District pulls video showing same-sex couples from curriculum

Press of Atlantic City ^

[Sub-Driver]

District pulls video showing same-sex couples from curriculum

The Associated Press (Published: February 10, 2007)

EVESHAM, N.J. (AP) - A video showing same-sex parents that was used as part of the third-grade curriculum in this Burlington County town has been pulled after parents protested.

School officials Friday decided to stop using the documentary titled "That's a Family" while a committee decides whether to use the video in future classes, the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill reported for Saturday's newspapers.

The video, produced by a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization called Women's Educational Media, shows children discussing the different types of families they come from including homes led by single parents, adoptive parents and same-sex couples.

The documentary was only shown once at an elementary school before it raised concerns among many parents.

At an emotionally-charged meeting last month that drew more than 200 people, many parents said the film violated their religious beliefs and that the students were too young to see this type of material.

Supporters of the video say it helps children learn tolerance and respect for others.

"It's sad that they're caving in," Lisa Hellerman, a lesbian who has a third-grader in the district, told the newspaper. "All this film did was show what it means to be a family."

[Sub-Driver]

third graders??????????????? take your agenda elsewhere.....

[rovenstinez]

BANNERS RAISED FOR HOMESCHOOL.

[Bahbah]

This is out of control.

[AliVeritas]

ping

[stm]

I'm glad to see parents are standing up against this crap. How dare they expose third graders to faggotry under the guise of "same sex couples"!!!

No child should ever be placed into a same sex household. It will completely skew their viewpoints about right and wrong, moral and immoral

[AliVeritas]

Lede: School officials Friday decided to stop using the documentary titled "That's a Family" while a committee decides whether to use the video in future classes, the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill reported for Saturday's newspapers.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

The whole world is obsessed with homosexuality. Why? They're only about 2% of the population. This is nuts.

[HonestConservative]

When CAIR starts objecting to such things, broader action will be taken. Not until.

[Faith]

The whole world is obsessed with homosexuality. Why? They're only about 2% of the population. This is nuts.

I agree. It is the agenda of the left. The goal is to destroy the traditional family.

[Always Right]

The whole world is obsessed with homosexuality. Why? They're only about 2% of the population. This is nuts.

It has little to do with homosexuality. It is just the latest tool to assult Christianity.

[Bahbah]

I think Faith is correct.

The plan is to destroy the traditional family.

[andyk]

I wonder if there was a similarly titled story "District adds video showing same-sex couples to curriculum"?

[AliVeritas]

Maybe it's me...

http://www.womedia.org/taf_clips.htm

The adoption clip at least explains reasons kids may be adopted, the gay and lesbian clip has no explanation period... they just put as many gay couples with families in as they could. Nothing about reasons or positive aspects... wonder why? s/

Behold the sidebar:

Straightlaced:
How gender discrimination holds students back

Let's Get Real:
About bullying... ummm, they managed to put in sexual orientation.

It's Elementary:
The documentary for educators that shows how acknowledging gay and lesbian people in schools prevents prejudice and violence (their words)

I especially like the Q and A on this one:

What about parents who don’t want their children to learn about gay sex?

It’s not appropriate for schools to teach young children about sex. But learning about gay men and lesbians isn’t the same thing as learning about gay sex. In school, children learn about mommies and daddies, families and marriage without talking about sex. In the same way, children can learn that there are gay and lesbian people, and can be taught about the literature they have written, the families they have formed, and the gay and lesbian civil rights issues that are part of the current political debate.

Mmm kay.

Nice viewing guide too:
http://www.womedia.org/ie_viewingguide.htm

Choosing Children:
The groundbreaking documentary that explores the ways lesbians are becoming parents

Back to the sidebar:

One wedding and a revolution and Newsom story... nah, they don't have an agenda.

Ooh... they have resources (of course):
http://www.womedia.org/owr_resources.htm

Nope, nothing to see here... move along.

Oh... btw, they also have this (just can't get the link):
Deadly Deception. General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment
The remarkable documentary that helped shut down General Electric's nuclear materials production

http://www.womedia.org/deadlydeception.htm

In the fairness of bi-pa, they also have Home and Hands... on housing for low income residents (real estate).

I'm going to be sick.

[AliVeritas]

Check this out:

A tumult in Evesham over video shown to pupils
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/new_jersey/16585431.htm

It talks of training at the Board of Ed and you know it's been viewed at the white house (of course)

http://www.womedia.org/taf_whitehouse.htm

, and the fact parents didn't know about it's showing... for "health purposes".

(Let's say mental health... like the reason for abortion is mostly for the 'health' of the mother)

[Essie]

Third graders! If they have their way, this kind of material will appear in preschool! It's never too early to try to indoctrinate the little ones.

[napscoordinator]

Alway Right,
You are right again. I don't think this has much to do with homosexuality as it is a hit on conservatives and christianity. They are vultures!

[pandoraou812]

ping

[pandoraou812]

Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, also said that ....NJ is a diverse state and if parents didn't want their children to see this film then maybe NJ isn't the place for them to live.

I am very thankful for all the people who got involved in emailing and trying to stop this film from being shown. Its time for the gays to stop pushing their lifestyle on the rest of us. To push it at our children is not ok with me. My school chose not to show this film thankfully. Garden State Equality Group is a grassroots group who claims to have a lot of power in this state and is expending into other states.

[SaintDismas]

I've been wondering that myself for a long time. I think the devil is active these days, working overtime

[SaintDismas]

I've been wondering that myself for a long time. I think the devil is active these days, working overtime

[SaintDismas]

Sorry about that, I didn't even hit it twice. Whada dork

[scripter]

It's Elementary:
The documentary for educators that shows how acknowledging gay and lesbian people in schools prevents prejudice and violence (their words)

Here's a very interesting fact about the above video:

A 22-year-old man stands before a classroom of middle schoolers, describing how he came out as a homosexual and going so far as to declare, "there are gay students in this classroom."

The young man is Noé Gutierrez, Jr., and the scene is one from It's Elementary, an award-winning 1996 video (widely aired in 1999) which aims to give "practical lessons on how to talk with kids about gay people."

You won't find that scene in Gutierrez's latest video, however. Although he requested permission to use it, producer/director Debra Chasnoff turned him down. Apparently, she doesn't want school children knowing what's happened since then.

You see, Gutierrez is no longer gay.

The above video is I Do Exist and is the story of 5 ex-gays. Yes, change is possible: People Can Change.

[DaveTesla]

Ever heard of Antonio Gramsci?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci

A recent edition of the Hopewell News, a Virginia newspaper reported, “A Richmond attorney…has advised the Prince George County School Board not to block a proposed Gay-Straight Alliance club from forming at Prince George High School.” “Should the issue be taken to court”, said attorney D. Pat Lacy, Sr. of Richmond, “the school system would lose.” (Gay-Straight Club Active at PGHS, Hopewell News, Oct. 6, 2006)

Common sense, traditional values Americans are outraged that schools are allowing Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) into schools. They want to know who is behind these clubs and their true motivations.

The plain truth is that both the GSA and Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educators Network (GLSEN), the organization that registers GSAs, are part of a vast, interconnected network of Cultural Marxist front groups known collectively as the New Left. For over forty years, the New Left---a collection of Marxists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, Maoists, and anarchists have been waging a Gramscian style “quiet revolution” for the overthrow of Christianity and America’s Constitution, Rule of Law, sovereignty, and way of life.

While propagandists in the media have deftly kept the attention of most folks riveted on what they’ve been told to believe are the ‘real threats’ to America, such as gas prices, genuine Christianity, and mad cow disease, Marxist-trained psychopoliticians, propagandists, and change agents have descended upon the schools and are subjecting children and older youth to thought control and social re-engineering methodologies.

