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"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto!" was Dorothy's famous line in The Wizard of Oz. It has become a classic, meant to convey the bewilderment of a person who suddenly realizes he's in a strange world and wonders how he got there. For many parents in Massachusetts, California, and elsewhere in the U.S., the truth is beginning to dawn on them: They aren't living in Kansas anymore. Public education is being used to brainwash thousands of children -- even as young as kindergarten -- into believing that homosexuality is simply a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality....

SAN FRANCISCO - Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides said Friday that if he unseats Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November he would sign a bill legalizing gay marriage in California. Angelides talked about the issue the day after New York's high court upheld that state's one-man, one-woman marriage laws and as a California appeals court prepared to consider whether a trial judge erred in declaring the state's marriage laws unconstitutional. "I would sign the marriage equality bill because I believe if we can get behind people to build a lasting relationship, that is a good thing," Angelides said at a news...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US authorities said all 50 states have joined a national web site that lists addresses and other details of convicted sex offenders. The states of South Dakota and Oregon were added last week to the registry, which "provides real-time access to public sex offender data nationwide with a single Internet search," the Department of Justice said in a statement. The online database includes more than 500,000 convicted sex offenders who are required to register their address with local authorities. The government-sponsored site "allows parents and concerned citizens to search existing public state and territory sex offender registries...

Activist: Clubs Promoting Risky Behavior Should Be Booted from Campus (AgapePress) - A Michigan school board is defying the requests of parents who want Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs banned in the district. Despite the objections of concerned parents, the Forest Hills School Board has vowed it will not shut down three GSA clubs in the district. The board claims the federal Equal Access Act requires schools to allow sex-based clubs. But Gary Glenn, director of the American Family Association of Michigan, says schools can ban student groups that promote risky behavior -- and it has already been done, he...

Show and tell Educators say the pre-school set needs straight talk on gay issues Despite the controversy that can arise when gay issues are talked about in elementary school classrooms, a group of educators are trying to give schools the tools they need to do just that. This year Wheelock College offered a new course for early childhood education workers on making schools and daycare settings welcoming for same-sex couples and their children. The course prompted the formation of the Massachusetts LGBT Early Childhood Education Initiative, a consortium of people in the field working to make classrooms around the state...

Chris Krug had thought she was a lesbian from the time she was 8, but she felt certain after developing a serious crush on her best friend. She was in the fifth grade at the time. Krug formally came out a year later, as she started Ritenour Middle School. She casually mentioned it to a classmate on a Sunday. By Monday, students were shouting "Christina's a lesbian," down the hallways at school. "It was probably not the best way to go about it, but it happened," said Krug, now 16. "It was tough for a few months and then people...

School official suspended for sex questionnaire Assistant principal consulted on heterosexual survey Port Washington - A first-year assistant principal has been suspended for two days without pay for his role in the use of the "Heterosexual Questionnaire" at Port Washington High School last month. Principal Duane Woelfel on Monday confirmed reports that Eric Burke, one of two assistant principals at the school, was out of school Monday and will be out again today. Woelfel described the action as an "unpaid leave." Woelfel would not discuss details of the decision. He is expected to make a formal announcement today on all...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Over the last decade, gay-rights activists have pushed programs to support gay and lesbian students in public schools. Their success is striking: More than 3,000 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs meet across the country. Nearly half a million students take a vow of silence one day each spring in an annual event to support gay rights. California may soon require textbooks to feature the contributions of gays and lesbians throughout history. Critics, mostly on the religious right, view all this as promoting the "homosexual lifestyle." Unable to stop it, they have turned to a new strategy: demanding equal...

Attorneys for a group of students who sued the state to suspend the high school exit exam have filed an emergency request with a state appeals court. They want the court to urgently hear their claims the test should be suspended for this year's graduating class. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court stayed a lower court's injunction that had barred the exam from taking effect for the Class of 2006. It meant the exam would be a requirement for seniors to graduate. The students and their parents argued that the exam is discriminatory because all California students do not have...

A bill requiring students to learn about the contributions homosexuals have made to society and that would remove sex-specific terms such as "mom" and "dad" from textbooks has passed another hurdle on the way to becoming the law of the land in California. Having already been approved by the state's Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 1437, which would mandate grades 1-12 buy books "accurately" portraying "the sexual diversity of our society," got the nod yesterday of the Senate Education Committee. The bill also requires students hear history lessons on "the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to...

New generation, out and out loud High school student Sarah Ramstead has plenty to say - she just won't be saying it at school on Wednesday. That's because Ramstead, a senior at Sheldon High, is among dozens of students who plan to show up with red tape over their mouths - a symbolic gesture intended to represent the silence they say is faced every day by students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans- gender. Nationally, the 10th annual Day of Silence is expected to draw a half-million students from about 4,000 high schools, according to the Gay, Lesbian and...

