(2) Focus on Education: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America

In 1974 the National Education Association added 'sexual orientation' to its resolution on nondiscriminatory personnel policies. Diversity training, which includes acceptance of the gay and lesbian lifestyles, became the requirement for educational administrators, teachers and students.

CLAGS

In the 1980's gay and lesbian studies developed in universities across the country. The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), was established by the Graduate School of the City University of New York in 1991 with a grant from the Paul Rapoport Foundation, a major supporter of gay/lesbian concerns. CLAGS operated as a clearinghouse for scholarly research, conferences and public programs on gay related issues. It also prepared syllabi and curriculum supporting gay and lesbian studies for all grade levels.

GLSEN

Seventy gay and lesbian educators formed the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Network (GLSTN) in 1990 to form Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA's) with the policy of protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students. Chapters were established across the country. Kevin Jennings, one of the founders, was hired as it's first full time staff person. In 1997, GLSTN changed it's name to Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN has registered more than 4,000 GSA's on school campuses and grew to 40 full time staff. GLSEN sponsors the National Day of Silence at schools across the country to bring attention to the silence caused by anti-LGBT bullying.

The Rainbow Curriculum

The gay agenda sought to promote tolerance and understanding of the gay/lesbian lifestyles in the public schools and to normalize these lifestyles in the public perception. In the early 1990's, elementary curriculum entitled Children of the Rainbow encouraged diversity and inclusion of non-European, women and gay and lesbian history in every stage of education from kindergarten through high school. Books supporting gay and lesbian families and the gay lifestyles were included in school curriculum.

It's Elementary -

In 1999, a ninety-minute video, entitled It's Elementary: Talking About Gay and Lesbian Issues in School was shown on public broadcasting stations across the country. The video showed elementary grade-level classroom discussions about homosexuality. Young homosexuals informed the students of the five gender orientations: male, female, gay, lesbian, and bisexual.

BACKLASH

When the video, Elementary: Talking About Gay and Lesbian Issues in School aired across the country, groups opposing the use of the schools to promote homosexuality staged protests. In San Antonio, Texas, 200 protestors picketed Public Broadcasting station KLRN to protest the showing.

The normalization of homosexuality became 'politically correct' in academic and educational settings. Silence was no longer imposed upon those supporting gay rights, rather those seeking to challenge the gay lifestyle were violently attacked and intimidated.

Diversity training

Diversity training sometimes became sessions of intimidation. At the University of Delaware, student Countney Halligan was not opposed to attending the required training. She soon changed her mind. In one-on-one sessions students were encouraged to speak openly about their sexuality and gay students felt pressured to publicly out themselves. The program was suspended in response to student complaints and pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , a Philadelphia based civil liberties advocacy group. The school's vice president for student life said, "The university had good intentions...but the way the program was run was unacceptable."

Educational Materials Promote Homosexuality

When same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts in 2003, pro-homosexual picture books were placed in the classrooms in the name of tolerance and diversity. Robin Wirthlin was puzzled when her 2nd grade son came home and reported to her about a story at school of a prince who didn't like the princesses his mother brought home. He fell in love with a prince and married him. Wirthlin was concerned that books like this were read to grade-schoolers. She questioned the teacher who said it was the school district's mandate to read pro-gay lifestyle books to her students. Another couple, David and Tonia Parker, were also concerned when their kindergarten son brought home a "Diversity Book Bag" which included a picture book called Who's in a Family? . The text began "Laura and Kyle live with their two moms,... Robin's family is made up of her dad,Clifford, her dad's partner...".

When the Wirthlins and the Parkers filed suit against the town of Lexinton asking to exempt their children from teaching about homosexuality, The U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Wolf ruled against parental rights stating, "The (state)Constitution does not ...permeit the Parkers and the Wirthlins to exempt their children from teaching about homosexuality or same-sex marriage." He wrote, "After all, if a few parents could do it, others would follow, maybe in vast numbers."

Intimidation

In 1993, David Woodward, a political science professor at Clemson University, was asked to serve as an expert witness for the state of Colorado to testify about the political power of homosexual groups in America. When he testified in support of traditional values he discovered that to publicly oppose gay rights was "the equivalent to being sent to the university Gulag". He was labeled 'ideologically incompatible' with the values of the university, the press attacked him viciously, and he often found the word 'Homophobe' scribbled on his office door. In his book, Why We Whisper:Restoring Our Right to Say it's Wrong, Woodward and coauthor, Jim DeMint, point out, "freedom of speech is crucial in any democracy...The demise of good government comes when this conversation is abbreviated."

Concerned Groups Speak Out

Concerned Christians and groups supporting traditional family values worked tirelessly to challenge and oppose the gay takeover of educational institutions.

The Tradional Values Coalition networks with 43,000 churches to provide materials for pro-family lobbying activities. The director, Rev. Louis P. Sheldon writes, "Children have long been targets of homosexual activists...GLSEN has established Gay Straight Alliance clubs in hundreds of junior and senior high schools. The goal of GLSEN is to convince sexually confused children that they were 'born gay'...The Day of Silence is supposed to give students a chance to protest alleged discrimination against homosexual, bi-sexual, and transgender students...In reality, the effort is designed to intimidate and silence any opposition to the homosexual agenda..."