A position paper unwittingly published by the ACLU of Texas reveals why, “This generation of children will be the next generation of adult citizens who will make decisions on the directions this country will take. They will be molded by whatever education they receive.” (The ACLU vs. America, Alan Sears and Craig Osten, p 71)

Couple that candid admission to the following, by Deanna Duby of the National Educators Association (NEA), a staunch ally of the American Civil Liberties Uni0n (ACLU) and GLSEN, “The fear of the Religious Right is that the schools of today are the governments of tomorrow. And you know what, they’re right.” (ibid, p. 71)

Note: ACLU, NEA, GLSEN, GSA on Communist Party USA website: http://www.cpusa.org/link/group/0/

In the overthrowing of America, Cultural Marxists are utilizing a criminal methodology which originated in the USSR and whose ultimate goal can be characterized by its operative doctrine—nihilism. “Nihilism: originally in Russia, a social doctrine that defied all authority; revolutionism bent on the overthrow of all existing institutions.” (Funk and Wagnall’s Dictionary, 1948)

Two key strategies included within the doctrine of nihilism were added after WWI by two Marxist theoreticians, Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs. These strategies had to do with how to destroy the Christian West, which both men concluded was the obstacle standing in the way of a communist new world order.

Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 1600 years, it was therefore completely fused with Western civilization. The West, advised Gramsci, would have to be dechristianized and simultaneously atheitized by means of a “long march through the culture” so as to slowly infiltrate and then radically transform every cultural institution from the family, to the church, seminaries, schools, universities, judiciary, media, entertainment, politics, and political parties.

Extreme (obscene) sex education was the strategy added by Lukacs. He reasoned that if Christian sexual ethics such as chastity (abstinence), fidelity, and monogamy could be undermined among children, then both the hated traditional family and Christianity would be dealt crippling blows.

Towards this end, Lukacs launched radical sex education programs in the schools. Children, under the control of Bolshevik commissars, were force-fed atheism and instructed in all aspects of promiscuity while simultaneously encouraged to deride and reject their parents, pastors, and Christian moral ethics. All of this was accompanied by a reign of terror perpetrated against parents, priests, and other dissenters. Lukacs’ strategic method would later be brought to American schools by among others, the NEA, ACLU, GLSEN, and GSA.

In the following excerpts from, “Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939” the application of Marxist criminal methodology can be plainly seen:

“Seeing their incapacity of making headway…to win over the population…Bolsheviks…direct all…efforts towards inculcating their principles in the young. As they have absolute power and no scruples, their methods can easily be imagined. Religion, Polish History and Literature, Latin and Greek were immediately removed from the curriculum (and the) schools submerged in worthless propaganda (which) is intended to destroy their hearer’s faith in everything they had hitherto been taught to love and respect.”

“Atheism is of great importance in the Bolshevik system of education. Even children in…nurseries are subjected to (it). A sort of maniacal stress is laid on the dissolution of morals. Soviet officers (teach about) sexual life in classrooms attended by little girls (and) explain that chastity was a prejudice of decayed bourgeoisie. The helpless indignation of parents forced to put up with…shameless inroads on everything they hold sacred can be imagined. Their helplessness and misery are callously discounted by those in power…every effort is made to undermine all feelings of respect and trust towards their parents.” (http://felsztyn.tripod.com/id15.html)

Nationwide, GLSEN has established GSAs in more than 3,000 Leftist controlled ‘indoctrination camps’ aka public schools. In bastions of Marxist control such as California and Massachusetts, GLSEN is brazenly ‘sensitizing’ youths into trying ‘diverse alternative’ lifestyle choices that decent people everywhere recoil in horror from. Both the infamous sadomasochistic “Fistgate” and “Little Black Book---Queer in the 21st Century” were sponsored in part by GLSEN. (Fistgate Special Report, http://www.massnews.com; The Little Black Book, Http://www.article8.org)

Towards the goal of perverting and subverting children, a California GSA had its middle and high school members march in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade in June 2003. They mingled freely with nude males, topless females, and sadomasochists. Simulated sex acts were performed along the parade route. At least one sign read, “Sodomize me, it’s legal!” GLSEN used a yellow school bus to ferry youths to the parade. (Selling Homosexuality to America, www.coralridge.org, 2006)

Wherever GLSEN is resisted it fights back, often in partnership with the ACLU. Through threat of lawsuits and other intimidation tactics, the ACLU and GLSEN batter decent Americans into submission. For example, in Boyd County, KY, the ACLU and GLSEN used a court order to force children into attending psychopolitical “tolerance training.” When hundreds of parents tried to “opt out” their children, the ACLU threatened further legal action to force parents to surrender their children to GLSEN commissars.

In a WorldNetDaily article titled, “Gay Groups: We Have Rights to Your Children!” it states, “A collection of ‘gay’ organizations has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Massachusetts claiming they have every right to teach their doctrine to grade-school students. Parental rights, according to the brief ‘have never meant that a parent can demand prior notice and the right to opt a child out…” The article reveals that the groups involved are major Marxist-progressive ‘gay’ rights proponents: the Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, Mass. Teachers Assoc., Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. (WorldNetDaily, Oct. 6, 2006)

In an obvious effort at damaging the parent-child relationship, the ACLU---with help from GLSEN--- published a manual audaciously titled, “Making Schools Safe.” This manual is a “blueprint for using schools to influence children to reject the values and beliefs of parents who oppose homosexuality.” (America vs. ACLU, p. 70)

In material to promote its “Day of Silence, “ a psychopolitical scheme designed to encourage defiance by youth towards parents, teachers, etc., GLSEN told children to “brainstorm” a list of people, “who are likely to stand in your way” or “expressed bias against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people.” The list can include teachers, school board members, and relatives. Children were advised that, “People who oppose your issue are…your opponents.” (America vs. the ACLU, p 71)

Marxist-Progressives Who Fund the Subversion and Perversion of America’s Youth

On the bottom of the GSA homepage it states, “GSA is a project of the Tides Center.”

(http://www.gsanetwork.org/)

The Tides Center / Foundation funnels money from wealthy international and national donors --both individuals and foundations / institutes -- to the New Left’s matrix of communist front groups. Essentially, the New Left is the “hired assassins” doing the dirty work for wealthy progressives who want America destroyed and don’t care about the criminal methods employed, but who don’t want to dirty their hands. Among wealthy individuals who donate to Tides is Teresa Heinz Kerry, who has donated more than $4 million. Another donor is multi-millionaire George Soros and his Shadow Party and Open Society Institute.

“The Tides ‘family’ of organizations is a nerve center of radical Shadow Party activity. George Soros has given more than $17 million to the Tides Center since 1999.” (The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, David Horowitz and Richard Poe, p.126)

Other Marxist-progressive funders include, for example:

Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers, Ford Foundation, and John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation

The Black Book of Communism recounts in horrific detail the crimes committed against humanity, culture, and civilization by adherents to the communist doctrine. Stephane Courtois, one of the books authors, characterizes communism as a criminal ideology. Former Pres. Reagan, a God-fearing man and one of America’s greatest leaders called the USSR an “empire of evil.”

How ironic that though the West won the Cold War, it is losing the ‘Culture War’ to the Church of Criminal Orthodoxy. While we were not paying attention it stealthily crept into America and began injecting its ‘moral insanity’ producing venom into America’s cultural institutions. Working under cover as multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance, sexual orientation, safe schools/safe sex, reproductive choice, porn as free speech, etc., the evil empire has entrenched itself right here in America.