Tuesday, April 25, 2006 How homosexual school clubs offer sex to students Posted: April 25, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern By Linda Harvey © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com The mainstream media is sure to spend time this next week on the subject of homosexuality and youth, precipitated by the observance in hundreds of high schools of the so-called "Day of Silence" on Wednesday, April 26. This is the day that students who are "GLBT" – that's "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered" – pledge to remain silent all day to draw attention to what they believe is discrimination. On Thursday, April 27, some schools will be...

Last Tuesday, the LGBT Center sponsored a panel discussion, "The Religious Right's Obsession with Gay Sex." We supposed that the pejorative title was meant to draw attention but hoped that the presentations would at least begin with a fair exposition of the views of religious conservatives on homosexual conduct and identity. We expected the sort of free and evenhanded intellectual exchange befitting an event sponsored by an official University administrative office intended for the whole University community. We were spectacularly disappointed. Our criticisms have nothing to do with the panel's topic. It is an important one and that's precisely why...

Sexual Orientation Defined, Part I The term "sexual orientation" is never defined. Not in public discourse, not in law. Yet there is law banning discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation" -- whatever that is. How absurd. Even the participants in the GLBT counterculture don't agree on definitions, or even terminology. New vocabulary is added monthly, it seems, and definitions are changed constantly. For instance, look at these newly-minted definitions in GLSEN's "Day of Silence" organizing manual, being disseminated to young people across the country. (GLSEN = Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network.) So you thought you knew what "gay"...

Mass Equality, a militant gay organization pushing for national gay marriage, has announced that it plans to do a petition drive in South Boston during the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Petitioners will approach individuals and families watching the parade, urging people to sign their petition which demands national gay marriage rights. As you might expect, Catholics and parents who plan to be at the parade with their kids are angry at this latest assault and are calling-in to the show to protest. The Mass Equality rep is countering that her organization has the right to do this and that anyone...

A pro-family advocate says leaders of Gay Straight Alliance clubs in schools falsely claim their main focus is fighting discrimination. She contends those clubs are more concerned about getting young people involved in homosexuality. Last week a private high school in Santa Monica, California, held a "Free Queer Movie Night" that was sponsored by its Gay Straight Alliance club. At the event, the GSA screened a sexually explicit film about a lesbian relationship involving a German Jew and a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. According to Linda Harvey of the Ohio-based pro-family group Mission America, such events are standard...

March 1, 2006 Bill to allow gay foster parents to adopt doesn’t have the votes By Jan Pudlow Senior Editor A proposal to allow gay foster parents to adopt the children they care for received its first public hearing since Florida’s anti-gay parenting law was first enacted in 1977. It was standing-room only at the Senate Children & Families Committee on February 14, where 19 people — including gay and lesbian parents, foster parents, foster children, national children’s advocates, sociologists, and researchers — testified why the bill was in the best interests of children. But before there was a vote...

“Appropriate student activities” Gay-Straight Alliance controversy returns The rules governing student organizations in county schools will be changing, but the proposed new policies do not change enough to suit some parents. The debate over extracurricular activities is a result of last spring’s controversy when a student group at Manchester High School called the Gay-Straight Alliance invited Greg Herren, a New Orleans fiction writer and journalist covering gay issues, to speak. The school principal rescinded the invitation, citing “concerns from the community” and possible “inappropriate” content. The current policy, not revised since 1988, provided no guidance to the administration in addressing...

A teacher at Mountain View Middle School in Mendham Borough left his classroom in June as a man, and plans to return to school next month as a woman. Some parents and teachers have accepted teacher Kerri McCaffrey's decision to embrace his feminine identity and undergo gender reassignment surgery. A few others have concerns about whether middle school-age children should have to deal with such issues. McCaffrey said she can't imagine why she wouldn't come back to school. "I just want to be Kerri McCaffrey, a great teacher like I've always been," said the 41-year-old language arts teacher. "I'm a...

Gay principals soon take helm at both Newton high schools By , Globe Staff | February 16, 2006 The new principals at both of Newton's high schools are young, energetic, and eager to start meeting people in their schools. They are also both openly gay. Brian Salzer, 38, who will be the principal at Newton South High School, comes from Sauk Prairie, a small Wisconsin school district near the state capital of Madison, and was the first openly gay principal in Wisconsin. Jennifer Price, 34, is a doctoral student at Harvard's Graduate School of Education who lives in Newton with...