Exodus: Live Out Loud

Middle School Cancels 'Gender-Switch' Day

From NewsBusters:

If a middle school in Northern California had on its events schedule a cross-dressing, gender-shift day encouraging children to attire themselves as a member of the opposite sex, wouldn't you expect liberal media members across the fruited plain to be all over the story?

Yet, according to Google News and LexisNexis searches, not one press outlet, including those near the situation in California, thought this matter was at all newsworthy.

   

Fortunately, as announced Tuesday by the Pacific Justice Institute, the event was canceled...

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GSA Network Board Member Resigns Amid Pornography Allegations

From Family News in Focus:

by Steve Jordahl

Peter Robertson resigned from the board of GSA Network, California’s largest organizer of school clubs that support gay teens, when it was discovered that he is also a pornographer. It appears he recruited young subjects during his tenure.

Mike Ensley was 17 and living in the gay lifestyle when Robertson asked him to pose nude.

“He identified himself as a photographer and just introduced himself as a friend, basically, and told me what he did and expressed interest in taking photographs.”

When Ensley said he was underage, Robertson asked him to call when he turned 18. Ensley has come out of the gay lifestyle and now works for Exodus International. He was astonished to see Roberson’s name on the Board of GSA Network.

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2nd Annual Allies, Too Campaign

Exodus Youth's second annual Allies, Too campaign has been announced for November 5 - 9, 2007, and we're kicking it off with a brand new website! This year, students will be able to make a much more visible impact on their campuses with new t-shirts and buttons.

The Allies, Too campaign was created to give Christian students an opportunity to voice their commitment to making their high school and college campuses safe, harassment free, and truly diverse.

You may have discovered that sometimes those who advocate "tolerance" and "diversity" are really only seeking to get their own viewpoint up on a soapbox--and silence or smear anyone who dares to disagree.

We believe that tolerance means people treat each other with respect even when they disagree, that we are willing to hear each other out, engage in dialog, and pursue a peaceful and friendly environment even when we can't get others to come over to our way of thinking.         

The Allies, Too campaign is a call to set aside our agenda on the issues for a moment and stand up for the things we can all agree on: true tolerance, safety and respect. It's a chance to throw off the dishonest, unfair labels of bigotry and hatred that some people use to silence others' points of view. It's a call to your community to engage in honest reasoning and debate, not a culture war.

Come check it out!

California Senate Passes Homosexual Curriculum Bill

By a vote of 23-13, the California Senate has approved SB 777, a bill that will require schools to portray homosexual, bisexual and transgender lifestyles in a positive light to students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Randy Thomasson, the president of the Campaign for Children and Families, was quoted as saying that parents "are angry at Democrats for passing this school sexual indoctrination bill and frustrated that Republicans did little to fight it."

The bill forces the California education code to redefine terms like "sex" and "gender," and forbids any sense of bias against alternative lifestyles in curriculum or school activities. Conservative groups are hoping Governor Schwarzeneggar will veto SB 777 as he did a similar bill last year.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has already implemented SB 777's policies, according to the Christian Post. Allegedly, boys in the district who identify as females are allowed to enter the girls' locker room and rest rooms.

Grandparents File Lawsuit over "Brokeback" Shown to 12-year-old

From the Associated Press:

A girl and her grandparents have sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that a substitute teacher showed the R-rated film "Brokeback Mountain" in class.

The lawsuit claims that Jessica Turner, 12, suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her 8th grade class at Ashburn Community Elementary School last year.

The film, which won three Oscars, depicts two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

Turner and her grandparents, Kenneth and LaVerne Richardson, are seeking around $500,000 in damages.

"It is very important to me that my children not be exposed to this," said Kenneth Richardson, Turner's guardian. "The teacher knew she was not supposed to do this."

According to the lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, the video was shown without permission from the students' parents and guardians.

The lawsuit also names Ashburn Principal Jewel Diaz and a substitute teacher, referred to as "Ms. Buford."

The substitute asked a student to shut the classroom door at the West Side school, saying: "What happens in Ms. Buford's class stays in Ms. Buford's class," according to the lawsuit.