As it works its destructive black magic upon the America of our Founders, it simultaneously takes control of America’s future---her children. It is subverting and perverting them in much the same way as was done to the children of Christian Russia, Hungary, and Poland.

What Must We Do?

Americans must clear their minds of the psychopolitically-induced mind paste which prevents them from seeing the truth, which is that America was founded by God-fearing patriots who chose Christian principles on which to achieve independence. In the words of John Adams, “The…principles on which the fathers achieved independence were…the general principles of Christianity.” (Works, Vol. x, pp. 45-46, to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813) When Gramsci and Lukacs pointed to Christianity as the obstacle preventing the establishment of a communist new world order, they were confessing to this truth.

If we wish to remain free, we must turn back to and rededicate ourselves to the source of our freedom and personal liberties: God the Creator and the principles of Christianity. Parents must protect their children and keep them out of the grasping hands of the Church of Criminal Orthodoxy. And as a people united by the principles of freedom and personal liberty, we must commit ourselves to the long and arduous fight to recapture every square inch of our culture, laws, and government and cleanse them of the corruptions caused by the Church of Criminal Orthodoxy.

Copyright Linda Kimball 2006
PatriotsandLiberty
http://patriotsandliberty.com/

http://lindakimball.com/

Resources:

The ACLU vs. America, Alan Sears & Craig Osten

The Black Book of Communism, Courtois, Werth, Panne, Paczkowski, Bartosek, Margolin

Radical Road Maps, James H. Hansen

[DaveTesla]

You both are correct.
See above post #23.

[JZoback]

The West, advised Gramsci, would have to be dechristianized and simultaneously atheitized by means of a “long march through the culture” so as to slowly infiltrate and then radically transform every cultural institution from the family, to the church, seminaries, schools, universities, judiciary, media, entertainment, politics, and political parties.

looks like their job is almost complete

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

You didn't even get into the influence of liberal, anti-Christian churches that belong to the NCC and WCC.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Oops. Maybe you did.

[wagglebee]

Homosexual Agenda Ping

Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the homosexual agenda ping list.

Click FreeRepublic homosexual agenda keyword search for a list of all related articles.

Add keywords homosexual agenda to flag FR articles to this ping list.

[Fiddlstix]

....video showing same-sex parents that was used as part of the third-grade curriculum....

I'm Speechless

[Antoninus]

Right in my backyard. Our decision to homeschool is looking better every day....

[gidget7]

Amen!! But we all realize THIS is exactly why homosexuals want adoption. They feel it gives them leverage in schools, because no one will so no to their children.

[Neoliberalnot]

The queers are going to have access to kids and nobody is going to stop them. This is part and parcel to the homo agenda; the capturing of kids for future fun and deviance.

[Neoliberalnot]

Future evidence that majority rule is dead when sexual deviants dictate the public school curriculum. The mentally deranged will soon be running the show folks.

[Neoliberalnot]

"I agree. It is the agenda of the left. The goal is to destroy the traditional family."

History tells us that destruction of the family unit serves to strengthen tyrannical government.

[DaveTesla]

"You didn't even get into the influence of liberal, anti-Christian churches that belong to the NCC and WCC."


We owe that one to Hegel.

He had a great influence on Karl Marx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel

http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/who/mch-e.html
Member churches...
NORTH AMERICA
African Methodist Episcopal Church [USA]
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church [USA]
American Baptist Churches in the USA
Anglican Church of Canada
Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, N.A. Diocese
Canadian Council of Churches**
Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Canada
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church [USA]
Church of the Brethren [USA]
Episcopal Church
Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad [Canada]
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Hungarian Reformed Church in America
International Council of Community Churches [USA]
International Evangelical Church [USA]
Moravian Church in America
National Baptist Convention of America
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA**
Orthodox Church in America
Polish National Catholic Church
Presbyterian Church in Canada
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. [USA]
Reformed Church in America [USA]
Religious Society of Friends [USA] - Friends General Conference - Friends United Meeting
United Church of Canada
United Church of Christ [USA]
United Methodist Church [USA]

Willow Creek Hegelian Dialectic & The New World Order

by Paul Proctor
watchman@usa.com


No sooner do I finish my piece about Willow Creek Association's seduction of 14,000+ churches around the world, including my own, via the Hegelian Dialectic, than Ted Koppel shows us the actual process at work on ABC News Nightline between evangelical leaders and Bill Clinton at the Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, Illinois.

With ministers from around the country attending Willow Creek's Leadership Conference, Bill Hybels, acting as "facilitator", brings everyone into the "Consensus Process" to hear Bill Clinton's confession-less appeal for forgiveness to try and gain the approval and acceptance of the evangelical community just in time for the Democratic Convention.

For the benefit of those who have not yet heard of the Hegelian Dialectic, let me briefly run through it as taught by Authority Research Center president, Dean Gotcher. The Hegelian Dialectic or "Consensus Process" is a 200 year-old, three-step process of "thesis, antithesis and synthesis", developed in the late 1700's by a german named Georg William Friedreich Hegel that results in what we now know as "group-think". It is a system Dean calls "Praxis" that Socialists have used for centuries to seduce, seize and control mass populations without warfare. It is also in full operation here in the United States under such names as: "Outcome Based Education", "Goals 2000", "Sustainable Development", "School To Work", "DARE" and many more. It's all about embracing "tolerance, diversity and unity" for The New World Order. To put it in layman's terms, it's brainwashing.

Here's how it works: A group gathers, and has agreed beforehand that each in attendance will ultimately surrender his or her own personal position on any given issue to the will or "consensus" of the group after *processing to consensus* through dialog. In a Christian setting, the presupposition is that the group's will determines "the will of God". The group's "facilitator", whoever that may be, mediates between sides, be they "good and evil", "for and against", "republican and democrat", "liberal and conservative", etc., whatever the case may be, often instigating heated confrontations between the opposing sides for the purpose of suggesting compromise as the perfect solution to restore and maintain the peace and the relationships of everyone involved. The resulting outcome or *consensus* is then re-introduced if necessary, at the next meeting for more "Praxis", more dialog and more compromise until another "consensus" is reached. Then the "process" repeats all over again...and again...and again until the facilitator's desired outcome is achieved. Over time, the convictions and concerns anyone may have had originally are processed away beyond recognition or relevance leaving one and all to accept the facilitator's pre-determined outcome as the consensus of the group. It's no longer a question of what is right or wrong, good or bad, lawful or unlawful, but rather HOW WE ALL FEEL ABOUT IT...no absolutes, no conscience, no convictions, no laws, no Constitution, no Bible and NO GOD!!!...only consensus....and a contrived consensus at that. Pretty slick huh? That's the Hegelian Dialectic.

That's exactly what "facilitator" Bill Hybels accomplished the other day between church leaders attending the Willow Creek Conference and his friend Bill Clinton on ABC's Nightline. Protesting evangelicals (thesis), demanded socialist Bill Clinton (antitheses), answer for his lies and sexual indiscretions at the meeting. Hybels, as the "facilitator" voices their protests and then injects that Clinton HAD confessed to them by saying he publicly admitted: "I have sinned". Yeah, well...we ALL have sinned Bill. The Bible says it in Romans 3:23. That's not news. That's not a confession either. Nor is a politically expedient appearance in front of a church full of evangelical Christians before the Democratic Convention a demonstration of repentance. The fact is, Clinton has done everything he possibly could to save his political neck leaving a bloody trail of "Arkancides" strung out from Little Rock, to Washington D.C., to Waco, to Ft. Worth, to Ruby Ridge, to Kosovo, to Croatia, to China and beyond. While Hybels brings everyone together under socialism's religious umbrella of "tolerance, diversity and unity", Clinton's REAL crimes continue to be covered up, whitewashed, blackmailed, threatened, bribed and snafued away.

