Excerpted from Preschoolers and Penquins: Propaganda Pawns, by Michael Medved, published Nov 28, 2006, by USA Today:

…A few families of students in Shiloh, a town of 11,000 people 20 miles east of St. Louis, object to the general availability of And Tango Makes Three, an illustrated storybook that loosely follows the real-life story of two male penguins at New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own. With its enthusiastic celebration of little Tango’s good fortune at possessing “two fathers,” and with the narrative’s fanciful suggestion that the zoo keeper “thought to himself … they must be in love,” the book clearly took a position in the ongoing arguments about same-sex coupling and homosexual families. In fact, the story concludes with the observation that Silo and Roy “discovered each other in 1996 and have been a couple ever since.”

International news stories reported, however, that their partnership proved short-lived: As soon as Scrappy, a sultry, seductive female from San Diego’s Sea World, arrived in their enclosure, Silo instantly took notice, straightened up and mated with the irresistible gal — leaving his guy pal behind (an outcome never described, of course, in the propagandistic story book for kids).

Despite parental requests that school librarians remove the controversial volume from the open shelves for young readers ( it’s designed for ages 4 to 8 ) and relocate it to a special section for “mature issues,” school superintendent Jennifer Filyaw declared that And Tango Makes Three would stay put as an “adorable” and “age appropriate” offering.

Grown-up arguments

Regardless of the aesthetic virtues (or shortcomings) of either Happy Feet or And Tango Makes Three, it’s easy to see why even non-partisan parents would object to their targeting of very young children. In school and elsewhere, it makes sense to introduce preteens to ongoing debates about global warming, environmental degradation or the redefinition of marriage and family, but most mothers and fathers would prefer to spare preschoolers from such grown-up arguments.

Some adults may choose to expose the youngsters in their lives to Al Gore’s powerful and skillfully crafted documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but they will know before they go that they’re taking the kids to an occasionally frightening message movie. In Happy Feet, on the other hand, you’d have no reason to expect so much unhappy and worrisome content — nor would you expect a sweet, gorgeously drawn picture book about cuddling penguins to include potentially explosive hints about [“gay”] marriage and fatherhood. With the celebrated (and controversial) book Heather Has Two Mommies, parents — if not kids — know what to expect. With And Tango Makes Three, many readers (including Lilly Del Pinto, one of the concerned parents in the fight against the book) found themselves unhappily surprised.

As children grow and develop, their natural curiosity and ongoing media exposure will lead them inevitably into divisive issues, which all conscientious parents should prepare to help explain. In the earliest stages of life, however, it makes sense to keep them protected from such conflicts and to avoid using preschoolers — and penguins — as the pawns of propaganda.

Continue reading in USA Today…

Parents, please take the time to read this article in its entirety on the New York Daily News website. Of particular note:

• Be wary of the books on your child’s required or recommended reading lists, especially if a book carries the label “Young Adult.” Your elementary, middle school, junior high school age child is not a “young adult” – nor is your high school adolescent a “young adult” until they’re 18.
  
• You cannot trust the judgment of the library or the recommendations of teachers’ groups. You must evaluate your child’s reading materials for yourself.
• If you find such materials at your local school, there is something you can do. Follow the example of the parents in this story and get personally involved in opposing inappropriate materials.
  

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Excerpted from P. S., These Books Are Sick!, by Rachel Scheier and Carrie Melago, published Dec 7, 2006, by New York Daily News:

Sixth-graders at a Queens school were getting quite an education – in homosexuality, French kissing and cursing – thanks to three books widely available in classroom libraries.

But after numerous complaints from parents at Public School 150 in Sunnyside, the books – a profanity-laced poetry book, short stories about homosexuality and a novel called “First French Kiss” – were pulled from the shelves last week.

…The poem “I Hate School” in a book called “You Hear Me?“ includes the rhyme, “F— this s—, up the a–. I don’t think I’ll ever pass.”Another poem compares eating an orange to having sex, while several passages repeatedly use vulgar slang for genitalia. And the book “Am I Blue?“ is an anthology of stories about gay teenagers that parents found too adult-themed for 11- and 12-year-olds.

…Parent and leadership team member Michael Novak said the books, which are labeled “young adult” by the New York Public Library, are “material that is totally inappropriate for sixth-graders.”

Principal Carmen Parache said she had not reviewed the books until she received complaints but said they were “definitely inappropriate.” She said classroom materials would be more carefully screened in the future.

“As soon as I saw them, I pulled them and they are no longer in the school,” she said. “This is something that shouldn’t have happened and it will not happen again.”

