Date: Wed Nov 26 23:05:11 1997
To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Government Promotion
Now, where were we....
At 09:52 PM 11/25/97 0600, you wrote:
How do you feel about your tax dollars being used to PROMOTE this?
You sure you want to go down this road with me? Here we go..... Lessons on homosexuality taking hold in U.S. schools As the video camera captured the lively classroom discussion, a third grade teacher at New York City's P.S. 87 asks her charges to decide if it's OK to let "gays" marry. "How would you feel if homosexuals were the majority and the law said you had to be homosexual to get married?" argues one child, her mind already made up.
By Carol Innerst
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
That's one clever third grader. Can you tell which "side" she's on? I suspect one of her parents is a lawyer because of her "talmudic" response. Talmudic in this context means answering a question with another question. You see me do it often, but it's not because I'm Jewish. Rather, it's because as a lawyer I was trained in the Socratic method, which has its origins, I suspect, in the Hebrew study of the talmud. I'm not convinced one way or the other which side the child is on from her question.
Now, let's lay some groundwork here: I don't expect you to answer this question, but much of the debate between the left and right involves a presupposition about the nature of homosexuality. Is it genetic or environmental? Nature or nurture? Something you're born with or a learned response? Modern scientific thought says that it's either genetic, or perhaps an abnormality in the embryonic or gestational process that causes it.
Because I believe that no one in their right mind would deliberately chose to be oriented toward their own sex in the face of such rampant hostility and alienation in society, I believe that there is a scientific or medical explanation to why people are homosexual. In short, they are born that way.
I will use the word "homophobia" freely. The more I think on it, and I've thought a lot about it these days unrelated to our dialog, the more I am convinced that term is accurate. A phobia is an irrational fear, homophobia is an irrational fear of homosexuals, that has no basis in fact.
I have had many friends who are homosexual. You have too, you probably just didn't know it. You probably have family members who are homosexual but wouldn't dream of disclosing it to you. That spinster aunt? That confirmed bachelor uncle? Those cousins that were very creative, but never seemed to settle down and find the right spouse? They're all around and among us, leading very productive, if sexually secretive to you, lives.
They have made tremendous contributions to our world as scholars, artists, warriors, scientists, pastors, ministers and educators. In short, they're not bad people in and of themselves. It's just when it comes to matters of sex, they are disposed to prefer their own. And THAT is absolutely none of your or my business UNLESS a child is involved, and then it's all of our business, whether it comes from a homosexual or heterosexual.
A notion you must, if you possess it, disabuse yourself of is the idea that homosexuality and pedophilia are related. They are not. The incidence of pedophilia and child abuse by homosexuals is statistically no greater than by heterosexuals. In whole numbers then, your grandchild has considerably more to fear from an opposite sex pedophile than a same sex pedophile. More importantly on the subject of pedophilia, your grandchild stands a phenomenonally higher statistical chance of abuse by incest than by a stranger or non-family member.
My first reaction to the beginning of the article was surprise that third graders are learning about tolerance and sexual diversity. Upon reflection, I realized that the third grade is probably exactly the right age to start teaching tolerance. If they're old enough to call one another names on the playground, they're old enough to learn better. Blame it on AIDS and an official push for acceptance of diverse lifestyles, but notions of what even young children need to know have been radically altered. Kindergartners are learning about "homophobia" as lessons about alternative lifestyles and homosexuality appear in America's elementary schools often without parental knowledge.
"Without parental knowledge" is... debatable. In the face of parental apathy is more likely. A slight, but significant difference. Note the use in the first sentence of the conjunctive "and." There are two distinct concepts at issue here, discussed in detail below. One is AIDS, the other is the question of tolerance. They are not automatically tied together, except in the minds of homophobes. Nearly a decade ago, state mandated AIDS instruction opened the door to teaching about homosexuality in schools, as teachers found it impossible to talk about how AIDS is transmitted without discussing homosexual practices. At first, discussions of the topic were largely confined to high school, but that is changing.
Again, originally I found it somewhat surprising that this was discussed this early in school. The article mixes them somewhat, but here we're talking about AIDS as a public health question, normally confined to discussions of venereal disease in sex education class. Given the confines or articles and space limitations, the two paragraphs suggest that AIDS awareness and homosexual tolerance are taught together. I doubt it is true and explain why in a bit.
Considering the fact that girls are arriving at puberty at the age of 10-12 these days, compared to 13-16 when we were young, it makes sense to discuss it earlier than high school, say around the age of 10. On the issue of tolerance, it makes absolute sense the more I think about it, that third graders, around age eight, would be taught at that age. Rogers and Hammerstein said it best in "South Pacific":
Carefully Taught You've got to be taught, to hate and fear
You've got to be taught, from year to year
Its got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.You've got to be taught, to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught!You've got to be taught, before its too late!
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught!
You've got to be carefully taught.
