About the time Hurricane Isabel reached landfall on Thursday, September 18, 2003, a group of activists, educators, and junior high and senior high school students gathered in Washington, D.C. for the annual GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) National Conference. Like the havoc that Isabel wrought on communities in North Carolina, GLSEN threatens to produce far greater
What I witnessed during these brief 72 hours left me with the conviction that GLSEN is a cultural hurricane that’s hitting our schools with the kind of force and devastation that may take years to fully assess. Let me try to paint the picture.
GLSEN is a self-styled pro-gay education network targeting our kids in public schools.
The danger is in how they seek to accomplish this mission. In effect, GLSEN’s objective is to cut out parents and adult leaders in the child’s life who don’t agree with the LGBT agenda. Every speaker at the national conference made this message very clear.
On Friday night founder and co-director Kevin Jennings defiantly declared, “Neither rain, nor wind, not even a hurricane will stop us from bringing justice to our schools!”
A clinic earlier that day was entitled “Strategies for Responding to Homophobic Bigotry: Everybody’s Business!” The title accurately set forth this point in their agenda-- to make the GLBT agenda everyone’s agenda, yours and mine included. And the strategy is to get to our kids.
It’s not just that they are generously funded, though they certainly are. Revenues for 2001 were $3.35 million, and this year’s conference was liberally supported by Kodak, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, and IBM whose logos were emblazoned on banners, brochures, and conference freebies. For the close to 500 people in attendance, including about 100 junior high and senior high students, the companies hoped to capture this powerful purchasing sector—gays and youth—arguably two of the most powerful buying sectors in America today.
No, GLSEN’s success comes from a carefully planned message that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identity issues represent the next human rights and civil rights battle, on par with Martin Luther King, Jr and other reformers great work of the last 200 years. Again, this message is targeted at our kids. Today, GLSEN sponsors about 1700 campus student clubs, called GSA’s (Gay Straight Alliances) promoting LGBT issues.
The opening plenary included Washington, D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes. “Homophobia,” announced Holmes-Norton, “is alive and well in the House of Representatives.” She ranted on, “They are a group of fools who should know better. What you [the GLSEN crowd] are doing has more to do with leaving no child behind than what Congress is doing.” Speaking for a moment directly to the students in the audience, she summed up her philosophy this way, “I believe that every one of you should be left alone to be who you are.” The comment embodied the conference message: do whatever you want with your sexuality. It’s a message our kids are hearing on many public school campuses across the nation.
Candace Gingrich, famous gay activist sister of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, led the workshop entitled “Everyday Heroes: How Openly GLBT Faculty, Administration, Students, and their Allies Help to Facilitate Safety, Support, and Respect in Our Schools.” As the manager of the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project, she used the 90 minutes as a bully pulpit to rouse the forty or so of us in attendance to “work to include anti-discrimination language in your school district policies and support GLBT staff to come out.” At one point, suddenly aware of the steep political pitch of her comments, she said, “Forgive me if I’m being too political.”
Never mind she was supposed to be addressing a group of public school educators.
Most importantly, you need to know that there is, coming to a school near you on April 21, 2004, GLSEN’s “Day of Silence.” This is their latest plan to impact high school and junior high students. The promotion is intended to impose a campus-wide silence in observance of LGBT issues. In 1999 300 high schools sponsored the Day of Silence. In 2001, over 1900 schools and 100,000 students participated in the event. In the words of their web site, “The possibilities are endless.” Their giddy confidence that the sky’s the limit is understandable when you consider that they’ve seen over 300% growth in attendance in just four short years.
The hurricane that GLSEN represents is hitting our schools. Unlike Isabel, this hurricane doesn’t threaten homes, businesses, and lands. Instead, this force threatens our most precious resources—our kids.
Marc Fey brings ten years of teaching experience in California public schools and seven years of pastoral ministry to his work as Education Analyst at Focus on the Family.