Concerned Women for American (CWA) holds community and state events and informs the public of issues affecting the family. In 2007 a notice was sent to parents and grandparents of school-aged children stating. "The term 'Radical Homosexual Agenda' refers to a movement begun approximately 25 years ago to 'normalize' homosexuality and other deviant behaviors within our culture...Their rally cry is 'Whoever controls the schools controls the future.' High on their agenda is to expose children to sex at earlier and earlier ages in our schools..."

When President Barack Obama nominated Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education, in charge of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, CWA founder, Beverly LaHaye wrote, "Jennings and GLSEN have one goal: promote homosexuality and transexuality to children through schools - away from the protection of parents, churches, doctors and others who know homosexual acts are unsafe, immoral and damaging..."

Dr James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, also expressed deep concern about the appointment of Kevin Jennings as the head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. Dobson states, "What hypocrisy!...He has written five books advocating homosexual teaching in the schools and elsewhere, as well as the foreward to a widely publicized book titled Queering Elementary Education."

The battle over control of education will continue as groups supporting and opposing the normalization of gay and lesbian lifestyles seek to influence the teaching of the next generation.


REFERENCES

Buss, Dale. "Homosexual rights go to school." Christianity Today. Vol. 37, No. 6(May 17) 1993:70-72.

Colson, Charles. "The Whisper Zone:Why We're Losing Our Right to Speak Out." Breakpoint. Prison Fellowship Ministries. May 1, 2008.

Curtis, Barbara. "in the beginning." Citizen. Vol.22, No.3. March, 2008:24-27. Focus on the Family. Colorado Springs, CO.

Dobson, James. Dr Dobson's Newsletter. Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO. Nov.2009:3.

Dorsett, Amy. "Protest in S.A. targets KLRM." San Antonio Express News. July 3, 1999:1B.

Elder, Gene. "Gay/lesbian studies:outof the closet, into college." San Antonio Express News/ Nov.3, 1991:4M

GLSEN. "Our Mission. Our History". http://www.glsen./org/chi-bin/iowa/all/about/history/index.html. 1/21/2010.

LaHaye, Beverly. Concerned Women for America newsletter. Fall, 2009.

Sheldon, Reverend Louis P. It's Not Really About Marriage: The Radical Homosexual Agenda to Undermine American Culture." Traditional Values Coalition. Washington DC. 2005:14-15.

The Gay Almanac. National Museum & Archive of Lesbian and Gay History. NY:Berkley Books. 1996:180-186.

Watson, Jamal. "When Diversity Training Goes Awry." http://diverseeducation.com/cache/print.php?articleId=10543. 1/22/2010.

The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America

Over the last 50 years gay activist groups have organized to construct a social reorganization of America. Although a comprehensive survey of sexuality conducted in 1992 at the Unversity of Chicago documented that 2.8 percent of men identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual and 1.4 percent of women defined themselves as lesbian or bisexual,(1) the gay culture, influenced by the civil rights and women's movements, rapidly influenced the American culture with gay liberation.

The movement to bring homosexual behavior into social acceptance is challenging every social institution with fundamental change, including the government and legal systems, educational systems, the professional health industry, corporations, religious organizations, and the institution of marriage and family, the media, and the military.

As the gay movements gained momentum, particularly in the media, the schools and churches, powerful counter-movements and organizations developed to challenge the changing expectations of sexual behavior as being personally and socially destructive. Battles ensured as groups within education and health systems, religious organizations and the military claimed adverse impacts on societal outcomes.

The normalization of homosexuality within society will create profound changes in social organization, especially in the areas of social integration, social reproduction, social health and the intergenerational transfer of cultural values. The social discourse has been rampant with charges of bigotry, homophobia and hate mongering. However, neither intimidation, tolerance nor back slapping love fests are appropriate means to bring about change in social behavior that has wide reaching consequences. These foundational social issues deserve serious and thorough consideration.

"The concept of externalities helps define situations that justify government intervention and identify appropriate policy solutions to the problem. Externalities exist when an individual's actions impose costs on or provide benefits to others who are not parties to the decision... This approach provides criteria for when government should act and the type of policies it should use...Positive externalities provide gains for society, while negative externalities produce losses..." (2)

In 2003, Melik Kaylan called for caution in discussing the growing changes in society. "Libertarians, now both on the left and right, say that relations between consenting adults should not be regulated if no participant is hurt, which includes the freedom to marry anyone you please. Here, there's no concern for the aggregate effect on society of cumulative individual choices...Gay marriage...alarms many Americans precisely because it contends blurry unknowable enormities. We will be, after all, the first society ever to pursue the experiment fully... What will be the ultimate human cost, and who will have the courage then to identify the cause?"(3)



REFERENCES

1.Laumann, Edward O., John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels. The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL,1994.
2. Steinacker, Annette. "Externalities, Prospect Theory, and Social Construction: When Will Government Act, What Will Government Do?" Social Science Quarterly,Vol.87, No 3. September 2006:459-476.
3. Kaylan, Melik. "The Way We Live Now." The Wall Street Juornal. Fri. Aug. 8, 2003: Opinion Page.