But that's OK. The good reverend just wants us to forgive his pal Clinton so we can all be one big happy family. Thesis + Antitheses = Synthesis...the Hegelian Dialectic. Sounds like the perfect formula for an Apostate Church to me. I wonder if Hybels has sent everyone personal invitations to "The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders", meeting at the United Nations later this month as well? I hear they're all getting together to create a great big One World Religion for us here on planet Earth. Won't that be wonderful?...A WORLD CHURCH!

Socializing The Church

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (II Timothy 4:3-4)

I took a break from writing for a couple of months to further research the "seeker-sensitive", "church-growth" movement; that tumorous plague that has become to the Christian community what AIDS is to the homosexual community. Those who have been infected always deny it publicly believing in their hearts they are righteous and extraordinary rather than depraved, dying and delusional.

The UN sponsored, government protected disease called political correctness entered the bloodstream of Christendom sometime ago and is quickly becoming the accepted norm in churches across America thanks to organizations like Willow Creek and Saddleback who serve as public bathhouses for the PC infected where it is casually acquired and transmitted through the abominable practice of TDU (tolerance, diversity and unity); a forbidden form of carnal indulgence that liberals teach as "love", but is in fact an abominable lie with hideous consequences. PC ought to stand for poisonous candy; the sugar cube of socialists that was made fashionable in the 60's by flower children who didn't seem to care that it was laced with a virus that attacks and weakens the conscience and severely compromises, if not corrupts altogether the soul of a person who claims to love God.

Today's carriers of this Christian-flavored humanism are currently taking over mainstream denominations by flaunting a fluffy and flowery Disney World doctrine of feelings and emotion while living in utter denial of the ancient wisdom and power found in the Great Physician's own medical manual for mankind.

"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (II Timothy 3:5-7)

When first infected, an individual shows little or no visual signs of the disease and goes about daily life as if they were perfectly healthy. However, as time goes by, symptoms begin to surface that drive them to various clinics, conferences and counseling sessions seeking the fashionable remedies, theories, strategies and techniques of social psychologists, marketing specialists and motivational speakers who peddle pantheistic potions and think-positive notions to the "enlightened" for healthy profits and praise.

These hapless victims of a re-invented religion are won through flattery, seduction, covetousness and attrition as their church sanctuaries are slowly converted into temples of doom where the PC gospel is eventually published as holy writ by an unaccountable leadership who privately profits from preaching propaganda. Its carriers do not really believe in the Word of God but rather in the consensus of popular opinion and the sensual gratification of personal experience. Theirs is a selective morality, powered by adrenaline, that never infringes on anyone else's self-esteem or sensitivities yet provides a colorful and charming Christ-like costume suitable for the endtimes masquerade called Apostasy.

"Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." (Jeremiah 17:5)

Instead of accepting God's way as Holy and the world's way as sinful, they busy themselves endeavoring to make everyone else at church exactly like them through the micromanaging and peer pressure of accountability groups while re-defining for those outside the church what being a Christian really is... A codependent, hypersensitive, emotionally fragile composite of compliance, complexity and contradiction with a fossilized happy face and a tolerance for anything and everything but intolerance.

You'll know that your church is becoming "seeker-sensitive" when the worship service begins to resemble an Amway convention run by pod people in polo shirts whose savior looks more like Bill Clinton with sunglasses and a saxophone than the Son of God hanging from a lonely cross for the sins of the world.

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (II Thessalonians 2: 11-12)

Converting Christianity

One of the most damning aspects of Willow Creek and the whole Church Growth Movement is the hypocrisy that makes up its very foundation and operation. Having its members sign covenants, (which is expressly forbidden by Holy Scripture), saying they will not criticize or complain about the church or its leadership is not just socialism ("tyranny with a smile"), but a coup de tat of the church and its Divine mission. Willow Creek was formed, as are its member churches by surveying the lost and unchurched in each of their respective communities to gather a consensus of what those specific people DO NOT LIKE ABOUT CHURCH that one may be built and/or designed to suit them. So, the Children of God are to essentially shut up while the inmates run the asylum for the hierarchy! I think the appropriate word here would be subterfuge.

The Willow Creek Association through its member churches have in effect silenced the Body Of Christ and provided pagans, new-agers, atheists, socialists, communists, Marxists, humanists, homosexuals, feminists and liberals in general thousands of sterilized venues where they can come and present their "felt needs" to those with open arms and open minds.

By creating a politically correct environment for them to work in the UN can now steer Christians and their new church of tolerance, diversity and unity right into global governance. (Just like socialists have already done with the federal government, public education, the media, military, law enforcement and business community.) This is just another of the many shrewd ways the UN is successfully conquering our country through attrition. It's the Gramsci strategy at work.

By meeting the so-called "felt needs" of the godless, THEIR voices are heard, THEIR philosophies are made known, THEIR music is played, THEIR religion is taught, THEIR ideologies are discussed and THEIR agenda is carried out virtually unopposed in the corridors, classrooms and worship centers of every "seeker sensitive" church in America. Bottom line is; the REAL students here are the silent, submissive, ignorant, gullible, compromised and compliant Christians who are held at bay by global socialists surreptitiously destroying our religious heritage through the church growth movement.

But its OK cause we're having a GREAT TIME at a GREAT CHURCH, with GREAT PROGRAMS and GREAT MUSIC, in a GREAT WORSHIP CENTER, with a GREAT PASTOR, that tells GREAT STORIES and GREAT JOKES, to a GREAT CROWD before a GREAT GOD! Consequently, the only sinner in a "seeker-sensitive" church is the party-pooper who disrupts the "unity" of the "unequally yoked" by criticizing the UN's doctrine of "tolerance and diversity".

Here's what the Bible has to say about tolerance:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1st John 2:15)

[DaveTesla]

continued...


FORUM UNITES DIVERSE RELIGIONS

"All pathways to heaven and God are not the same; that's the reality," said David Staal, a spokesman for Willow Creek.

As any bible believing Christian knows, this is the opposite of what Jesus taught. It is more of the Hegelian Dialectic at work made famous by socialists for centuries and the driving force behind the New World Order...The anti-gospel.

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6)

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

These two scriptures are the essence of the gospel message and yet many of today's "Christians" continue to follow Willow Creek's blind guides into the global abyss seeking the emotional gratification of group acceptance. It is clear that those who remain loyal to the church-growth movement do so because it is where their friends and family are and they just can't bear to forfeit such valuable relationships for the cause of Christ. It is a travesty that the cross is so readily forsaken for the frivolity of compromised companionship. These poor souls never seem to grasp that in doing this they exchange the "Agape" love of Christ for the "Phileo" love of ecumenism. Tragically, some even convince themselves they can carry out a ministry by playing along in these "Temples of Doom" forgetting the Apostle Paul's warning to not be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers". (II Corinthians 6:14)

The fact is Willow Creek and Saddleback utilize many of Satan's carnal tools to promote the global agenda believing as socialists do, that the end justifies the means. The "church growth movement" is about growing churches and budgets instead of Christians. It is "seeker-sensitive" because it is not God sensitive. It focuses on "felt needs" instead of spiritual needs. So, rather than equipping saints to go out into the world to rescue the lost from a culture of death they employ the culture's own singers, celebrities and salesmen to seduce them into their apostasy by marketing a gospel of gratification. It is the harlotry of hedonism and the very antithesis of all that is holy.