Child psychologists know that a child's psyche, his sense of himself, his place in the world, his view of how parents and adults and he are supposed to interact, is pretty well "formed" by the age of 5 to 7. The best time to teach a child to be a racist or a homophobe is by that age. Afterwards, you've got to undo that learned intolerance, and it's often too late. The Clinton administration recently endorsed grade school "diversity" training to encourage students to be tolerant of minorities, homosexuals and the disabled. The National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union and a powerful voice in American education, adopted a resolution urging schools to develop activities and programs that "increase acceptance of and sensitivity to" diverse groups, including homosexuals.
I agree with Clinton on this one, for reasons expressed above. Remember that quote from Pastor Neimoller on my web page? "When they came for the homosexuals I said nothing, for I was not a homosexual...." If you can accept that there may be a medical basis to explain homosexuality, then it's only one step from discriminating against homosexuals on the basis of their orientation to discriminating against the disabled. From there to race. From race to religion.
"Teachers need more opportunity dealing with these issues," said Richard W. Riley, the administration's secretary of education.
Hey, Rob, does a Presidential "ENDORSEMENT" qualify as "government promotion?"
Absolutely and categorically "no." Homophobes would say "yes," but that is because they fear homosexuals and do not understand the message. When the president says we need to be tolerant of people who are different from us, he is not saying, "Hey! Try it. You'll Like It...." He's saying, if they ain't bothering you, don't bother them.
You see, I do not view this as a religious or moral issue. Or, stated differently, I can separate the morality question from the political question of how we're all supposed to live in this world together. The president is addressing the political question. May I invite you to consider the following as analogous to this situation and the "prayer crisis" in America. Mat 7:3 "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Where is the outcry against this?
You may "invite" me anywhere, but just as is true of an invitation to a homosexual encounter, I may not necessarily go with you. I don't follow your point with Matthew. That has always been a favorite of mine, right up there with "let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone." I do not accept the premise that teaching tolerance equates to promoting or endorsing homosexuality as a lifestyle.
It is not analogous to the "prayer crisis" except that the religious right has that issue high on its political agenda. It is the right that mixes apples and oranges. To say "be tolerant of homosexuals" is not the same as saying "go out and be one." Only people who are afraid of their own sexuality would draw that conclusion.
I am very secure in my own masculinity. I suspect you are too. I suspect that your objections to homosexuality are premised entirely on your understanding of the biblical prohibitions against it. What I consistently find in the vocal opponents to homosexuality is they themselves have many "issues" with their own sexuality. I have suspected on more than one occasion that those who object the loudest are fighting their own latent homosexuality. "Not me," they cry. Well as Hamlet said to his mother, "Methinks thou doth protest too much."
(This is not intended to prompt a discussion on homosexuality, but to, once again, point out government promotion of the "left" agenda in the public schools.) Read on.
There you go again. You can't do that. Start a discussion and then disavow responsibility for doing so by saying you don't intend to.
As a purely political matter, it may very well be a "left" agenda. But make sure you understand the message before you criticize it.
"Ninety eight percent of parents out there have no idea what's going on in their schools," she says. "We know we've got a problem when they prosecute if you talk about God anywhere near a school, but it's OK to teach students that anal sex is an acceptable method of birth control.""But to Florida mother Jodi Hoffman, the results at the classroom level have been disastrous.
I would not be surprised that 98% of parents don't know what's going on in their schools. That explains a helluva lot, including the dropout rate, teen pregnancy, juvenile crime and a host of other societal ills.
I defy anyone to produce evidence that any teacher has ever taught, let alone suggested, that anal sex is an acceptable method of birth control, or that homosexuals have ever said that. That's unadulterated hysteria, and should clue you in right away that what this woman has to say is inherently unreliable. Mrs. Hoffman and her husband, Paul, have pulled their three children out of Broward County public schools and filed a class action suit against the school board to stop what they call the board's promotion of homosexuality in sex education courses.
This woman's problem is as much that she doesn't want her children taught about tolerance as she doesn't want them taught sex education. They are distinct issues, but she's lumped them together. From a public health standpoint, sex education is necessary. No less so than is true of teaching about the spread of heterosexual venereal disease, or tuberculosis or any other communicable disease. We can't hide our head in the sand. One of the ways AIDS and HIV are transmitted is through homosexual sex. Another is sharing needles.
"I am furious and outraged that tax dollars are being spent to promote a lifestyle that if embraced will cut our son's life in half," says Mrs. Hoffman.
The first time I read this I was truly baffled. She's made the quantum leap that tolerance of people who are oriented differently than you are will lead her son to homosexual encounters which will then automatically lead to her son contracting AIDS. Wow! Do you think if you're much more tolerant of me, you'll wake up Jewish and craving lox, bagels and gefilte fish? Among the Hoffmans' complaints: At one middle school, the school board allowed officials from a community organization to tell the children they would be lucky to be on the receiving end of oral sex and not to worry if their "cut free" leg happened to be splashed with HIV positive blood.