“You Hear Me?” was suggested for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders by the Columbia University Teachers College’s Reading and Writing Project because it is the only anthology with poems written by minority teenagers, said Lucy Calkins, its founding director.

Continue reading in New York Daily News…

A Plea to Pastors and Christian Leaders

By Linda Harvey of Mission America

The conflict in our culture over homosexuality is heating up at an astonishing pace. The battle now needs to be waged on many fronts simultaneously: in the media, in our schools, in the courts, on campus, and within the medical profession. Most tragically of all, the battle over sexuality threatens to divide Christianity as nothing has since the Reformation.

It is in this last arena where I entered the fight to begin with, and where I believe our central focus should be. We are in a fight to determine who we are created to be. God is our Creator, so the battlefield always ends up at the foot of the cross.

So why isn’t this issue of immediate concern to more confessing Christians? Homosexual activists and their allies are, in case one hasn’t noticed, the torch-carriers for a movement to destroy biblically-oriented Christianity and its positive influence on our culture. They won’t be able to reinvent Christianity, of course. Christ’s authentic Church of true believers will remain steadfast even if we’re stripped of all we have in this world. But they could destroy our culture.

The bigger point is, how will Christians account to God for how we responded to this challenge, and the people whose souls, health and lives could have been salvaged?

I am increasingly convinced that much of the Church will have a lot of explaining to do. Why did most pastors allow evil to be “sold” to our young people with barely a whimper of protest? Why did you allow this tragic behavior to become a chic cause celebre in the media without trying to take a stand against it? Why did you let seminaries teach this blasphemy? Why did you spend little or no time in the pulpit dealing with this and all the related sexuality issues – promiscuity, pornography, adultery, fornication – sins that are tearing apart the families and personal lives of even Bible-confessing Christians? Why did you constantly decry “political involvement” when this is a deeply moral issue, one for which there are ready arguments to be made in the public square had more Christian leaders been willing to make them?

And the big question is: why do you let the world define what’s right to do? What will be “accepted” or not? What is “hate” or not? This defense of inaction completely undermines who Christ is and what God is able to do. Such cowardice should make us tremble. For God would not only be with us if we tried to talk some sense into the world, He is just as able to judge each Christian and the society we live in for our disloyalty and cold-heartedness. I believe right now, He is doing just exactly that.

The moral decline in our world — the violent images that are the daily bread of our children, the school shootings, the acceptable treason of our elected leaders — will not stop until the Church is willing to be politically incorrect and cry out loudly in protest to proclaim what is good, instead of meekly retreating in the face of evil. With all the hope that is in the Gospel, why do so many remain silent?

We win the argument in the end, of course. Homosexuality will eventually be seen for the lie it is, a lie against all that God created a person to be; a lie about how people are best to love and relate to one another; a lie of omission about the health hazards involved, the sinful origins of homosexual desire and the real possibility of change. It will be seen for a lie that invalidated the authenticity of Scripture for many, leading them to believe in false gods and goddesses, creating worship of a “Jesus” that does not exist. They will realize that the defenders of homosexuality were wolves masked by this false worship, leading many of Christ’s sheep to be fed in fields fertile with enticing poison.

But it will be too late for America as we know it when “experts” and “authorities” — and even the Church’s leaders — finally realize their error. My fear is that we’ve already crossed a line where Pandora’s box cannot be closed. These practices are well-established already in the lives of many teens and young adults, and we are soon to live in a society of sexual barbarians where all types of unspeakable practices are accepted.

Violence, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, accompanies widespread sexual license, already evident in the millions of abortions performed each year. Why are we surprised when violence emerges from behind the closed doors of clinics, and into our schools and eventually, our streets and homes? Decline will be swift and painful and Christians will not escape the trauma in this world. We can look forward to eternity, which in all its glory will be a blessed aftermath. But tribulation here and now is coming unless we turn our society around. Only Christians can do this, for we are the only ones willing to stick it out.

Or so one would think.

There aren’t many folks in this fight, but this is why we are. It simply represents the essence of who people are, and who Christ is. We don’t know how much impact we can have, but we know we are called to try. It would be encouraging to have more Christians join us.

Preach the word!
Be ready in season and out of season.
Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears,
they will heap up for themselves teachers;
and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.”

–2 Timothy 4:2-4 NKJV

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.

Read the rest of this article »

From Pro-Family Groups Find Ways to Combat Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools, by Ed Vitagliano, published Dec 6, 2006, by Agape Press:

The influence of homosexual activists within the nation’s educational system continues to grow, altering the attitudes of children and teens toward the acceptance of a destructive and depraved lifestyle.

