Posted on 12/04/2005 6:35:49 PM PST by AFA-Michigan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, Dec. 5, 2005
CONTACT: Gary Glenn 989-835-7978
Professor David Halperin 734-647-5884
Family group renews criticism of tax-
funded college class "How to be Gay"
U-M catalogue calls class "an experiment in the
very process of initiation it hopes to understand."
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A statewide family values group Monday renewed its criticism of a controversial University of Michigan class -- offered this fall for the first time since 2003 -- again calling on state lawmakers to pressure university officials to drop the course altogether.
The American Family Association of Michigan, in a letter to supporters statewide, condemned U-M for again offering the class, titled "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality & Initiation."
"Every time U-M offers this ludicrous class, you and I cannot fail to speak out against it," Glenn wrote. "And we must take full advantage every time of the invaluable opportunity to point to (the class) as proof of homosexual activists’ 'political militancy,' to expose their use of our public education system to indoctrinate young people, and to hold accountable those politically correct or timid politicians who stand silently by and do nothing to stop it."
The mailing included pre-addressed postcards to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mi., the office of U-M President Mary Sue Coleman, and Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, who in response to the class in 2003, introduced a proposed constitutional amendment that would give legislators more oversight and control of university class offerings in Michigan. It also urged taxpayers to contact the Legislature.
"Just because you happen to be a gay man doesn't mean that you don't have to learn how to become one," according to the U-M Fall 2005 course catalogue's description of the class. The course "will examine the general topic of the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity. ...(The) course itself will constitute an experiment in the very process of initiation that it hopes to understand."
See full course description at:
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_detail/0,,8,00.html?termArray=f_05_1560&term=Fall%202005&content=1560ENGLISH317002
Openly homosexual U-M Professor David Halperin, the course instructor, frankly discussed the purpose of such classes in Australian Humanities Review:
“Let there be no mistake about it: lesbian and gay studies, as currently practiced in the U.S., expresses an uncompromising political militancy. Indeed, nothing short of political militancy suffices to establish such courses of study in the first place. ...Lesbian and gay studies scholars have...lobbied…to adopt and enforce anti-discrimination policies, to recognize same-sex couples, to oppose the U.S. military's anti-gay policy, to suspend professional activities in states that criminalize gay sex or limit access to abortion, and to intervene on behalf of human rights for lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. ...The fact is that lesbian and gay studies simply is the academic wing of the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender movement.”
http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/emuse/Globalqueering/halperin.html
In 2003, Halperin refused Glenn's offer to meet for a face-to-face public debate on the merits of the class. When U-M offered it in 2000 and 2003, the state House of Representatives fell a handful of votes short of cutting the university's funding in response, and AFA-Michigan's protests generated national news coverage, including:
The Washington Times (front page): http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030818-122317-3268r.htm
CNN Primetime: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/19/se.02.html
Fox News Channel: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95013,00.html
As Glenn said on CNN Primetime, "Michigan taxpayers don't think they ought to be forced to pay to advance homosexual activists' militant political agenda. Those are the words of the professor, not ours."
See full text of AFA-Michigan November 2005 letter below.
----------------------------
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN
Dear AFA-Michigan supporter,
This fall, our taxpayer-financed University of Michigan is once again serving as a propaganda forum for homosexual activists’ political agenda…once again offering the outrageous class: “How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation."
And once again, infuriating as it is, you and your family are forced to pay for it.
Every time U-M offers this ludicrous class, you and I cannot fail to speak out against it.
And we must take full advantage every time of the invaluable opportunity to point to “How to be Gay” as proof of homosexual activists’ “political militancy,” to expose their use of our public education system to indoctrinate young people, and to hold accountable those politically correct or timid politicians who stand silently by and do nothing to stop it!
You’ll be outraged when you read exactly what your tax dollars are paying for. Enclosed is a copy of the course description from U-M’s Fall 2005 catalogue, which explains the course:
“How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation...will examine the general topic of the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay identity.”
