Posted on 02/01/2008 7:06:42 PM PST by RTO
this from the NEA website...tolerance can and should be taught without assailing religion LOL...
Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion?
How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Two federal courts tackle this thorny question.
It’s the latest battleground in the culture wars. In the wake of several high-profile cases holding school districts liable for failing to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) students from peer harassment, many schools have adopted training programs intended to reduce harassment and promote acceptance of GLBT students.
Some parents find these programs objectionable because they conflict with their deeply held religious belief that homosexuality is sinful, and they don’t want the schools to undermine their parental authority by teaching a contrary lesson.
Federal courts in Maryland and Kentucky recently struggled to resolve this conflict, with differing results.
In a dispute that is still ongoing, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Board of Education last year adopted a health education curriculum designed to teach tolerance of gays and lesbians. Among other things, course materials described as a “myth” the belief that “homosexuality is a sin” and characterized certain Christian religions as “intolerant and Biblically misguided” because they are “opposed to homosexuality.”
In a lawsuit filed in May 2005 by two groups of parents and citizens, a federal district court issued an injunction prohibiting the Maryland school district from implementing the curriculum. The court found that the course materials violate the Constitution by attacking the views of certain religions, while promoting the views of other religions that “are more friendly towards the homosexual lifestyle.”
The school district has agreed to revise the controversial curriculum. That process is still underway.
In the Kentucky case decided in February, a federal district court ruled that parents don’t have the right to have their children opt out of mandatory “student diversity training” designed to stop the harassment of GLBT students.
The program adopted by the Board of Education of Boyd County, Kentucky, consists of a one-hour video, followed by comments from an instructor and questions from students. Students who refuse to attend receive an unexcused absence.
The school district agreed to implement the mandatory training for both staff and students as part of the settlement of a 2003 lawsuit filed by GLBT students charging that the district had turned a blind eye to peer harassment and had illegally denied official recognition to a Gay Straight Alliance student club.
The parents had claimed that the training violated their right to practice their religion because the diversity training “promoted values contrary to their religious beliefs” and “attempted to change [their children’s] religious and ideological views regarding homosexuality.”
The court disagreed. Merely exposing students to “views [that are] contrary to their religious beliefs” does not infringe on their religious freedom, the court said. Plus, there was no evidence that any student “was compelled to disavow his or her religious beliefs” or to “endorse homosexuality.”
The court also ruled that the program did not violate the plaintiffs’ “parental rights” to direct the upbringing and religious training of their children. Parents, the court held, have no “fundamental right to dictate curriculum,” even where they may have “genuine moral disagreements with the school’s choice of subject matter.”
Of special note, the court rejected the parents’ reliance on the Maryland decision to challenge the Boyd County program. The Boyd County program, the court said, “is a far cry” from the curriculum struck down in Maryland, which denigrated several religions and attempted to “elevate certain religious views over others.”
The lesson from these two cases is simple: One way school districts can fulfill their legal obligation to provide a safe learning environment for GLBT students is to mandate anti-harassment training. And these lessons of tolerance can and should be taught without assailing religion.
As the judge in the Maryland case cautioned: School officials can “achieve the goals of advocating tolerance and providing health-related information” without teaching “such controversial topics as whether homosexuality is a sin, whether AIDS is God’s judgment on homosexuals, and whether churches that condemn homosexuality are on theologically solid ground.”
I was born there... I was reared there, and, except for some time in CT and FL, I lived there for twenty years... “Marriage” for sodomites was the last freaking straw. When I did the old “exit-stage right,” I left my shoes behind at the New York border... so I would not take the dirt with me!
“I was reared there”
No.....way too easy!!!
Militant
Ok, then where should we send them to? I’m sure there are dozens of people who would love to stay home and teach their kids, or send them to private schools. The problem is that private school education is too high for many people. Also, there are many people that have to work to support their kids. They haven’t got a choice. Then there are some who feel they don’t know enough about some subjects to teach them.
So, what do they all do? If they stayed home, some people would be crabbing that their tax money is supporting them, and they need to get out and work. Do you have any suggestions for those people?
One of them isn’t even an American, native born South African!
Thanks for the kind words...yes a no lose situation for us, because if we have a chance to bring America back we’ll celebrate, however fleeting,
but if it’s not to be, well, we’re still pointed in the right direction.
My hunch is it gets darkest just before the dawn!
Ever the optimist, perhaps, just perhaps there’s enough of America left to reload.
There are homeschool cooperatives. And there are also some scholarships for private school education.
no kidding!
Judges consistently refuse to address or acknowledge the fundamental and irreconcilable tension that exists between government schools, freedom of conscience, and the First Amendment.
Also,,,Judges refuse to recognize that there is NOT such thing as religiously neutral education. It is impossible.
The Parker case is merely one example among many. The school must make a binary decision. One side’s religious worldview will be established by the government, and the other side will have their’s destroyed.
Exactly. The only sex education they should have at that age is that boys(girls) have cooties.
Seriously, I never saw that happen before, and I’m curious. Is it the controversial topic of the thread? Can’t be me, I’m fairly inoffensive.
“I hold out hope one day soon the forces of evil will go so far over the line conservative Christians will put an end to this madness, at least enough to give me hope my kids will be another greatest generation!”
When that day comes... Christians and men of good will, along with your children or their progeny, will be either jailed or executed for their beliefs. We wait at our peril. Everything is now a hate crime, including reasonable discourse and dissent. This is only the beginning. The proper action would to have made a few of the more “responsible” parties “disappear”... regularly. Unfortunately, Americans are too caught up in their creature comforts to do something so bold... After all, they might miss kick-off at the Super bowl.
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Those addicted to the free babysitting will swear before us on this board and God that their child’s government school is different.
Honestly, I have relatives and friends who are government teachers in what would be considered “good” schools. I have friends and relatives who send their kids to so-called “good” government schools. The anecdotal accounts of waste, abuse, and educational malpractice is horrific. We read of the daily abuses in the media and these schools are almost always in so-called “good” schools.
Yet,,,in spite of all the evidence,,,parents (who have friends and relatives just as I do) insist that their child’s government school is different....( yeah right!) (sigh!)
I think someone should start an organization for recovering government school babysitting addicts.
that’s fine,,when was this law passed,,or are these judges making law..,,for We The People,,?,,
When I was in grade school, back in the Dark Ages, I recall the classrooms had a little bathroom in the back of the room. One at a time, no major disruptions if a kid had to go and no accidents in a real emergency, well usually.
Don’t be a wise ass! Cattle are “raised”... Children are “reared.”
Simple yet effective. The students are massed in public schools in this situation. They need to be. They don’t need to have their heads screwed with.
Why do you think your government school is different?
Your kids’ government teachers graduated from Marxist college of education. Your kids’ textbooks are influenced by the pressure groups in the big states such as California and the experts in the NEA and colleges of education.
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