Joseph Farah is right about the homosexualist agenda...

By Matt C. Abbott

Although I've been critical of WorldNetDaily in the past (for running an anti-Catholic commentary), I have to commend WND's Joseph Farah for recognizing the sad and ugly fact that the conservative movement has been infiltrated by, and capitulated to, the homosexual lobby.

Farah, who's taken some heat recently for disinviting Ann Coulter to WND's upcoming national conference because she's headlining a GOProud event, believes it's important to expose and resist the agenda of these faux, pro-sodomy "conservatives." And I agree.

Even more disturbing than the homosexual lobby's infiltration into the conservative movement is their infiltration into the public school system.

Below is a significant portion of the text of an excellent talk given by Laurie Higgins, director of the Division of School Advocacy for the Illinois Family Institute, at the recent Americans for Truth conference. Higgins' talk illustrates just how badly the homosexualist agenda has infected (ahem) the public school system.

If you're pro-life, pro-family and a true conservative, you'll want no part of the pro-sodomy crowd. (Please note that I'm not referring to those with the homosexual inclination who are struggling to live chaste lives; rather, I'm referring to those who promote homosexual activity as morally acceptable.)

Many thanks to Laurie Higgins for allowing me to reprint this portion of her talk.

"Truth Academy, Day Two"

By Laurie Higgins
I want to follow-up on the discussion from yesterday about leaving public schools. I have heard conservatives argue that we shouldn't pull our kids out of public schools, that we should have our kids in school to be salt and light. I would argue that most of those people have not spent much time in public schools lately and have forgotten what it's like to be an adolescent.

Most conservative adults who say this are expecting teens to do what they themselves refuse to do. They expect teens, for whom belonging is even more important than it should be for adults, to speak the truth in a hostile environment.

I've met a student or two who has the maturity, courage, and knowledge to do this, but they are rare. Kids have to be intellectually and emotionally prepared to hold their own in a classroom discussion where there might be a dozen kids opposing them. And then they have to spend seven or more hours a day, five days a week with these same kids.

Most adults won't even make a statement at a school board meeting after which they can leave, perhaps never to see the faces of their school board members or other attendees again. I'm going to share just a few of my experiences in District 113 [in Illinois] in order to expose the hypocrisy of public educators who claim they honor all voices, value diversity, and foster tolerance.

After I began to question the ideological imbalance regarding resources about homosexuality, an English teacher whom I considered a friend said that I could no longer come to her classes to help students with their thesis statements because of my beliefs about homosexuality. This, even though I never talked to students about my beliefs and, in fact, had helped students strengthen their pro-same-sex marriage arguments for debate. It was simply that I had these beliefs and was willing to express them to colleagues that resulted in her rejection of my work.

My co-worker in the writing center called for a meeting with me and told me that although she noticed that I always treated her graciously, she realized that the only way she could get through a day with me was by not talking to me.

And this is an e-mail sent from a teacher's aide, who I thought was a friend, to a teacher:

[LAURIE] IS ONE SICK PUPPY!!!!!! Some Christian!!!!!! I hope she burns in the hell she believes in — what a sick b----....

This was an e-mail sent from a homosexual HPHS English teacher, whom I've never met, to our homosexual superintendent:

I've said it before — I could silently work with a gay attorney advising me — and I wouldn't represent the district. I just want to debate her....OK, never around a board election. But I'm dying to take her on.... Hey, what about if next year I teach Angels [in America] as an act of solidarity. It wouldn't hit [redacted] his first year, and it would show them they didn't win because they didn't. You stood up to them! OR how about I teach something really gay, but not really sexual. cmon — I want the American Civil Liberties Union on [Laurie's] a — so fast — that's the way to get her — get the big guns to do it. There must be someone in the area who's connected to the Anti-Defimation (sic) League. I have a name/word for this woman and I cannot put it in print.

And this is an e-mail that Superintendent George Fornero received from a community member and then forwarded to a DHS English teacher and colleague of mine:

I have a pretty good idea that [Laurie] doesn't care for Jews. [Laurie's son], now in his 20's was seeing a Jewish girl when he was 13. Even though they were a couple in school, he was not allowed to attend her bat mitzvah ceremony because he was not allowed to step foot in a temple. I guess the contamination would have spread to his pure heart; nor did he attend her celebration-probably too many Christ killers there.

One point of clarification: My son was very gregarious and well-liked. He attended dozens of bar and bat mitzvahs. Unlike some parents who allowed their children to attend just the evening parties, we had a rule that if our kids wanted to attend the party, they had to attend the morning religious service because it was more important.

The former CEO of Chicago Public Schools and current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appointed Kevin Jennings to be the "Safe Schools Czar" in the Department of Education. Kevin Jennings is the openly homosexual, anti-Christian founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network that promotes some of the most obscene, perverse materials and ideas imaginable to adolescents.

