On February 11, 2004, Kevin Jennings, the president of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, appeared on the Fox News program “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss what he called GLSEN’s “new” marriage curriculum for schools. He claimed it was developed in response to recent events for schools to utilize in lessons exploring the issue of same sex marriage. When asked by Bill O’Reilly if it presented both sides of the issue, Jennings answered, “Absolutely.”
The reality is that Jennings is ‘absolutely’ full of baloney. Once more, Jennings and GLSEN are not being honest. The curriculum is not at all objective but radically biased toward a pro-homosexual viewpoint. It distorts the information it provides, withholds vital additional information, and slickly manipulates student sympathies. The curriculum is also not new. We first reviewed this curriculum in 2001. It has been updated but is largely the same material.
The limitations of the GLSEN curriculum are numerous, and this material is not at all appropriate to fashion into a teaching unit for students. Titled “At Issue: Marriage,” the curriculum is problematic for these reasons:...
6. The influence on youth of legalizing same sex marriage is minimized, and opposition depicted as needlessly fearful and backward.
Lesson 4 is called “The Notion of Influence” (emphasis in original). Students are presented the text of the children’s book Daddy’s Roommate along with news accounts of a pro-family group’s attempts to remove it from a library. The news account is predictably slanted against the traditional view. Students also read a letter to a newspaper advice column in which a woman asks whether to allow her nine-year-old daughter to be the flower girl at her uncle’s same sex “wedding.” Among the questions for discussion, is the following loaded query:
“Encourage students to think carefully about the consequences of sheltering children from different people and experiences. No matter what our moral stance is on any particular issue, we all have to cohabitate in a world with others who look, think and behave differently. Are we really doing young people a service when we shield them from this inevitable diversity?”(Emphasis added)...
7. The United Nations “Declaration of Human Rights” is presented to students and falsely depicted as justifying same sex marriage because it calls for ‘dignity,’ marriage and family rights and decries ‘discrimination.’
In a brazen twisting of the intent of this 1948 document, GLSEN again tries to construct a civil right for sodomy and same sex marriage when the document never intended for such interpretations. In fact, homosexual activists have tried (so far unsuccessfully) to amend the UN Declaration to re-cast the definition of key words to cover acceptance of homosexuality.
Students are told to evaluate the actions of the Vermont legislature in light of this document in an attempt to bring the U.S. to “justice” by international standards outside our country. Yet, as indicated above, this document has not been revised to support homosexual unions. Again, students are given a meaningless exercise based on false information and even asked to violate U.S. sovereignty, yet they are shielded from very important truth about how far anal sex is from “dignity...”
10. The curriculum resource list is dominated by homosexual activist group web sites and contains no sources which support traditional values.
Among the resources provided are National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, and Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders..."
"Curriculum
While literature and videos see frequent use in classrooms, systematic curricula specifically addressing homosexuality is a fast growing phenomenon, particularly after a spate of new pro-gay bills signed into law in California (Capitol Resource Institute, 2001). Some curricula are nothing but suggestions for classroom discussion, such as Addressing the Matthew Shepard Tragedy in the Classroom, Is Everyone Protected by the Bill of Rights?, or Why We Need A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) History Month. Others are classroom readers, such as Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for High School & College Students (GLSEN, 2001a).
Some creative curricula take advantage of seasons or holidays, such as For Valentine's Day: Talking About Love and Marriage and LGBT History Month Resources Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights: A Human Rights Perspective. Others build on current events, such as A Lesson Exploring Gays in the Military. Curricula written for various disciplines include McCarthyism and the Witch-Hunt Mentality, What Can Biology Teachers Do To Help?, and a Language Arts/Health Education Unit entitled The Same Sex Marriage Debate. While many curricula are written for middle or high school, one curriculum is billed as "Age appropriate responses for Kindergarten and Elementary School: Advice to Teachers: Tinky Winky in the Classroom" (GLSEN, 2001a).
Historically, such curricula have met with opposition from parents and conservative groups. For example, when Santa Fe, New Mexico public schools implemented an "anti-homophobia" curriculum in which homosexuality, transexuality, and transgenderism are normalized, parents and local religious leaders strongly criticized the district (Heil, 2001). Likewise, conservative groups in California vociferously denounced the curriculum, Healthy Relationships: A Violence-Prevention Curriculum (Anonymous, 1994), because of erroneous or vague information contained therein, such as "a significant percentage of the population is gay..." or "One out of four families have a lesbian or gay in their immediate family" (p. 94)..."
Additional documnetation of GLSEN curricular materials posted here and here.