Often without parental knowledge, local schools are instituting policy changes that not only promote respect for homosexuality, but often even celebrate it. From teacher lesson plans to books in the school libraries to special speakers addressing children in school assemblies, activists are touting the “naturalness” of homosexuality.

‘Risk Audit’ can reveal shenanigans
With so much politically-correct pro-homosexual indoctrination going on, how do parents assess the extent of homosexual activism in their own local schools?

Linda Harvey, founder of the Ohio-based pro-family group Mission America, has developed one common-sense tool. Harvey’s “Risk Audit Project” is a comprehensive survey which measures the promotion of homosexuality in a given public school district. (The survey can be downloaded for free at the organization’s website.)

The Risk Audit Project measures the extent to which public school districts are collaborating with homosexual activists by determining, among other things, whether schools have adopted pro-homosexual policies or curricula, and whether the school district is sponsoring pro-homosexual clubs, events, or activities.

Read the rest of this article »

AN Americans For Truth SPECIAL REPORT

How Does a Teenager Get Started in Homosexual “Sex Work”? Just ask the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force…

It’s about time that Christian Americans learn to distinguish between the man or woman struggling with homosexual temptations–to whom we should extend a loving hand and God’s grace to help them overcome–and a “gay” activist movement bent on destroying all sexual and gender norms in the culture.

Last month, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force held its 2006 Creating Change conference at the Westin Crown Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. Americans For Truth sent reporters to the Nov. 10-12 event–and they witnessed the farthest thing from heartland values that you can imagine. Our representatives were forced to go undercover because the Task Force bans conservative critics from its conferences. (Years ago, I was kicked out of a Task Force conference while attending a workshop on “public sex,” led by a panelist who runs a pornographic “cruising” site for men looking for anonymous sex with other men. No joke.)

Is it any wonder that Task Force leaders are not “proud” of their radical agenda but seek instead to hide it from the public? And yet they have the audacity to compare their movement to Martin Luther King’s.

As the leftist arm of the homosexual movement, the Task Force’s annual “Creating Change” conference — now in its 19th year — tells us where they want to take America. “Sex work” for teenagers? Don’t judge it as wrong. Prostitution? Legalize it but don’t tax it. Partnering with sexual sadists, pornographers and “fetishists”? Hey, they have their “rights,” too.

The new rallying cry for the “gay” Left is “Sexual Freedom.” This is to the sloganeering homosexual militant what “people’s democracy” was (is) to the Communist cadre: Orwellian Newspeak for an extreme agenda that threatens children, undermines natural families, and ultimately helps destroy societies.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s crusade for sexual anarchy — which we will lay out in future articles — is the logical result of a movement that is constantly discovering new rights based on sexual and gender aberrations. Of course, the Task Force cannot say “No” to the sadomasochists and the prostitution advocates, etc.: if rights can be based on homosexual behavior — a sin so grievous that it was an unspoken taboo not too long ago — why stop at these other sex/gender “orientations”?

Meanwhile, the Task Force’s director, Matt Foreman, regularly blasts pro-family Christians and groups like American For Truth as “extremists” and “homophobes.” Reality check: there is nothing more extreme than the Gay Task Force’s agenda of casting aside all laws proscribing immoral and unhealthy sexual conduct.

While many homosexuals take issue with this or that aspect of the Task Force’s “loony left” agenda, Americans need to recognize that, collectively, the organized homosexual activist movement — those pushing to change our laws and make homosexuality and transsexuality easy for youth to embrace — constitutes one of the greatest evils facing our culture today.

Now, I hear some of you objecting that the Task Force conference does not represent the “gay mainstream.” True, but the NGLTF’s other agenda of domesticated, “monogamous” homosexuality is nearly as extreme as what’s described below because it presents a “good” side to perversion — that is, sin — for young people to emulate.

Regularizing sin (deviance) or repackaging it to appear more like normal heterosexual relationships does not make it right.

For those tempted to embrace homosexual monogamy as an acceptable compromise, ask yourself: how do two men consummate their “gay marriage”?

The likelihood that you don’t even want to think about answering that question bespeaks the evilness of organized homosexuality and the illicit nature of all “gay” sex. Supporting “civil unions” as a compromise is merely a capitulation to an agenda that seeks to enshrine wrong and sometimes deadly behavior as a “good” for society.

Tear off the veneer of “gay” propaganda and underneath you will see that this issue has little to do with “equality” or “civil rights” and everything to do with a revolutionary assault on nature and a time-tested Judeo-Christian morality that has served Western civilization well.