Richardson said his granddaughter was traumatized by the movie and had to undergo psychological treatment and counseling.

In 2005, Richardson complained to school administrators about reading material that he said included curse words.

"This was the last straw," he said. "I feel the lawsuit was necessary because of the warning I had already given them on the literature they were giving out to children to read. I told them it was against our faith."

Messages left over the weekend with CPS officials were not immediately returned.

The Day of Silence

Tomorrow is the Day of Silence. Many high school students across the nation will experience the silent demonstration by their peers all day, and possibly receive materials produced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) through their local GSA club. It's quite possible that many school administrators and teachers will also partake in the demonstration, lecturing students about GLBT issues.

It's important that GLSEN, for the most part, be opposed and not allowed to take free reign with the educational system. I'm not talking about opposing the goal of safer schools—but that isn't GLSEN's only goal, or even their primary one.

GLSEN is all about promoting the mistaken belief that homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism are innate, unchangeable, and should be unconditionally celebrated by all. Furthermore, they encourage young people to make unhealthy and often dangerous lifestyle choices. It's all over their programs and materials.

For instance, take a look at their "recommended reading" for 7^th through 12^th graders: books like Rainbow Boys, a fictional narrative in which a teen boy has an anonymous sexual encounter with an older man. Or Revolutionary Voices, which calls prostitution an "empowering experience." The book Free Your Mind urges young people to leave their churches and cut family members out of their lives if they aren't gay-affirming, telling them they can make more "meaningful relationships" via gay and lesbian chat rooms.

Massachusetts parents were outraged when GLSEN, using state funds, hosted a workshop for hundreds of students in which they promoted dangerous sexual activities that I can't even describe to you without this being an X-rated post. Despite the fall-out from the first time this happened, the workshop returned the next year, minus a few endorsements.    

GLSEN knows its real agenda is extremely controversial, which is why they work so hard to bar other points of view from the school system, create hostility against opposing beliefs, and keep parents out of the loop.

But your average student participating in the Day of Silence has no idea what GLSEN is all about. This organization works hard to make its image all about tolerance, safer schools, ending harassment, etc. These are admirable goals, and that's what draws students to buy into their events and programs.   

While the Day of Silence is part of an agenda that's nothing like real tolerance, for most of the speechless students you'll encounter on Wednesday, it is just about creating a safe environment. Which makes their goal and yours pretty similar.

The Day of Truth isn't about politically defeating gay-identified people, and it certainly isn't about defending bullying or true bigotry. We're proclaiming the fact that God has created us with a beautiful design, and that those who struggle with their sexuality and don't want to be gay (and there's lots of them) don't have to be. And we are saying that true tolerance means we can get along even when we disagree.

Day of Truth events from coast to coast, tomorrow night:

Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Tulare, CA

School Allows Day of Truth - After Legal Pressure

A Danbury, CT high school, which fully endorsed the pro-gay Day of Silence, initially refused one student's right to express her own beliefs through the Day of Truth. That's when Alliance Defense Fund stepped in. From Inside Tennessee:

After receiving a letter from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, the principal of Danbury High School agreed Wednesday to allow a student to promote and participate in the Day of Truth after first having prohibited the student from doing so.  The school officially endorses the Day of Silence, an event promoting the homosexual agenda, but had thwarted student Rosemary Shakro’s attempts to promote the Day of Truth by inviting a speaker to a club meeting and posting signs announcing the event.

“Christian students should be allowed to express their viewpoint just like any other student,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.  “The Day of Truth is an opportunity for Christian students to respectfully present a different viewpoint than students participating in the Day of Silence.  Allowing students to have a Day of Silence without allowing students to have a Day of Truth limits free speech and the free exchange of ideas.”

“We are pleased that we had the opportunity to explain the law so that the school could do the right thing and respect the First Amendment rights of this student and any other students that wish to observe the Day of Truth.  We hope other schools will follow this example for their students,” Bowman added.