The last part of this sentence is scientifically true. Assuming the first part to be scientifically true, I can tell it's out of context and distorted. What might have been said is that swallowing semen has not been shown or scientifically proven to spread HIV absent a sore or cut inside the mouth of the recipient. Those are not endorsements or promotion of homosexuality as a lifestyle. That's a public health matter designed to educate on how AIDS and HIV is spread and how it is not. Science filtered through homophobic hysteria. Interesting stuff you're sharing there, Frank. "I'm not a nut, I'm not a foaming religious right winger or a fanatical bigot," Mrs. Hoffman says. "What I am is pro parent and
pro family. I'm for my children.
Ah, but she is all of those. And her saying that she's not doesn't make the converse true. She is afraid of homosexuals and translates that fear into a prediction that her son will die of AIDS if he is tolerant of them. That's the exact same kind of thinking that cause the burning of numerous alleged "witches" during the times of the plague in the middle ages. It's hysterical nonsense. "Schools make the kids think about sex," she says. "When my daughter was 10, we opted her out of a sex education class and they put her in anyway."
See, this gives something away about the article. It started off talking about third graders learning about tolerance of diverse people. By my reckoning that places the first girl quoted at around age 8. If Ms. Hoffman is talking about her ten year old daughter in sex education class, that's the fifth grade. Separate classes, and the only common thread is homosexuality is discussed separately as it relates to each topic: tolerance and public health.
Schools make the kids think about sex?! Give me a frigging break! That woman's daughter will be pregnant or have a venereal disease by the age of 15, and it won't be the school's fault for failing to teach the kid how to prevent either. Teaching kids about the causes of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is a public health issue that Ms. Hoffman is clearly unqualified to handle. Neither is an endorsement of premarital sex. And teaching children tolerance of people who are oriented differently is not an endorsement of homosexuality as a lifestyle to be emulated.
I'll spare you the many other examples cited in this article. I think the point has been adequately made. How about two responses, one from Rob the man and father, the other from Rob the lawyer. Will you defend this kind of promotion, or are we in the same camp here, my friend?
I'm sure I understand your point. The responses are from Rob the man and father as well as Rob the lawyer. More the former really, as my politics on the question of homosexual tolerance was formed long before I went to law school and AIDS did not become an issue until I was in law school.
What is truly unfortunate is that but for the homophobes like Ms. Hoffman during the Reagan Administration who thought that AIDS was just a homosexual issue, we might have had a cure for it by now. But the administration thought "well, it's a homosexual problem. If they all die, it's the wrath of God." Except that epidemiologists at the CDC, NIH and WHO knew then and have said ever since, that it's not just a homosexual problem. Is Michael Jordon a homosexual? You're sticking your head in the sand if you believe that your children won't get AIDS if you teach them it's OK to be intolerant of homosexuals.
Let me apologize for my thoughts. I realize I've been sitting here pre-judging you. I'm sorry. I should not have assumed you would defend this. Perhaps you will see it as "government promotion." Right now I am considering the "walk a mile in my shoes" of those parents. Care to try them on? I think about those two beautiful little girls in Texas (your nieces) and how they should be protected from such practice as this. Thank God my children are grown and my son and his wife plan on homeschooling my grandson. When the courts banish prayer but allow this, something is dreadfully wrong in our country!
Well, you pegged me right on the politics of this issue. And it is a political question. Reliance on biblical proscriptions aren't the answer to this political question. For example there are loads of things in the Bible that we as a government don't follow. The first three or four commandments, depending on whose interpretation you're reading, are in direct conflict with the free speech and establishment clauses of the first amendment. Slavery is no longer condoned as it was in the Bible, nor is servitude in women. We don't stone people for adultery, we don't follow the dietary laws, we don't circumcise, there are hosts of other examples. You have a moral and religious problem with it based on your reading of the Bible. I don't.
Walk a mile in the shoes of the Hoffmans? I'd love to, but they're too tight, too ignorant, to phobic. But I'll tell you what's really wrong with such people and how I would wear those shoes, assuming I held the same belief that homosexuality is wrong and that sex education should not be taught in schools. It would go like this:
"Son, we know you're being taught in school that you should be tolerant of all kinds of people. We agree with that general principal, and in your daily life you should behave accordingly. But we believe that God says that homosexuality as a lifestyle is wrong. We want you to understand that to tolerate people who are different than you is not the same thing as meaning you should be like them.
"And son, we know they're teaching sex education is school. You should learn about where babies come from, and you need to learn about the origins and how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. But know this too: We believe that God says that sex should be reserved for man and woman after marriage. We believe that marriage is one of the greatest sacraments God has for us, and that God does not want you to have sex before you get married. (After you get married, your wife won't want you to have sex either, but that's another issue) ; ) So the fact that you're learning about sex in school does not mean that they want you to have sex before marriage. And the fact that you're learning there are people out there who are homosexuals does not mean that you should consider that an acceptable way of life in our eyes or in the eyes of God."
As to my nieces, I am confident that my sister will teach her children well. And she will teach them to "just say no" to sexual predators of all orientations. And they will grow up to be discerning, intelligent and tolerant people, not frightened little homophobes who are afraid of their own sexuality, I have little doubt. I know you meant that well. I am serious in what I said though in reply.
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