So why are we losing to this extreme movement? One reason is that the Task Force’s agenda is so perverse that most Americans cannot fathom it, while others simply don’t want to face the truth that committed activists are actually mobilizing around such deviance. Still others, their minds softened by the outreach of “gay” friends and family, have taken a “live and let live” approach even though in their gut they recognize the danger of normalizing things like “gay adoption,” “gay marriage” and “GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered] youth.”

So the “gays” — organized, wealthy and single-minded — win incrementally because “good people do nothing.”

So what should we do? In my view there are three options:

1) LIBERAL OPTION: embrace the lie, throw away common sense and centuries of Judeo-Christian tradition, and support homosexuality and gender confusion as civil rights. Watch and cheer as Americans’ First Amendment rights to live out their faith and disagree with homosexuality get superseded by “gays” demanding “sexual freedom” in its various manifestations;

2) “FEEL GOOD” COMPROMISE: support the “middle ground” of civil unions/domestic partnership. (We won’t call it “marriage,” but the media will.) This actually rewards homosexual activism by legitimizing “gay” relationships — thus creating a faulty paradigm of “acceptable, responsible” homosexuality. This option will confuse youth and help all homosexuals rationalize their immoral relationships. It also will embolden “gay” advocates in their struggle to legalize “same-sex marriage”;

3) STAND ON PRINICIPLE: recognize that homosexual behavior and homosexual relationships are always wrong and must not be rewarded by our government or by our laws. Resist all attempts to confirm youth in counterfeit homosexual, bisexual or “transgender” identities. Extend the hope of the life-changing Gospel to homosexual strugglers while fighting the “gay” political/cultural agenda with everything you’ve got.

We at Americans For Truth hope that you will join us in pursuing Option Three. God bless. — Peter LaBarbera

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Creating Change, Corrupting Children: The ‘Gay’ Task Force’s Evil Agenda

By Americans For Truth staffers

At the Creating Change conference (Nov 8-12, 2006), organized by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, at least three teenagers (some still in high school) listened from the front row while a panel discussed “sex work” — prostitution, stripping, and pornography films — and sex worker “rights.”

According the NLGTF’s website, Creating Change is the largest GLBT organizing conference. Over 2,000 homosexual activists were reportedly in attendance in Kansas City.

The Task Force scheduled a panel discussion for Saturday (Nov 11) entitled “What’s $ Got to Do With It?: Sex Work, Economics, and Class.” The description of this session in the conference program states:

“We all know that transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals (as well as those in our communities who don’t identify with those terms) are involved in exchanging sexual services for money, or other necessities, also known as sex work.

“Whether as street-based workers, exotic dancers, pro-dommes, pornography actresses and actors, or in any other aspect, you’ll find gender and sexual minorities.”

To be clear, the primary topic under consideration was prostitution. The program continues:

“…The stigma connected to sex outside of heterosexual, monogamous, inside-marriage-only norms affects the lives of both queers and sex workers. …And sex workers across the US, often time with LGBT sex worker activists at the forefront, are demanding respect for their rights.

“This workshop will explore the diversity and contradictions of the sex industry involving issues of sexuality, gender, race, class and more, with an emphasis on encouraging participants to support sex workers’ fight for their rights. Panelists will discuss alternatives to criminalization, the maximization of health and safety for sex workers, and how feminist, queer theory, and sexuality discussions engage the issue of sex work.”

There were 77 seats available in the meeting room, very few empty, with an additional 8 or 10 people standing. In the front row, directly in front of the panel, sat teenage students from Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth (“BAGLY” — “a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization”).

Four adults formed the panel: Darby Hickey, Carol Queen, Gennifer Hirano, and Tyrone Hanley.

Darby Hickey is a male-to-female transvestite (pictured left), with red hair, and was wearing sunglasses, a tight t-shirt and a short plaid pleated skirt. He (God made him male) serves as program coordinator for Different Avenues, a non-profit that offers classes on “communication and negotiating” and counseling on “safer” sex and HIV. In his “Friendster” profile, Darby describes himself as “Christian” and “just a poor girl caught up in the life of glamour and luxury due to my moral corruption and participation in illegal and fraudulent activities.”

Carol Queen is a world-renowned pervert (and proud of it), board member of Woodhull Foundation and creator of “Masturbate-a-thon.” You can read her review of Creating Change on her blog, “Chronicles of Sex Positive Culture” — including her summary of Thursday’s all day “Sexual Freedom Institute.”