Regardless of what the spokesman said at Willow Creek's religious forum, "...There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

It is still Jesus Christ plus NOTHING

[M Kehoe]

Third graders!? I'm at a loss for words...well, words that won't get me banned.

5.56mm

[DaveTesla]

The National Council of Churches
is actually a national council of the WCC run by the
Communist U.N.

Satan and his helper Hegel's church.

Rev. 17
And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten
horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her
hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a
name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw that the
woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

[plan2succeed.org]

DaveTesla and everyone else reading this thread:

Information Needed:

All, I have read DaveTesla's long post #23. Now I have questions.

Can anyone tell me if the American Library Association has any part in this matter raised in post #23? I know the ALA pushes inappropriate sexual material on children [example: Porn Pushers - The ALA and Looking For Alaska - One Example of How the ALA Pushes Porn On Children], but I do not know why it does so.

Can anyone provide me with specific information of the ALA's involvement in the matters raised in DaveTesla's long post? Can anyone provide me with direct links to this material, or pages from scholarly works? I only like to publish what I can prove. But if I am provided with this information, and it's legitimate, I will publish it on my group's site at SafeLibraries.org.

I can't think of why the ALA would push inappropriate material on children despite community standards, governmental requests, and US Supreme Court decisions. Perhaps the answers I receive in response to my request may help to answer this question; then I can inform the hundreds of thousands who visit my group's web site.

Thank you.

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?

[Calpernia]

Previous:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773471/posts
Some South Jersey Parents Upset About Award-Winning Diversity Video Being Shown In School

[Calpernia]

Bump!

[pandoraou812]

I have a big smile on my face. Thanks for all your links and help. You are terrific! ~~Pandora~~

[Calpernia]

We are all terrific!

Bump to caring parents!

[DaveTesla]

but I do not know why it does so.

To strip them of their innocence.

Cultural Marxism is the name of the game.

Once striping them of their innocence so they can
use their guilt to turn them into sociopaths.
Antisocial personality disorder- Wikipedia
(A must read)


Why turn them into sociopaths?
Because it is hard if not impossible to enslave intelligent
thinking hard working independent people who have the support of a
family that supplies them with a heritage and culture.


The Marxists then intend to overthrow our current form
of government and constitution and seize power.

Our values and culture emanate from our Judeo - Christian beliefs.

To become a Marxist you must remove those beliefs because they are in direct conflict with the Marxist dialect,
ie.
1. A one world government.
2. Sexual and self worship.
3. Replacing the church with or control of the church by government.
4. The state deciding who lives and who dies.
5. The government empowered raising themselves up as gods. (little "g").
6. (the most important) To eliminate guilt, remorse and conscience from man (Jewish law / Christian sin).

The end result is slavery and what Communists call paradise.
(I guess they would think that if they were in power and not the slaves.)

Read Gramsci for your answers.
Here is the architect's complete set of plans.

He planed all this to overthrow the government and usher in
a Marxixist society.
He knew that the cultural and religious beliefs would
never allow it to happen no matter how many governments he
overthrew.

Read Fred Hayek's the road to serfdom.

Capitalism is truly an individualistic free man system
with it's roots in Judeo Cristian beliefs.
(Guess that explains why the left attacks the Jews and
Christians and why Stalin outlawed religion.)
where as communism / fascism (and most ism's) is a collectivist slave system.

[DaveTesla]

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6348

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 2/11/2007 1:39:02 AM


AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION (ALA)
50 E. Huron
Chicago, IL
60611

Phone :1-800-545-2433
URL :http://www.ala.org/





Opposes the Patriot Act
Characterizes anti-terrorism measures as assaults on civil liberties
Is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel



Founded in 1876 in Philadelphia and chartered three years later in Massachusetts, the American Library Association (ALA) is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 64,000 members. Its mission is "to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all."

In recent years, the ALA has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's War on Terror and, most particularly, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Section 215 reworks Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and states that if the FBI believes a library's computers are being used by terrorists to plan or carry out their activities, the Bureau may make an application to a judge who can grant an order for the production of a suspected patron's records. ALA members condemn Section 215, vowing that they will not break the "sacred" trust that exists between a patron and a librarian.

Following ALA policy, more than 225 libraries across the United States have chosen to defy the mandates of Section 215. For instance, the Santa Cruz, California library has chosen to shred all records of its patrons' book use on a daily basis. Anne M. Turner, Director of that city's library system, explained, "The basic strategy now is to keep as little historical information as possible."

In January 2003 the ALA passed a resolution calling Section 215 “a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users.” The organization's website featured a prominent display of lawsuits filed against the federal government in an effort to thwart the implementation of the Patriot Act. In a link titled "FBI in Your Library," the ALA website described a scenario where "A couple of suited thugs take the library patron away." The website also provided a link to a Village Voice article titled "Things we lost in the fire," depicting America's alleged transformation into a fascist state. "Looking for terrorists in a public library is just part of an overall strategy to diminish the civil liberties of American citizens," said ALA President Mitch (Maurice) Freedman.

The ALA has a long history of objecting to government interference or scrutiny. In 1953, at the height of the Cold War, the organization issued its "Freedom to Read" statement, resisting federal calls to loyalty. In 1984 the ALA passed a resolution condemning the United States for withdrawing from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. (That withdrawal had been made to protest UNESCO's growing politicization; anti-Western bias; budgetary mismanagement; anti-free market policies; and advocacy of a “new world information order” through which the organization sought to institute the licensing of journalists and increased government control over the media.)

In 1998 the ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) voiced its opposition to the U.S. bombing of Iraq. The self-proclaimed "conscience of the ALA," the SRRT believes that "libraries and librarians must recognize and help solve social problems and inequities in order to carry out their mandate to work for the common good and bolster democracy."

In June 2002 the ALA, under the auspices of its SRRT section, condemned Israel for its alleged oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The ALA demanded that the United States and other nations do all they could to "prevent further destruction of libraries and cultural resources" in Palestinian territories by Israel. When confronted with the fact that any destruction at the time had taken place during a war (the Palestinian Intifada against Israel), ALA President Mitch Freedman responded: "ALA policy does not differentiate between deliberate or unintentional destruction. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, justified or unjustified, the destruction of libraries, library collections, and property [is deplored by the ALA]."

At a January 2003 ALA meeting in Philadelphia, Freedman screened a documentary about the bitterly anti-American, anti-Israel professor Noam Chomsky, and a videotaped speech by Amy Goodman, the host of the Democracy Now! radio program.

Two months later, the ALA argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) -- which states that libraries should filter Internet access to eliminate "visual depictions that are obscene, contain child pornography or are harmful to minors" -- was an infringement on freedom of expression. The ALA spent more than $1.7 million on court battles to fight the implementation of CIPA.

In 2003, when news outlets reported that Iraqi libraries had been vandalized and looted during the conflict, the ALA website blamed the United States.

The ALA website features a section titled "Alternative Resources on the U.S. 'War Against Terrorism," which contains links to Antiwar.com, MichaelMoore.com, StopTheWar.com, WarResistersLeague.com, and a series of petitions opposing America's War on Terrorism. The SRRT portion of the ALA website directs readers to links that explore "Cuban Library Tours and Conferences" where they can "find out for [themselves] the real Cuba." There are also links to the "Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgendered Round Table," and to numerous websites beginning with the word "progressive."

The ALA was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose Patriot Act II on grounds that it "would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights." In addition, the ALA has given its organizational endorsement to the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, which tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions of noncompliance with the Patriot Act.

