted from Shaking Hands with the Unemployed, by Dr. Mike Adams, published Jan 22, 2007, by Townhall:

It should come as no surprise that a men’s restroom at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has become a playground for those who want to masturbate in public and have sex with men they don’t even know. After all, Atlanta is a hotbed of homosexual activity and public restrooms are favorite gathering places of many homosexuals.

But some may be surprised that, since December, police officers have arrested and charged 11 men with public indecency in the Atlanta airport. That is because there has been little talk about the arrests. And that, in turn, may have something to do with the fact that “Dirty Nearly Dozen” includes University of North Carolina Professor (and advisor for the Center for Disease Control) Dr. Hugh Tilson and Spelman College Professor Lev T. Mills.

Continue reading on Townhall…

Listen Online

Monday, January 22, 2007 — MBN’s Jon Gauger interviews Laurie Higgins, a staff member at an affluent suburban Chicago area high school, regarding normalization and celebration of homosexuality in public schools. Mrs. Higgins offers cogent reasoning that you can employ with your local school administrators and your church leaders. This radio programs presents a rare opportunity to hear from a professional who has really made a difference in one of the most politically and morally liberal communities in Illinois.

(This interview is in hour 1, segment 2, and starts approximately 4 minutes into the audio. The segment is 4 minutes in duration.)

TAKE ACTION — Listen and then keep Laurie Higgins in your prayers.

Excerpted from Wide Berth Allowed on Teaching About Homosexuality, by Daniel de Vise, published Jan 16, 2007, by Washington Post:

Montgomery County’s overhaul of its sex education curriculum, which has inspired a lawsuit, petition drives, national news coverage and the formation of fiercely polarized community groups, was itself inspired by two words buried deep within the regulatory code of Maryland, which advises school systems to teach “sexual variations.”

The county school system invoked those regulations in defense of disputed new lessons that introduce students to sexual orientation and transgenderism in grades eight and 10…

“Everyone’s watching Montgomery right now, in no uncertain terms,” to see whether the new curriculum survives an expected legal challenge, said Jean-Marie Navetta, spokeswoman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a national nonprofit organization. If the lessons emerge intact, they could be replicated…

The structure of state regulations about sex education speaks to the delicate balance between providing lessons to children about sexuality, discrimination and public health and respecting the religious and moral values of parents…

The Montgomery Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development — the panel required by state law — recommended five years ago that sexual orientation be introduced to the health curriculum…

The resulting lessons, which discussed sexual orientation in the context of tolerance and diversity, satisfied the citizens committee and school system staff and placed the liberal-leaning county at the forefront of such teachings. But the curriculum met fierce resistance from some parents. A group collected 3,700 signatures on a petition opposing the lessons…

Montgomery’s new curriculum will focus on the subject in two 45-minute class periods in grade eight and two in grade 10. Anne Arundel devotes about half as much time at a single grade level, either nine or 10. Instructional materials tell teachers to “examine gender identity, gender roles and gender stereotyping” and to “describe sexual orientation and the impact on self and others.”…

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.

Excerpted from NEA Releases Controversial Statement on Website, published Jan 3, 2006, by Family News in Focus:

A ‘school safety’ link for the National Education Association says “a great public school is a fundamental right of every child, free from intimidation and harassment, and safe for all students, including those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered.” Linda Harvey with Mission America says the site uncovers an agenda.

“If anyone ever had a doubt before that there is a deliberate and well-funded and highly influential gay agenda in schools, then this should convince them that there is indeed that going on.”

She says the NEA is essentially saying in order to have safe schools we need to approve of homosexuality.

“That’s their recommendation, and it’s a false one; it’s a misleading one and one that is very likely to endanger millions of students.”

Finn Laursen with the Christian Educators Association agrees with the anti-bullying message, but says the NEA is treading into unsafe waters with its pro-gay, safe-school message.

“As parents and educators we ought to say, ‘No, we won’t tolerate harassment or bullying. But we shouldn’t be promoting something to our children that we know has major medical, psychological implications and as a Christian, we believe is sin.”

Laursen says the NEA can promote safe schools without promoting a political agenda.

Americans For Truth’s Sonja Dalton offers a few thoughts on the San Francisco Chronicle story below about four “transgender” girls:

• “Real women” have two X chromosomes, and they do not have a male sex organ;
• Adult homosexual and “transgender” activists, like lesbian writer Chris Beam, often affirm confused “GLBT” youth in dangerous and wrong behaviors;
• Nothing is sadder to see than a confused young person who has been deceived into renouncing his God-given identity and sexuality;
• Churches need to prepare to intervene with vulnerable boys and girls (kids from dysfunctional, broken, or abusive homes; kids that don’t “fit in”; kids that have been molested). Godly men and women need to come alongside vulnerable kids, put their arms around them, reinforce their God-given identity, and motivate them with a vision of the fulfilling life they can enjoy.

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The following is excerpted from Shaking Up Transgender Assumptions, a book review by Julie Foster, published Jan 7, 2007, by the San Francisco Chronicle:

Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers
by Cris Beam

Real women can have penises. And “the brain and the heart are the only organs with a gender, and … all genital modification or lack thereof is simply a personal aesthetic choice.” These are some of the titillating ideas explored in “Transparent,” Cris Beam’s first book.

…In 1998, [Cris Beam] was a freelance magazine writer with spare time. She began volunteering at a high school in Los Angeles for gay and transgender teens.

After 2 1/2 years Beam burned out and quit. But she loved her students, even with “their attitudes, and the occasional danger and regular tragedies,” and she maintained contact with several of the kids.

“Transparent” is the result of those meetings, which occurred from 1998 through the summer of 2005. Beam found her way into this nuanced world through the lives of four transgender girls, Christina, Domineque, Foxxjazell and Ariel, genetic males living as females…

It hasn’t always been so. Beam reveals the “rich history of transsexuality — or cross-gender behavior — documented back to the pre-Christian era.” She cites examples from early American Indian cultures, including the Mohave, Navajo and Lakota, which seem to have not been so hung up on the male-female dichotomies. “For these tribes, there weren’t just two genders posted at opposite ends of a field, with a rule against hanging out in the middle.”

She chronicles the tragic homelessness, common to many transgender teens, which exacerbates their already complicated lives. She weaves in the story of Foxxjazell, “a really great drag mother,” and one of the many “transsexuals who have already been living in their rightful gender and are in the position to teach their younger counterparts.”…

Five years after Beam began her interviews, things changed. Beam and her partner, Robin, moved back to New York. Domineque committed a serious crime and was sentenced to time at an all-male prison. And 19-year-old Christina, who by then had become a part of Beam’s family, reached her goal of getting a social outreach job with a Latino AIDS organization…

Continue reading in San Francisco Chronicle…