Posted on 10/18/2005 6:43:25 PM PDT by Coleus
The same school board that ignored parents' objections and allowed what many regard as a "gay pride" flag to be placed in a Livingston County, Michigan, high school has repeatedly rejected the idea of displaying posters featuring the U.S. national motto "In God We Trust."
Despite outrage from pro-family community members, Howell (Michigan) High School has refused to take down the rainbow-colored "diversity flag" that some students and parents who associate the emblem with homosexual pride find offensive. However, when the group called the Livingston Organization for Values in Education, or LOVE, offered to donate framed copies of "In God We Trust" posters for classroom display, the Howell Board of Education turned down the offer.
Some board members have argued that the community members protesting the rainbow flag are misinterpreting its meaning and significance. The flag was hung by the Howell High School's Diversity Club with the school administration's permission; and according to its defenders, the flag denotes tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance for all -- not necessarily promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.
Some Howell school officials believe LOVE's primary agenda in pushing the national motto poster and prolonging debate over the rainbow flag is simply to pressure the district to remove the flag and change its diversity policy. In a recent Ann Arbor News report, Howell School Board president Mary Jo Dymond said she and the other board members have moved on from this nearly two-year-old issue, and others who want to continue fighting over the "diversity flag" need to move on as well.
Nevertheless, LOVE spokeswoman Vicki Fyke says her group is not giving up the fight. "We will be at every school board meeting, asking again for some reconsideration," she insists. Meanwhile, the concerned citizens group is pressing the issue in other ways.
One LOVE member, Howell resident Tom Mallon, has e-mailed a letter to the school board and to Superintendent Chuck Briener, sharply criticizing the school officials' decision to refuse the national motto poster. In the letter, Ann Arbor News reports, Mallon claimed the district has demonstrated "a proclivity to disregard the traditional values" for which his group stands, and has stifled debate over these issues.
At the same time, Fyke points out, "We're educating the public. We're putting together some brochures, and we're going to make a mailing to the people that signed the marriage amendment and ask for some help. Now that we realize [the school board] won't listen to reason, maybe they'll listen to some numbers."
The LOVE representative feels the school board is promoting a one-sided view of diversity by displaying the homosexual pride flag while spurning the "In God We Trust" poster. She believes the board is demonstrating its bias and hypocrisy by censoring the national motto while embracing the controversial "gay pride" symbol to promote homosexuality.
"In trying to make one group of children feel comfortable, they have no problem offending another group of children," Fyke contends. "So we're just trying to find a way to bring common sense to the cause and see if we can find a way to make all the kids feel comfortable to go to school."
According to the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy, three circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals have upheld the constitutionality of the national motto. Nevertheless, the Howell School Board has repeatedly rejected the offer of the In God We Trust poster, giving as its reason that the issue of the separation of church and state is still being debated in court.
The chiuahuah analorgy is a unique one.
I want to "celebrate straight white male" day...
I need a holiday too. "Short, light, and ugly day" (opposite of tall, dark, and handsome).
This is way beyond tolerance and acceptance. A school that flies the rainbow flag is promoting homosexuality.
The chiuahuah analorgy is a unique one.
You beat me to that pun. I usually keep mine PG though:).
A school that flies the rainbow flag
I thought those were leftover Jesse Jackson campaign signs.
Diversity is another word the left has redefined. Once upon a time, it meant variety. Now it only encompasses one variety - the militant and offensively weird.
The desireable kind of diversity isn't perverts who happen to be gay parading around in freakish costumes groping each other, La Raza demanding the return of the Southwest to Mexico, or inner city drug dealers singing about carjacking and killing police. It's people of all backgrounds, physical abilities, and stations in life with a thousand different perspectives on the small stuff but who stand with each other sight unseen when a real trial comes along to any of them.
That doesn't need to be propagandized onto school kids to get any support, because noone disagrees with it in the first place. It doesn't even need to be called diversity, because a better word for it is America.
Much better put than I could ever hope to do:). Thanks.
When my friends dad got "confused" I was 16 at the time. Almost all the queers hit on me at the parties my friends dad would have. I just laughed at them but one time picked one of them up and threw him in the pool. But I would not have tried that with the "leather" types. Some of those guys were tough. A couple looked like "Mr. Slave" on South Park. LOL! They were really really strange. And did some really gross stuff to each other. Using their fists. They would talk about it. YUK!
I've found over the years that I had a unique experience in getting to know some of these folks. Since there really are so few queers most people get their impressions of them from TV. My experience was that they are very sad humans. Many want to be normal by forcing us to see them as normal. For the last 30+ years they have worked very hard to get the american public to see them that way. And, overall, it's worked.
What used to be called "the love that dares not say its name" now can't shut the heck up. If it was just a case of adults with a weird fetish doing sick things to each other, that would be bad enough. It is intolerable that it is official school policy to let the homos indoctrinate all children (I call this mind rape) and recruit as many children as possible (physical rape). I am more and more afraid that Western civilization has lost the will and the capacity to survive.
Well, I'm happy to say that there's one family here that it didn't work with.
Of the very few gays whom I have met, most have been pretty nice people, but they will never "force" me to see them as "normal." But you bring up a larger point--the louder voices seem to get heard nowadays whereas the more sensible ones don't.
I can't say anything about other schools. Such is not a policy at my school and will never be in my classroom.
It didn't work with my family either and hundreds of other families I have seen throughout the years, nor with the very great majority of my graduating class (out of 340, about 4 or 5 were "gay" and probably only 2 of those are actively so).
God, please help us and protect us cause we're gonna need it.
You picked names out of a hat and picked me I guess. I made one dumb comment about the flag. I didn't even address it hardly. Interested in what is in your pants? Hoho hehe, I don't think so. But if that's what you think about, so be it. Innuendo???? Huh?? None of what I said even has to do with what you talked about. And no, I didn't need to hear your intimate details. I'm not interested in them and I wonder why you would be so bold to tell them on a public forum.
Please, get off this topic and go get a life, will you?Oh no, another insult....What will I do? Actually, I agree. I do need a life.
It's apparent that you didn't read too many of my "postings."
But I do have sympathy for what you shared. It is an overlooked thing that actually deserves its OWN posting, different from here. Your best friend was NOT a friend, I'm afraid. I had my best "friend" persecute me for being a Christian.
I never attacked you at all or address you at all. Why this sudden interest and comments? Why did you assume that I wanted to know "details about you?" I sure DID NOT.
I count some two dozen comments I made. Most were very much off the topic and not about innuendo at all. A lot were dumb one-liners. Sorry, I try to keep my comments pg-13 or better (though, I'm not perfect). Where or where did you get that idea that I wanted to know about you? I'm still shaking my head.
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