Free Republic

Until a few years ago, the gay-rights movement kept its distance from my life in suburban California. I followed the movement’s progress in the media and analyzed its claims in theology papers, but none of these matters directly intruded on my family’s life and thus did not prompt any direct response. Then one morning, as I read the online bulletin issued by my son’s Catholic high school, an item grabbed my attention: “We are announcing a new school club—‘The Gay, Straight…and anything in between…Alliance’ (GSA)!!” I read over the announcement several times, pondering the oddly jocular tone of the...

Focus On: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgendered Persons ( 825 KB, 2pp) Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion: How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Safe Schools for Everyone: An interview with Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) School Employee's Guide to GLBT Issues The Safe Zone: Links to bullying resources, a brief glossary of bias terms, and a downloadable poster NEA believes that a great public school is a fundamental right of every child—free from intimidation and harassment, and safe for all students, including those who identify as...

Marxist Subversion and Perversion of America’s Youth October 10, 2006 Vox Populi By Linda Kimball 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...

See Mom in the kitchen, cooking up dinner, moving back and forth between the stove, refrigerator and dining room table? See Dad reading the paper, idly glancing at the TV, while the kids divide their attention between homework, iPods and "The Simpsons"? "OK, everybody, let's eat," she calls. "Ed, put the paper down and turn off the TV. Kids, I don't want to say it again; dinner is no good when it gets cold. Billy, you can say grace tonight." Seem familiar to anybody? I suspect most of us, if we're 40 or over, can fondly remember scenes like that...

Ever since I announced my bid for the United States Presidency, I’ve been questioned about some of my more radical political opinions. Most of those questions have dealt with my proposed economic policies – for example, the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of the Fair Tax. Today, I offer an answer to questions about why I am opposed to the idea of gays adopting or teaching children. Several years ago, I began writing columns questioning the so-called gay rights movement. I prefer to call it the “gay privileges” movement because gays are not presently deprived of anything that...

In an age when colleges live and die by their rankings, a new focus for campus assessment is emerging: gay-friendliness. The Advocate, the national newsmagazine for gays and lesbians, published a 389-page book this month listing the 100 schools that it says offer the best discrimination protection, most friendly climate, and most extensive campus services for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students. Sixteen of the schools are in New England, including six in Massachusetts. MIT, for one, made the top 100. The school is cited for having one of the nation's oldest gay and lesbian student groups and for early...

LOS ANGELES - If not for scheming teen Andrew Van De Camp on ABC's megahit Desperate Housewives and Dr. Kerry Weaver on the long-running ER on NBC, the only regular gay or lesbian character on a returning broadcast network show this fall would be a closeted accountant named Oscar on NBC's The Office.

"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...