The ALA is a member organization of the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), a coalition of groups that believe the American workplace is rife with sexism and discrimination against women.

The ALA has received funding from: the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and others.

[DaveTesla]

Gee... you don't think the ALA is being by communists do you?.....

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/printindividualProfile.asp?indid=990

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 2/11/2007 1:41:16 AM


MITCH (MAURICE) FREEDMAN




Former president of the American Library Association
Opposed the Patriot Act provision which grants access to a person’s library records if they are believed to be involved in terrorist activities
Critic of the Children’s Internet Protection Act
Critical of Israel for not protecting libraries during the Palestinian-led Intifada
Critical of the U.S. for the looting that Iraqis did to their own libraries during the War in Iraq




Mitch (Maurice) Freedman was President of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2002-2003. Under his leadership, the ALA became hostile toward federal law-enforcement agencies trying to enforce provisions of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows judges to grant a court order for a person’s library records if the FBI believes he or she may be involved in terrorist activities. As reported in a FrontPageMagazine.com article by Paul Walfield, Freedman called the Act a product of the vast right-wing conspiracy, even though it passed the U.S., Senate by a vote of 99-1. “Looking for terrorists in a public library,” said Freedman, “is just part of an overall strategy to diminish civil liberties of American citizens.”



In a speech he gave to the West Virginia Library Association on October 29, 2001, Freedman said, “I fear that the attack on the World Trade Center is now resulting in attacks on basic American values of liberty, privacy, and fairness.” “Unfortunately,” he added, “there is little the ALA can do to protect citizens of foreign nationalities, cab drivers, and others in the U.S. from being beaten up or worse simply because of their national origin or ethnicity. As librarians you can play a role by making available information and scheduling programs that teach about Islam, liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and, in general, counsel tolerance and understanding.”

Freedman also complained that the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires libraries to filter Internet terminals for inappropriate material such as pornography, violates the ideals of intellectual freedom and keeps adults and library staff from viewing such material as well. He said the ALA had committed more than $1 million to fight CIPA.

In June of 2002, the ALA took sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, condemning Israel and demanding that the United States and other nations do all they could to “prevent further destruction of libraries and cultural resources” in Palestinian territories by Israel. When confronted with the fact that any destruction at the time took place during a war (the so-called intifada by the Palestinians against Israel), Freedman responded by saying, “ALA policy does not differentiate between deliberate or unintentional destruction. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, justified or unjustified, the destruction of libraries, library collections, and property [is deplored by the ALA].” No condemnation of terrorists was made by the ALA, just a condemnation of Israel’s defensive measures. To underscore his anti-Israeli views, President Freedman screened a documentary about Noam Chomsky and a speech by Amy Goodman, the far-left hostess of the Democracy Now radio show, at a January 2003 ALA meeting.

Regarding the 2003 war against Iraq, Freedman and the ALA blamed America for the vandalism and looting that Iraqis did to their libraries in the midst of that conflict. The ALA website declared, “The National Library and Archives of Iraq and the principal Islamic library were destroyed last week by looters and arsonists. Reports indicated that the libraries were unguarded at the time of their destruction.” Freedman said, “The American Library Association grieves for and deplores the catastrophic losses to Iraq’s cultural heritage that have already occurred with the destruction of the National Library Archives and the Islamic library. Cultural heritage is as important as oil. Libraries are a cornerstone of democracy and are vital resources in the re-establishment of a civil society. We urge the administration to ensure that in the future the necessary resources will be made available to prevent further catastrophes.”

For Freedman and the ALA, not risking American lives to protect Iraq’s libraries during the war was unconscionable.

[DaveTesla]

Librarians to sever ties with Scouts?
Effort underway cites discrimination against atheists, 'gays'

ALA Director has ties with Communist party.

---

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49860

---

Posted: April 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Walter Skold
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com



A renewed effort by several members of the American Library Association's governing council would sever all ties with the Boy Scouts of America until the youth organization stops "discriminating" against avowed atheists and homosexuals.

In 1998, the council of the ALA, the world's largest library organization, condemned the Boy Scouts over its policies, but a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals activists quietly are planning to take action at the association's annual convention in June.

The renewed effort is led by Mark Rosenzweig, formerly an official archivist with the U.S. Communist Party and a chief defender of Fidel Castro in the ALA controversy over the communist regime's repression of the independent library movement in Cuba, reported by WorldNetDaily .


"It is scary that an organization which purports to believe in free speech and intellectual freedom would take this kind of action," said BSA spokesman Bob Bork. "It is a Soviet-style effort to make us a non-person."

Rosenzweig unveiled his proposal April 9 on the ALA council e-mail list, declaring, "I am tired of seeing Council pass resolutions which like the previous one on the BSA are never monitored or reported back upon and for which no one takes responsibility."

He was referring to a 1999 ALA resolution, which read: "That the American Library Association urges the Boy Scouts of America to reconsider their policy of discrimination in the areas of sexual orientation and religious belief and demonstrate a commitment to human rights, inclusiveness, and mutual respect."

The BSA's Bork responded: "How could they show such utter disregard to the First Amendment rights of any organization? We have the same rights of freedom of association as the ALA and it is disgusting to think they would disrespect those rights."

Michael Golrick, an ALA council member and city librarian for Bridgeport, Ct., told WND he believes the resolution "will accomplish exactly what the last one did: No changes in BSA policies, and irritated librarians who hold views not shared by the radical left."

Golrick was one of the few council members to publicly object to the 1999 resolution. He wore his Scout uniform to the meeting, prompting ridicule from John Berry III, editor of Library Journal, who called it "silly."

"This resolution plays into the hands of critics who take ALA to task for being too liberal," Golrick warned. "If anything, this will turn off many librarians who might otherwise join the organization since it positions ALA in such a left-wing position."

The announcement of the new proposal touched off a flurry of policy questions and debate on the ALA council e-mail list in which members from various committees looked into old records to see what is meant by phrases such as "affiliate," "liaison" and "official."

In response to apparent uncertainty about the outcome of the previous resolution, Stephen L. Matthews, a councilor-at-large, said "We still need to hear from ALSC about what is really happening today."

"Whether there is anything happening or not," he added, "it is important to reiterate our concern to BSA about the destructive nature of their so-called 'moral modeling' policy."

Matthews said, with little response from fellow councilors, "I wholeheartedly support additional communication with BSA challenging their policy of intolerance and its encouragement of hate and contempt as part of their organizational commitment to 'moral education.'"

The volume and intensity of the response on weblogs, e-mail lists and e-mails to WND shows the issue has struck a chord.

Among the opinions received by WND after querying three library e-mail lists are these:


We should be open to working with the Boy Scouts or any organization which does so much to help boys in so many ways. If ALA wants to help the Scouts become more inclusive, they certainly won't do it by severing all contact and shutting them out of our organization. – Carol Simmons, director, Daly City Library, Calif.

I am so sick of the ALA speaking for ALL librarians when I believe that they are only speaking for a MINORITY of librarians. I was a Boy Scout leader for 10 years. Boys Scouts is a great organization. The ALA needs to concentrate on library issues and leave the Boy Scouts ALONE!!!!! – Sharon Beever, Maine.

"This could turn into a bigger brouhaha than Dr. Laura started, and even teach the Scouts themselves how uptight we are about being liberal – another side of bigotry," wrote a retired California librarian who wished to remain anonymous. "Young people deserve better."
"Couldn't ALA show the bigger heart and merely proclaim itself disapproving of the BSA stance and continue to help the Scouts in the reading and librarianship business?" she wondered.