Gennifer Hirano is also known as “AsianPrincess” — “an Asian cowgirl in pink braids, bikini top, and thong who often sings ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ while giving an Asian man a lap dance” according to an article by Karen Eng. She is affiliated with SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project), and describes herself as a “Queer Bitch Whore Revolutionary.” An interview published in Asian Week reveals that Ms. Hirano performed at Crazy Horse, a full nude club in San Francisco’s SOMA district — while she was a grade school teacher in San Mateo (she resigned June 30, 2006).

Tyrone Hanley of HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) also serves as president of Youth Alliance DC.

So what did these four GLBT role models have to say to the audience — and more importantly, to teenagers — about “sex work”?

NGLTF’s emerging policy position on prostitution
The Task Force panel advocates “decriminalization” of all sex work — as opposed to “legalization” which would subject prostitution income to taxation and allow for “government control of women’s bodies.”

Gennifer Hirano (pictured right) expressed frustration that she was constrained as a grade school teacher from being “out” as a sex worker.

Darby Hickey said that “sex exchange is a right” and “a tool for survival.”

Tyrone Hanley said that in DC, about 40% of sex workers are women, 40% are trans, and 20% are men. Of the trans prostitutes, nearly all are black or “of color” men who “lack access to the resources to achieve their transition goals” and who are excluded from legitimate employment, even among homosexual professionals and business owners who occupy “a position of power” in DC.

“How do you get started?”
One of the teenage boys on the front row raised his hand and asked: “How do you get started?” He explained: “We suspect that one of the youth in our group is leaning toward sex work. What should we do?”

The panelists did not suggest deterring the youth from pursuing sex work or encouraging the youth to think about a college education. They suggested listening, remaining non-judgmental, and perhaps discussing safety, “but not to the extent that he feels stigmatized.”

“Jesus and all that horrible stuff”
An audience member made reference to a ministry in Kansas City that provides services to prostitutes, homosexual and heterosexual, but “tells them about Jesus and all that horrible stuff.” She asked, “How do we organize against it?”

Carol Queen agreed that to offer services to prostitutes or the homeless while requiring Bible study or prayer is “coercive.” She suggested “creating alternative space without the Christian thing.”

“White supremacy”
Gennifer Hirano closed the session saying that “the police are not my friend.” She suggested that if sex workers, strippers, and porn stars could “overcome sexism” they would “form an alliance to f*ck the police.” As a “Queer Bitch Whore Revolutionary” (with a masters degree) she said “I am a sex worker because of white supremacy” and that “every sex act with a client is an act of revolution.”

Indeed.

Excerpted from ‘ACLU Solstice Barn’ Substitutes for Nativity, published Dec 6, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

In tongue-in-cheek deference to the American Civil Liberties Union, students at the University of Texas displayed an “ACLU Solstice Barn” on campus, featuring politically correct figures.

“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for ‘homosexual marriage,’ and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” said Tony McDonald, chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas branch on the Austin campus.

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

by Sonja Dalton

CosmoGirl! editors have become “conversant with queer issues,” according to a pro-lesbian website.

In an article entitled CosmoGirl! Includes Queer Peers (published Aug 8, 2006, by afterellen.com), writer Rose Yndigoyen says,

“Over the past few years, CosmoGirl! has subtly but steadily included stories from and about lesbian, bisexual and questioning girls, as well as coverage of LGBT issues amid the more traditional teen magazine fare of quizzes and heartthrob interviews.”

Ms. Yndigoyen offers this sample of Cosmo’s foray into lesbian love stories for adolescent girls:

When my family moved to a small town in Illinois, I’d been having mixed feelings for about a year. All I could think about was who did I like — boys or girls? One day at my new school, I was in the locker room.

All the girls were taking showers when one of them saw me looking at some of them and made mean comments about me being a “lesbo.” Everyone left in a hurry after she said it, except for this one girl. I didn’t notice that she was there so I got dressed, sat on the ground and started bawling my eyes out.

Suddenly she came up and put her arm around me — she didn’t have to say anything. I could tell from that moment there was a connection. Later on, after a long talk about my feelings, I told her I felt comfortable with her and had never felt that way with a girl. Then she kissed me.

I almost pulled back, but I stopped myself and put my hand on her face. I never wanted it to end, and I knew at that moment I’d never forget it, because it was my first kiss with a girl.

Wonder why Cosmo is writing about lesbian teenagers? Ms. Yndigoyen explains:

• 60 percent of CosmoGirl! readers revealed that they have a friend who is gay or bisexual, and
• 63 percent of readers support “gay marriage.”

Read the rest of this article »