Worse, the U-M catalogue openly states: "(The) course itself will constitute an experiment in the very process of initiation that it hopes to understand." http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg_detail/0,,8,00.html?termArray=f_05_1560&term=Fall%202005&content=1560ENGLISH317002
That’s right. U-M officials are forcing your family and other taxpayers to pay for a class whose stated purpose is to “experiment" in the “initiation" of teenage young men into a self-destructive lifestyle of homosexual behavior.
For centuries, homosexual behavior has been a violation of man’s law, and more important, we know as Christians that homosexual behavior violates God’s law as well.
And with good cause, given the severe threat homosexual behavior poses to the health of college-age young men. Oxford University’s International Journal of Epidemiology reports:
“(L)ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday.” http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/657?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&searchid=1021138136284_166&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&minscore=50&journalcode=intjepid
Even as this homosexual “initiation” class puts the lives of teenage young men at risk, homosexual activists openly admit that the real motive behind this class is political.
According to U-M’s catalogue, the “How to be Gay” class “seek(s) ultimately to create the basis for a wider acceptance of the plurality of ways in which people determine how to be gay.”
David Halperin, the openly homosexual U-M professor who teaches “How to be Gay,” was even more brazen in an article published by Australian Humanities Review. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/emuse/Globalqueering/halperin.html
Halperin wrote: “Let there be no mistake about it: lesbian and gay studies, as currently practiced in the U.S., expresses an uncompromising political militancy. Indeed, nothing short of political militancy suffices to establish such courses of study in the first place.”
Halperin explained how such courses advance homosexual activists’ political agenda: “Lesbian and gay studies scholars have...lobbied…to adopt and enforce anti-discrimination policies, to recognize same-sex couples, to oppose the U.S. military's anti-gay policy, to suspend professional activities in states that criminalize gay sex or limit access to abortion, and to intervene on behalf of human rights for lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men.”
Halperin boasted: “The fact is that lesbian and gay studies simply is the academic wing of the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender movement.” Then, mocking our concerns, he concluded, “Queer theory is in the process of becoming a game the whole family can play."
Professor Halperin also boasted in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
“If I had the magical power to make people gay, I wouldn't be wasting my time at a university. I'd engage in world domination." (Chronicle weblink available to subscribers only)
That’s the radical homosexual activist who’s using your tax dollars right now to teach young men at Ann Arbor “How to be Gay." And he’ll keep right on doing it, unless you and I stop him.
When U-M first offered “How to be Gay,” we hand-delivered a foot-high stack of petitions to the U-M Board of Regents with 15,000 signatures demanding the class be cancelled. U-M regents refused to act. Later, the university president’s office told us the class would not be offered again. But under U-M’s new president, no doubt hoping that you and I are no longer paying attention, they’re again putting students’ lives at risk by teaching teens “How to be Gay.”
We believe that every time U-M officials use your tax dollars to pay for this travesty, and the politicians allow it, they must hear from thousands of taxpayers who believe it’s wrong!
Here’s what you need to do immediately to help -- today if possible:
* Please mail the enclosed post cards. Please call or write your legislators today, and please circulate the enclosed petition and return it to AFA-Michigan ASAP.
Contact your state representative: http://house.michigan.gov/find_a_rep.asp
Contact your state senator: http://www.senate.michigan.gov/SenatorInfo/find-your-senator.htm
* Please mail the largest check you can today to AFA-Michigan. AFA-Michigan is the only group in our state speaking out against this outrageous abuse of your tax dollars. Please help make sure we have the funds needed to turn up the heat.