"I absolutely believe the ALA should take this action, as should all organizations committed to fairness. With its goal of being "a leader in recruiting and developing a highly qualified and diverse library work force," the organization must take actions like the proposed resolution to improve the profession's relationship to diversity." – Liberty Smith.

"Because the Boy Scouts choose to discriminate within their organization, my family does not support any of their local or national efforts. I would truly appreciate the gesture of ALA breaking all ties with them as well." – Katie O'Dell, reading promotions coordinator, Multnomah County Library, Portland, Ore.

"We would be undermining another value – that of inclusivity – that many people love about libraries and by extension ALA. On the other hand our relationships say something about our values, and not making some sort of statement puts us in murky ethical territory – kind of like not divesting in the Sudan or wherever. I wonder if there is some middle ground that preserves the value of inclusivity." University of California librarian.

"BSA will not change its policies but ALA can and should." – "Big grandma"
Officially, leaders of the ALA and its divisions appear to be taking a cautious approach.

Asked the president's opinion and if the executive board had discussed the issue, ALA spokeswoman Larra Clark said, "The ALA executive board is not discussing the BSA matter at this time, but I can let you know if action is taken in the future."

Officials at the Association of Library Services to Children, which has had the most contact with the BSA – and which was criticized most on the council list – did not reply to WND by press time.

Beth Yoke, executive director of the Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA, told WND that if an official resolution "regarding any issue is put before ALA's council, YALSA's board of directors, when it next meets, will discuss the proposed resolution with the intent of coming to a consensus on what direction to provide YALSA's Councilor on how to vote on the resolution."

She also confirmed her group has not received any complaints from ALA members or the public about the informal contacts the ALA maintains with the Scouts.

Librarian and ALA council candidate Greg McClay says the lack of public outcry over the BSA-ALA relationship shows there is "no professional reasoning behind any of this, as libraries serve everyone."

"This is strictly personal politics," he charged, pointing out comments posted on the weblog of ALA councilor K. R. Roberto, who said "Personally, I am rather uncomfortable with the concept of ALA having close ties with an organization that finds me morally unfit."

"And yet this person engages in a discussion to decide if the Boy Scouts are morally fit enough for ALA to have close ties with?" said McClay, a Massachusetts librarian.

While no scientific opinion polls have been take, this week the ALA's American Libraries Direct online magazine asked the question, "Should the Boy Scouts of America's policy of excluding agnostics, atheists, and gays prohibit libraries from cooperating with the organization in joint programs?"

Forty-Seven percent voted yes while a majority, 53 percent, vote no.

There is a difference, however, between this poll and an informal one by WND. The WND question asked only about a resolution that would cut off relations with the BSA; it didn't mention particular libraries.

Even supporters of the resolution within the ALA have not gone as far as to say individual libraries should not cooperate with Scouts and Scout troops.

As Rosenzweig wrote to the council list: "Serving the needs of members of the Boy Scouts is one thing, supporting the BSA, Inc. organizationally linking to them is QUITE another."

The AL Direct poll seems to indicate many members are not familiar with the Library Bill of Rights, which forbids viewpoint with respect to collection policy and public use.

"Who are we to tell the Boy Scouts that their philosophies are wrong? Have the Boy Scouts told ALA that they disagree with our stand on certain issues?" asked Evelyn Bell, administrative secretary at the Moreno, Calif., Valley Public Library. "While I don't agree with BSA's stand on atheists and homosexuals, I'm not interested in alienating, as a group, an organization who works at creating good citizens."

In support of her argument against the resolution, Bell cited a policy on tolerance from the BSA website:

"A core value of the BSA is respect. Scouting respects those with ideas and customs that are different from our own and expects the same respect from those who may disagree with Scouting's position. Tolerance for a diversity of values and ideals does not require abdication of one's own values."

"If human rights are the issue let us remove the mask of deception," wrote Nanette Overholt a library associate at the Solano, Calif., County Library.

"There is no persecution against the right to be gay that comes from the Boy Scouts of America, but there does seem to be a constant harassment and bullying from the gay community for the Boy Scouts to conform to their beliefs," she complained. "The gay community seems to want to abolish the right and freedom to think differently than themselves."

"Let me leave you with this question: Who is tolerant here?" she ended.

Anthony E. Lee, a professor and librarian at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, agreed in a telephone interview that, "This would be going against their very own principles of liberal openness" not to tolerate the Scouts.

Lee, a longtime BSA and ALA member who has degrees from Seton Hall, Columbia University and Princeton, told WND, "The Boy Scouts of America, ever since I was in scouting in the 1960s, has maintained a stance that is unchanged by the winds of caprice."

"Meaning they are who they have always been – very straight-laced," he added, "And I, being an Eagle Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow have always backed Scouting in that stance."

"Look, if you don't subscribe to ALA rules you don't have to join," agreed Bork. "There is no 'right' to membership."

But Bork agreed that if discrimination is seen from the standpoint of ALA policies, one could conclude the association has the right, as a private organization, to choose not to associate with the BSA.

"It is a private, non-profit group and it has rights for membership standards," said Bork, "But we would find it insulting if the ALA removed all mention of Scouts from their websites."

The renewed debate over the Boy Scout resolution will come to a head at the ALA annual convention this June in New Orleans when the council can decide to table the resolution, accept or modify it, or recommend that the matter be given further consideration by a relevant committee.

"There will be, if necessary, a floor fight," the resolution sponsor Rosenzweig already has told his fellow council members.

"And this time I hope the majority is not bullied by special interests connected to the BSA," he said.

Golrick warned those same council members: "As a public library director, I know how critical it is to have support throughout the community. The youth of today are the voters of tomorrow. How can [libraries] expect support in the future, if we do not support the youth today."

[DaveTesla]

Cuban plea for help
spiked by librarians
Question legitimacy of book lenders
imprisoned in crackdown by Castro

---

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33228

---

Posted: June 24, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Art Moore
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

The co-founder of a movement that put George Orwell's anti-totalitarian classic "Animal Farm" in the hands of Cubans says the American Library Association is ignoring the plight of 14 colleagues imprisoned in a March crackdown by the Castro regime.


Fidel Castro

Ramon Colas, who launched the Independent Library Project of Cuba with his wife in 1998, came to the ALA's annual conference in Toronto last weekend in search of "solidarity" but went away disappointed, he told WorldNetDaily.

"The behavior of the ALA in Toronto showed the level of its complicity with the Havana regime," said Colas, who left Cuba in December 2001 with his wife, Berta Mexidor, and now lives in Miami.

Colas brought to Toronto an official request from the executive director of the library project, Gisela Delgado Sablon, asking the ALA to demand that Castro release independent librarians imprisoned for up to 26 years.

An ALA subcommittee, however, is prepared to submit a resolution to the broader council that only expresses "concern" for recent arrests, without specifying the targets.

The influence of a delegation of five officials sent from Cuba's state-run libraries has much to do with that, said Colas, who spoke through an interpreter.

Eliades Acosta, Cuba's national libraries director, accuses the independent book lenders of being tools of the United States to topple Havana's communist government.

"The independent libraries have ... demonstrated they are receiving money to subvert the institutional order of Cuba," Acosta said in a speech Saturday at a book convention in Toronto, according to the Associated Press.

Colas insists his peaceful movement has no weapons or plans to overtake military bases, but focuses on opening the minds of "people so they can choose the culture they want."

"The one who is subverting the cultural order of Cuba is Fidel Castro," he said. "While Castro is imprisoning civilians, the librarians are opening their homes to allow Cubans to read things they wouldn't be allowed to see otherwise."

