August 10-16, 2008 Issue |
Posted 8/5/08 at 9:28 AM
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A special
interest curriculum aimed at normalizing homosexuality to youngsters in grades
K-5 is quietly moving into its second year in targeted cities nationwide.
This “Welcoming Schools Guide” was
devised by the Human Rights Campaign, a powerful Washington, D.C.-based group
that advocates for laws to redefine marriage and other issues that affect
persons who identify as homosexual, bisexual or “transgender.”
The program began last year in nine
public schools: three each in Minneapolis, San Francisco and New Bedford, Mass.
According to its website, the Human Rights Campaign plans to implement it in
more communities yearly.
The program’s “true intent is to
promote the homosexual agenda,” said Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense
Fund, a religious freedom legal defense group. The Alliance Defense Fund
cautioned Minneapolis authorities in March that Welcoming Schools undermines
parental rights, endangers children’s emotional and physical safety, and is a
legal minefield.
Its lessons on “family diversity,” “gender
stereotyping” and name-calling are integrated across the curriculum so its
social re-engineering goals connect to English, history, social studies and
health. Because it is intercurricular, it has bypassed regular curriculum
review, said Chuck Darrell of the Minnesota Family Council.
The diversity section has children
in grades 3-5 “act out” being members of nontraditional families, including
families headed by same-sex couples. Its stereotyping portion recommends books
like “Sissy Duckling” and “King and King,” in which two princes marry.
“Transgender,” “queer” and “dyke” are among its vocabulary definitions.
“This curriculum is a Trojan horse
to indoctrinate our children with a false and harmful anthropology,” said
Father Roger Landry, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in New Bedford.
“Under the guise of stopping bullying, its real objective is to program kids to
think that no family structure is better than another, that there’s no real
importance to having a married mother and father, and that grandma is mistaken
when she says that people of the same sex cannot or should not marry.”
New Bedford parents were told the
program “was developed at the request of parents and educators.” However, it
wasn’t developed at the request of local parents. Welcoming Schools started in
2004 when Greater Boston PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays) began compiling the guide and the Human Rights Campaign later partnered
with that group, according to Bay Windows, “New
England’s largest GLBT newspaper.”
Minneapolis parent Arbuc Flomo
called it a “biased curriculum [that] omits the needs of families of faith.”
Speaking for a coalition of concerned parents at a public forum, he maintained
that it robs parents of the right to educate their youngsters about human
sexuality in the context of their moral values.
For example, Catholic teaching on
human sexuality states that all people deserve equal dignity and respect, but
does not condone same-sex acts.
So far there’s been less spotlight
in New Bedford, where the Human Rights Campaign is paying for liaison Kim
Westheimer to implement the curriculum over three years. Whether it will
continue after that is “a local decision,” said Westheimer, who wrote a how-to
book on getting “gay-straight alliances” into schools.
New Bedford assistant superintendent
of equity and diversity Fred Fuentes said, “We have not had any real parent
concerns.”
No problems were likewise reported
in the San Francisco Unified School District, according to Kevin Gogin, who
oversees the program as director of support services for youth who see
themselves as homosexual.
Said one Massachusetts Catholic
mother: “It is indoctrination, but parents are afraid to take a stand because
they fear a backlash.”
Rick Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist who
specializes in treating same-sex attraction disorder, warned that educators who
present the idea that homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality could be
vulnerable to litigation if they fail to also explain its serious health risks.
By contrast, children who are at
risk for same-sex attraction could be helped by supportive psychological and
spiritual counseling, said Fitzgibbons.
“Publicity
and parental concerns forced the program to go back through committee review
here,” noted Katherine Kersten, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. That committee recommended deleting portions of the curriculum and
adding the definition of a traditional family.
The Human Rights Campaign wants to
drop the words “mother” and “father” on all school forms and correspondence,
replacing them with “parent/guardian.”
But children of same-gender couples
still feel the loss of being purposely motherless or fatherless, added Dale
O’Leary, author and speaker on gender disorder.
“They must pretend,” she said. “The
promoters of ‘diversity’ are demanding that we join in the pretense — that we
also betray these children.”
Chuck Darrell of the Minnesota
Family Council said that teachers have told him they’re afraid to object.
“People have to get over the fear of
being called a ‘hater,’” he said. “Say, ‘Do you mean I can’t love people if I
disagree with their sexual behavior? By calling me a hater, you’re bullying
me.’”
Said Darrell, “This program
undermines parental authority, includes anti-Christian sections and affirms an unhealthy
behavior. Go public. Make officials produce figures on bullying and show the
paper trail of how the heck this program got in.”
Insightful. Informative. Uncompromisingly faithful. The National Catholic Register is more than a newspaper. It’s a cause. Your support for the Register funds important journalism that helps to build a Culture of Life in our nation, and throughout the world. Help us promote the Church’s New Evangelization by donating to the National Catholic Register right now.
.