Thank you for standing with us as we take a firm uncompromising stand to protect college-age young men from being taught a lifestyle of behavior that threatens to cut up to 20 years from their lives…and to stop the outrageous abuse of your tax dollars for such reckless propaganda. Respectfully,
GARY GLENN President
P.S. Unless we act today, we’ll be forced to keep paying for U-M’s outrageous class: “How to be Gay.” Please mail the enclosed postcards, please call your legislators, and please circulate the enclosed petition. And please make sure AFA-Michigan has the resources we need to defend your values, by mailing the largest tax-deductible check you can today!
Contribute to AFA-Michigan online: https://www.campaigncontribution.com/version6/process/info.asp?id=1700&jid=
Contribute to AFA-Michigan by mail:
AFA-Michigan PO Box 1904 Midland, Michigan 48641
Guidelines for Members of the Public Who Wish to Address a Meeting of the Regents
Guidelines for Members of the Public Who Wish to Address a Meeting of the Regents
Adopted by the Regents in March 1977
1. As a part of their regular monthly meeting agenda, the Regents will set aside a one-hour period for the purpose of enabling representatives of student, faculty, and staff organizations or other individuals to address comments or make presentations to the Board. It should be understood that the Board will not necessarily respond to such comments or presentations, since they may require study and recommendations on the part of others at the University.
2. In order to accommodate as many as possible, presentations shall be limited to five minutes per individual with no more than thirty minutes devoted to the same topic.
3. Priority for requests to address the Regents:
* Representatives of recognized organizations of students, faculty, and staff.
* Individuals who are members of the student body, faculty, or staff.
* Members of the general public.
4. Requests to address the Board of Regents must be submitted to the Vice President and Secretary of the University prior to the Regents' meeting. The requests must be in writing, identifying the individual or organization making the presentation, the subject matter of the presentation, and the individual's or organization's relationship, if any, to the University. There shall be no substitutions of speakers without approval by the Secretary prior to the meeting.
5. Requests to address the Regents will be scheduled on a first come, first served basis until the available time is used up.
I'm pretty sure it's not a B.A. degree--isn't the degree an N.D.S.?
(say the letters, you'll get it)
For information regarding Regents' meetings, public comments, deadlines for agenda materials, and other general information, please call the Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the University at 734-763-5553.
Further Information
If you have any questions about the Board of Regents or Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the University that are not addressed on this website, or if you have suggestions regarding other information that might be included, please send an email to nasin@umich.edu.
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I absolutely loathe this "in your face" agenda of the "gay but not happy or joyful" group.
They are so misled. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.
Do they look at themselves in the mirror and see what they have become?
Maybe some FReepers should hold up mirrors so that the D'Rats will actually have to look at themselves as they're espousing their agenda.
BTW: one good way to diffuse an angry customer or client, is to have a mirror behind your desk. It works. A person seeing what they look like when they're getting angry will become quiet and rational. Well, at least quiet.
"Hurry! Ping all the liberaltarians! This has nothing to do with rampant drug use at universties! "
ROFLMAO. Maybe they are dopes, but the only drug use involved here is smoking too much pole.
The world is watching.
They teach this garbage but I bet they wouldn't dare allow a class on Intelligent Design.
Jeeze. And to think I wasted my time there studying aerospace engineering. Silly me!
I'm sorry...did I miss the course titled: "How to be straight: Male & Female Sexuality - The birds and the bees - not Adam and Steve? For crying out loud, the poopie packers won't stop! How friggin' big was that damned closet anyway?
Welcome to FR!
You are awesome. Thank you for sharing a great story!
Republic of Georgia. Still third world but give them time. The most lovely, Christian, and heterosexual people you can imagine, all in a truly beautiful setting with great food. Medical care is terrible, still, but they are trying to become more western and I hope to invest in a future home there soon.
"Aren't you from MI?" ping
If you want on/off the ping list let me and little jeremiah know.
I wouldn't expect anything less from Ann Arbor and scUM.
Maybe some of us should "audit" the class and find out what is involved in the "initiation" process?!!!
They need a class?? to be taught in this stuff?
I thought they were born that way, and it was totally natural.
/s
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