Shakro wished to invite a guest speaker to her “Youth Alive” after-school club meeting this Thursday as part of activities leading up to the Day of Truth.  The school has allowed other clubs, such as the Gay-Straight Alliance, to have outside guests speak at school assemblies and club meetings.  However, the school’s principal, who prohibited a speaker for last year’s Day of Truth, prohibited this year’s speaker as well, saying that the Day of Truth is too “controversial” and “counteractive.”  The principal had also claimed that “anti-homosexual” speech is prohibited at the school and that the presentation could cause contention among students.

“In addition, the principal had prohibited the posting of signs in school hallways announcing the club meeting, nonsensically suggesting that the ‘All are welcome’ message on the sign was an invitation to the general public to trespass on school property,” Bowman noted.

Bowman sent a letter to the principal explaining the law, and the school now says that Shakro will be allowed to invite the speaker and to post signs announcing the meeting.

“According to the law, a school cannot allow students to promote one viewpoint and then prohibit promotion of another viewpoint.  School officials also cannot ban speech just because they think it’s unpopular or controversial.  We are very pleased that Rosemary’s constitutional rights will be respected,” said Bowman.

A copy of the letter sent to Danbury High School is  available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ShakroLetter.pdf. 

NEA Shuts Out Advocate for Change

Courtesy of AgapePress:

A conservative educator from Pennsylvania received a chilly response while addressing delegates to the National Education Association's annual convention held in New Orleans earlier this month.

Sissy Jochmann, a second grade teacher from Pennsylvania and chair of the Conservative Educators Caucus, delivered a two-minute speech in which she urged the NEA to support students in their right to choose not to engage in homosexual behavior. But Jochmann says delegates booed and shouted angrily at her while she spoke.

Jochmann's speech called on the NEA to provide "a full range of information and support resources available on homosexuality" and to be more tolerant of people on all sides of the issue. But the audience met Jochmann's proposal with antagonistic heckling and jeers.

"At one point -- the representative assembly -- I was speaking to over 9,400 people. It was a thunderous roar -- they didn't even want to consider debating it," she says.

Apparently the powerful educators' union is less tolerant than it purports to be -- and Jochmann is not the first to call attention to the organization's double standards.

In an editorial written for the organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, Dr. Warren Throckmorton revealed that the NEA convention for the past two years has denied exhibit space to PFOX. Last year, convention organizers told PFOX, an organization that supports homosexuals' right to choose to change their sexual orientation, that no space was available -- although they continued to sell exhibition space to other groups. This year, the NEA refused even to accept the group's application.

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Homosexually-Inclusive Sex-Ed Program Approved, Creates Controversy

School board says, "Bring it on."

From the Washington Post:

The Montgomery County Board of Education approved new sex-education lessons yesterday for the eighth and 10th grades that teach what it means to be homosexual but say little about how people become gay, resisting pressure from a divided community to define homosexuality as nature or nurture, right or wrong.

Approved by a unanimous vote, the lessons mark the first time Montgomery schools will introduce the topics of sexual orientation and homosexuality. The materials, including a new 10th-grade condom-demonstration DVD, will be field-tested in a handful of middle and high schools in spring, barring intervention by the courts.

Some school board members said they expect a lawsuit from the same community groups that persuaded a federal judge to halt a version of the curriculum in spring 2005. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. found that the curriculum presented one view of homosexuality, "that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle," to the exclusion of all others.

"I believe we will be sued. That's okay. . . . Bring it on," said board member Sharon W. Cox (At Large).

Leaders of the protest groups said yesterday that they would consider their legal options and signaled that they have the same objection to the new curriculum as to the old one: They say it offers one viewpoint, favorable toward homosexuality, anal sex and premarital sex. Observers on both sides have predicted that "viewpoint neutrality," or lack thereof, would eventually form the basis of a lawsuit.

"Absolutely nothing is allowed to be said that is negative about homosexuality," said Ruth Jacobs, an infectious-disease specialist and member of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, which, with Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, sued to block the curriculum in its first incarnation.

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Books with Sexual Themes Get Pulled from School Library

From the 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.

Several parents learned of the racy books after overhearing their kids snickering about the sexual themes.

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Do you know what reading materials your kids will find in their school?