Titles barred by the regime include biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document Cuba has signed.

Fidel's discourse

Colas said it was clear the official librarians were acting in the Cuban dictator's interest in Toronto, noting he was to be part of a debate that was called off at the last minute.


Ramon Colas with children and wife, Berta Mexidor

"I heard from them Fidel Castro's discourse, not their individual thinking," he said.

But similar sentiments were heard from ALA members, including an influential policy-maker on the international relations committee, which will decide on a resolution today.

"This is not, and never has been, an issue of intellectual freedom, books or libraries," said Ann Sparanese, an ALA board member who also belongs to the Venceremos Brigade, a U.S. group that has supported Castro's revolution for three decades.

"The people who were arrested were not arrested because they had books, or because they are 'librarians,' 'library workers' or 'journalists,'" she said in an e-mail to an ALA colleague, "but because they broke the kinds of law against serving as an agent of a foreign power, for which the U.S. also imposes harsh prison time."

Sparanese noted under the Torricelli and Helms-Burton acts, millions of dollars have been poured into Cuba in an effort to change the government.

She wrote: "Unless you believe and promote the idea that no country has the right to protect its sovereignty – including our own – and that every country is required to allow the free infusion of foreign funds to corrupt its political processes – including our own – then you need to categorically reject the argument that this is an intellectual freedom issue."

That approach is an "outrage" to Robert Kent, a New York City librarian who supports the independent book lenders with a group called Friends of Cuban Libraries.

"For several years the ALA has ignored, covered up, or denied the fact that Cuba is the only country in the world which imprisons people for the alleged crime of opening uncensored libraries," he told WND.

The ALA, with 64,000 members, is run by an elected board of 175 councilors.

Kent insists ALA's rules require that requests of the kind made by the independent librarians be heard.

"The statutes have a provision that when foreign nationals complain about human rights violations, the international relations office of the ALA is required to bring it to the attention of the ALA council," said Kent, who notes Amnesty International has declared the librarians and the other 61 people arrested in March "prisoners of conscience."

Delgado's request, addressed to Michael Dowling, director of the ALA international relations office, said the project was founded "due to four decades of literary censorship to which our nation has been subjected."

The movement has established 103 libraries in homes throughout the country, she said, in addition to about 100 independent libraries founded by other groups.

She wrote to Dowling:


Since March 18th of this year numerous Cubans were detained, including about a dozen librarians and dozens of human rights defenders, independent journalists and dissidents. This was accompanied by raids on the homes of these persons and the seizure of books, typewriters, cameras, radios, computers, etc. These raids have impacted more than thirty libraries, and other librarians were taken to detention centers by the political police and warned that if they if they continued their work to promote independent cultural activities they would be imprisoned.
What we are asking, sir, is that your association show solidarity with our project and with the innocent persons who are now in prison. We would like you to ask the Cuban authorities to immediately release these detained persons.

Attempts to reach Dowling yesterday for comment were unsuccessful.

Walter Skold, a library science graduate student from Brunswick, Maine, has drafted an alternative resolution that he believes fulfills Delgado's plea.

The key paragraph in his document reads:


The American Library Association joins with library colleagues around the world, Amnesty International, various non-governmental organizations, and numerous individual writers and human rights activists from all walks of life in deploring these actions, and we call on the government of Cuba to immediately release all [14] of the independent librarians who have been jailed for exercising their rights to free expression, and to return all books which have been confiscated from the book collections.
Skold said the ALA is reluctant to simply add to its resolution: "We call on the government to release the librarians."

"The rest of the resolution is fine," he told WND.

He believes the ALA is putting itself in a unique situation.

"What other professional group has failed to come to the aid of colleagues who are jailed?"

Final stage?

Colas believes a strong statement by the ALA can help hasten democratic change in the island nation.

"In Cuba today, already there is a transition taking place and the Castro regime is in the process of collapse and agony," he said. "This is the final stage."

He cites the fact that Castro has been forced to acknowledge the existence of an opposition movement within Cuba as evidence he is losing his grip.

Even Castro's inner circle sees the collapse coming and wants change, he said, but they are still under the dictator's power.

"That's precisely why it's important for the rest of the world to support the opposition movement," he said. "The vast majority of Cubans don't want the transition to be prolonged.

Meanwhile, Cuba's high court has upheld tough sentences handed to the 75 dissidents in April. Among them are Delgado's husband, economist Hector Palacio, who is serving a 25-year term.

Colas said Delgado, who has a young daughter, is periodically visited by state security agents who threaten that if she continues in her opposition, they will bar her from visiting her husband in prison and will jail her also.

In Cuba, prisoners depend on their relatives for food and clothing.

"The interesting thing is she is not conceding at all and continues denouncing what the government is doing and fighting for the rights of those in prison," Colas said. "It's because of people like Gisela and what they stand for that this opposition will succeed."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36583

[DaveTesla]

U.S. Castro backers squelch prisoners' plea
American librarians in battle over colleagues jailed in crackdown

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36583

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Posted: January 14, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

American librarians sympathetic to Fidel Castro's communist regime are battling to prevent their national organization from responding to a plea from independent librarians imprisoned in Cuba for up to 26 years.


Fidel Castro

As WorldNetDaily reported, 14 members of Cuba's Independent Library project were swept up in a crackdown last March on charges that included making available the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and books such as George Orwell's "Animal Farm."

Meeting in San Diego this week, the American Library Association is scheduled to vote on a resolution today to demand Castro release the prisoners.

ALA leaders fought hard to prevent the resolution from ever coming to a vote. It is based on a plea from Cuban independent library leader Gisela Delgado Sablon, whose husband is among the prisoners.

One of the ALA leaders opposed to the resolution is Ann Sparanese, a member of the policy-making council who maintains the Cubans are not "professional librarians."

Sparanese, who also belongs to the Venceremos Brigade, a U.S. group that has supported Castro's revolution for three decades, wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to a colleague:

"Despite the fact that we as librarians prize them highly, political rights – for instance, intellectual freedom – is only one of a constellation of human rights, some of which Cuba respects in greater measure than the United States."

One of those rights she said, is "free education."

The issue arose last June when Ramon Colas, a founder of the Independent Library Project of Cuba, came to the ALA's conference in Toronto with Gablon's request, searching for "solidarity," but went away disappointed.

Colas said a delegation of five officials sent from Cuba's state-run libraries swayed ALA members.

"The behavior of the ALA in Toronto showed the level of its complicity with the Havana regime," said Colas, who left Cuba in December 2001 with his wife, Berta Mexidor, and now lives in Miami.

The ALA decided to pass off the issue to a task force that would prepare a report for the San Diego conference. But the panel's report ignored the Cuban prisoners' plea, according to a U.S.-based group called Friends of Cuban Libraries.

A member of that group who attended the task force meeting, however, managed to ensure the issue is included in the report.

Last year, Eliades Acosta, Cuba's national libraries director, accused the independent book lenders of being tools of the United States to topple Havana's communist government.

"The independent libraries have ... demonstrated they are receiving money to subvert the institutional order of Cuba," Acosta said in a speech at a book convention in Toronto.

Colas insists his peaceful movement has no weapons or plans to overtake military bases, but focuses on opening the minds of "people so they can choose the culture they want."

"The one who is subverting the cultural order of Cuba is Fidel Castro," he said. "While Castro is imprisoning civilians, the librarians are opening their homes to allow Cubans to read things they wouldn't be allowed to see otherwise."

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

WOW! Thank you for all this. I'll read it after church. I've understood the principles of Hegel for a long time. Now if we could get everyone to understand what's going on.