After Obama swept Duncan off to the Department of Education, Mayor Daley appointed openly homosexual Ron Huberman to fill Arne Duncan's position as CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

The nation's first homosexuality-affirming middle school opened last year, not in Massachusetts or California, but smack dab in the Midwest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In Massachusetts, two families, one with a kindergartner and one with a second-grader, sued their elementary school in an effort to be notified before their elementary school children were exposed to homosexuality-normalizing resources, so they could opt them out of such presentations. The judge decided that parents have no right to be notified and no right to opt their children out of such presentations.

More recently in the San Francisco area, parents sued their school district for the right to opt their elementary school children out of anti-bullying programs that affirm both homosexuality and transgenderism. A superior court judge denied their request. The judge determined that "any opt out right" is "outweighed by the policies against discrimination and harassment of students from LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] families." So, opting your first-grader out of pro-homosexual presentations now constitutes discrimination and harassment of LGBT students....

Yesterday, I discussed some terms that are manipulated to normalize homosexuality, and today I want to discuss a few more that are misused in the pernicious effort to use public schools — including elementary schools — to normalize homosexuality. The first term is "tolerance":

• Tolerance actually means to put up with or endure something one finds objectionable. Implicit in the idea of tolerance is disagreement and disapproval. One does not tolerate something with which one agrees or approves.
  
  
• True tolerance would mean allowing or enduring the expression of ideas, even ideas which we find offensive or wrongheaded. (It does not, however, require the expression of ideas that are age inappropriate.)
  
  
• When, however, the self-appointed cultural elites and public school administrators contend that society should be tolerant of homosexuality, they are really claiming that one ought to approve of it, affirm it, and celebrate it.
  
  
• Under the guise of promoting tolerance, schools offer only resources and activities that espouse liberal beliefs while censoring all resources that espouse conservative beliefs, which is completely inconsistent with the idea of tolerance.
  
  
• Resources that express disapproval of homosexual acts no more represent intolerance of homosexual persons than resources that express disapproval of promiscuity represent intolerance of those who are promiscuous.
  
  
• A commitment to true tolerance requires that some put up with the expression of the belief that homosexual conduct is moral, and requires that others put up with the expression of the belief that homosexual conduct is immoral.
  
  
• A skewed understanding of tolerance is, ironically, cultivating hatred. When children are taught the lie that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral also hate homosexuals, those children and teens start hating conservatives.
  
  

The second term I want to discuss is "safety" because it constitutes one of the central justifications for introducing homosexuality-affirming resources in public schools.

School administrators often claim that expressions of disapproval of homosexuality make students feel "unsafe." But what administrators mean when they say "safety" is actually "comfort." Conventionally, safety refers to the absence of verbal or physical harassment or abuse. Now, however, "safety" has acquired an expansive redefinition. It has now come to mean absence of uncomfortable feelings.

Five important points to consider when thinking about the issue of safety:

1. All students, of course, are entitled to be free from harassment and abuse which all schools address through existing anti-bullying policies.
   
   
2. There is no evidence to suggest that a thoughtful, thorough, intelligent, compassionate articulation of mainstream conservative views of homosexuality would in any way endanger the safety of homosexual students.
   
   
3. The good ends of ending bullying do not justify the means of using public money to affirm conduct that is unhealthy and that many believe is profoundly immoral.
   
   
4. If we consistently apply the principle of safety that is currently used in many schools, it would preclude the possibility of making any moral judgments about conduct. Applying that principle consistently would prevent everyone from expressing disapproval of any conduct — from smoking, to selfishness, to aggression to promiscuity to plagiarism — in which students may be engaging, for to do so would likely make them feel bad or in the language of liberal educators , they would feel "unsafe."
   
   
5. If schools are unwilling to allow homosexual students to encounter resources critical of homosexuality because those students might feel uncomfortable, then schools should be equally unwilling to allow conservative students to encounter resources critical of conservative beliefs for the same reason.
   
   

I want to talk a bit about the exposure of children and teens either to stories of the suffering of homosexuals or to stories of their achievements:

One of the more difficult aspects of engaging the culture on the topic of homosexuality is that inevitably we will encounter someone who is homosexual or who has a loved one who is homosexual. They will counter that their friends or loved ones are wonderful people or great parents or hard workers.

They are implicitly suggesting that positive character traits in one area diminish or efface negative traits in another. Let's say someone said they believe that adultery is immoral. Can you imagine another person saying, "Well, I have a friend who's an adulterer and he's very nice."

Of course, both heterosexuals and homosexuals have equal potential for kindness, humor, intelligence, and love, but the possession of good qualities does not render immoral behavior moral. It's now commonplace for children to be exposed to positive images of homosexuals on television, in plays, advertising, films, novels, and through guest speakers, including peer representatives from straight and gay alliances, that is, school clubs for homosexual students and their supporters.

My point in warning you about the problematic consequences of continual exposure to positive images of homosexuals is not that I deny that they possess admirable traits. I recognize that homosexuals are no less in possession of compassion, generosity, wit, creativity, or intelligence than heterosexuals. And I'm aware of the accomplishments of many exceedingly talented homosexuals in all of fields of human endeavor. Further, I'm not suggesting censoring the teaching of these accomplishments.

I'm suggesting that continually identifying the homosexuality or "gender identity" of those who have achieved success or possess desirable traits has another effect of teaching that their accomplishments or desirable traits have some bearing on the moral assessment of homosexuality or "transgenderism."

Repeatedly identifying the homosexuality or "gender identity" of individuals while extolling their good qualities serves irrationally to shape people's view of the morality of homosexual and transgender behavior, particularly in those who are not in the habit of thinking critically, especially children.

If homosexuals or "transgenders" have contributed something noteworthy in the field of science, mathematics, art, or history, those achievements should be noted, but the identification of their homosexuality or "gender identity" should be prohibited in public schools. Homosexuality and gender confusion are irrelevant to achievement and are irrelevant to the possession of desirable character traits.

The reason homosexualists seek to include this information is the very reason, traditionalists must oppose it. They are seeking to transform cultural views on homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder by irrationally, fallaciously associating them with something positive.

The logic implicit in sympathetic portrayals of homosexual people or characters is a kind of inversion of the principle of "guilt by association." Instead, we find innocence by association.

In fact, in the book After the Ball, which was the blueprint or "manifesto" for changing the culture, the homosexual authors recommend using the "rules of Associative Conditioning (which is the psychological process whereby, when two things are repeatedly juxtaposed, one's feelings about one thing are transferred to the other)."

When homosexuals are seen as kind, creative, generous, charming, funny, intelligent, or industrious, homosexuality becomes, by association, good. The underlying fallacious syllogism is as follows: 1. Sensitivity and compassion are good. 2. Homosexuals are sensitive and compassionate. 3. Therefore, homosexuality is good.

The syllogism is flawed, and the conclusion is invalid.

Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to this kind of emotional manipulation, so limiting exposure and explaining the underlying flawed logic is critical.

In addition to the stories of achievements, public schools are having homosexuals and "transgenders" — including teens — share their stories of suffering with students. The stories of suffering told by homosexuals not only increase awareness of these students' feelings but also result in student self-censorship: these stories compel others to feel, illegitimately, that their sound moral judgments are, in fact, the problem.

Absent clear thinking, similar effects blur the distinction between different causes. In other words, when homosexuals feel bad when harassed and also feel bad in the presence of moral disapproval, students mistakenly assume that harassment and moral disapproval are equally wrong. The similar effects of hurt feelings obscure the difference between abuse and principled moral objection.

Repeated, uncritical exposure to sympathetic homosexual speakers who share poignant stories of suffering, leads many students to become understandably reluctant to increase the suffering of homosexuals. Decades ago, homosexual activists (either the National Gay Task Force or Kirk and Madsen) recognized the strategic importance of desensitization and sympathy in transforming public opinion. Their explicit plans included the following:

1. Almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to it enough.
   
   
2. Portray gays as victims. In any campaign to win over the public we must be cast as victims in need of protection, so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of the protector.
   
   

The problem is that even adults often do not make the distinction and children often cannot make the distinction between suffering brought about by cruelty, and discomfort caused by hearing a hard truth.

Harassment and abuse are evil. In contrast, though it may be perceived as unpleasant, speaking the truth about homosexuality is good, and right, and loving. Surely, we should be the protectors of those being verbally or physically harassed or abused.

We must never, however, be the protectors of sinful ideas or behavior. We must always stand for truth and righteousness. And we must clarify in our own minds and to our children that while it is legitimate to feel sympathy for the tragic lives of those who choose to give in to homosexual desire; for the familial rejection they may face; for the diseases that they suffer; and for the incurring of God's wrath, we must stand steadfastly for the truth of the sinfulness of homosexuality. Our children need to be told explicitly that expressing that truth is not analogous to hateful discrimination. They need to be told that, quite the contrary, sharing that truth is the only truly loving response to sin....

If we're going to restore integrity to public schools, preserve speech and religious liberty, protect parental rights, and protect the heart, minds, and bodies of our children, we must become willing to speak out and endure the persecution that will inevitably result.

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Pertinent links:

Illinois Family Institute

Americans for Truth

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing

Courage Apostolate

© Matt C. Abbott