bullying

The Religious Right’s anti-anti-bullying efforts are beginning to swing into high gear as the Day of Silence, which is run by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and centers on making schools safer for LGBT students, approaches on April 19.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey in her radio bulletin today once again criticized the day of action and called on families to keep their kids away from school that day.

The boycott campaign is backed by anti-gay groups such as Liberty Counsel, Concerned Women for America and Faith2Action, which urge public schools to resist “GLSEN's socio-political goals and its controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.”

Harvey warns that the Day of Silence “has become a central showpiece in this homosexual agenda in our schools” and offers “inaccurate and harmful information in schools about homosexuality.”

Rather than “preventing harm to kids,” Harvey warns the Day of Silence “encourages more kids to approve of or enter a lifestyle which itself will be incredibly harmful to them. So instead of allowing kids to be manipulated, it’s a good idea to keep your kids at home that day.”

“The compassionate hearts of kids are manipulated into approving of deviant lifestyles and practices,” Harvey states, maintaining that gays and lesbians do “not need to be involved in such behavior and God can rescue anyone who wants a different life.”

We’ve been telling you for several weeks about the pro-homosexual Day of Silence and why Christian families are staying home from school that day. Here’s a little more background: for a number of years Christian groups and parents nationwide have increasingly become concerned about the growth of inaccurate and harmful information in schools about homosexuality. The Day of Silence, coming up on or around Friday, April 19, has become a central showpiece in this homosexual agenda in our schools.

My overwhelming concern about this day centers around three things: 1) It encourages sympathy for homosexuality, which is wrong; 2) it implies that no one can object to homosexuality without being hateful and that’s also incorrect; 3) it does all this while pretending to be about justice and preventing harm to kids. The truth is that this is victim posturing that encourages more kids to approve of or enter a lifestyle which itself will be incredibly harmful to them. So instead of allowing kids to be manipulated, it’s a good idea to keep your kids at home that day.

We’ve called this the Day of Silence Walk Out and you can find out more at DOSWalkOut.net. Why did they start this Day of Silence protest to begin with? Students sometimes even have tape over their mouths and they pledge to remain silent all day. Why? Because they claim that homosexuals have been routinely silenced and victimized and don’t have a voice. You may be thinking, now hold on just a minute! Indeed, it’s a typical leftist victim strategy. Not that we don’t sympathize with any student who is bullied for any reason but this is pure political propaganda, manipulating a sensitive situation and we don’t have to allow our kids to sit there in class while sometimes even the teachers are going along with this.

Unlike the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) would have you believe, schools, parents and kids do not have to condone immoral and harmful behaviors like homosexuality and gender bending to prevent or stand up against bullying. This is a diversionary tactic. High moral sexuality standards are helpful, not hateful. The goal of these adult radicals though is to use vulnerable kids to carry this inaccurate message for them. Meanwhile, the compassionate hearts of kids are manipulated into approving of deviant lifestyles and practices.

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So when you stand up against misinformation remember you are standing against behavior, not against the person. That person does not need to be involved in such behavior and God can rescue anyone who wants a different life.

MassResistance head Brian Camenker joined Sandy Rios of the American Family Association yesterday to attack the Department of Education for citing the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s School Climate Survey, which he labeled as “propaganda,” in a memorandum.

He told Rios that the survey on anti-LGBT bullying is “not scientific at all” and doubted its claims “about how transgender kids and homosexual kids — if there is such a thing — are harassed and everything.”

Rios: GLSEN is behind a lot of the thinking here, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight [Education Network] and that was founded by the Obama so-called safe schools czar Kevin Jennings.

Camenker: Right and it has a very sorted history of really radical homosexual activism regarding kids. One of the things that this directive cites is GLSEN’s so-called School Climate Survey, which is this national survey talking about how transgender kids and homosexual kids — if there is such a thing — are harassed and everything. But if you look at the way that survey is created, it’s not scientific at all, it’s self-selected by the gay clubs that are run by these gay activist people and there is nothing scientific about it. It’s basically propaganda. It’s run by this organization, GLSEN, that promotes these things in the public schools across the country and our government officials are using that as if it were real.

Camenker and Rios even talked about how they started doubting their own sanity as more and more educators use “ludicrous nonsense” when discussing LGBT issues in schools.

Rios: Brian, are there any times in the last ten years or so that you have questioned your own sanity? Have you ever just gotten confused by all that surrounds you?

Camenker: You know, it’s funny you should say that because I could remember in the beginning when I was dealing with the public schools that my kids were going to and you’d be surrounded by all of these people that believed and were talking about such ludicrous nonsense that sometimes you would, you’d say: maybe I’m crazy. You take these serious educators, at least I thought so back then, who were talking about all of this stuff very seriously, yeah, it drives you mad almost.

After the interview, Rios said she weeps for LGBT youth and warned that pro-gay rights lawmakers and advocates, including President Obama, “will in fact answer at some point and some day for the things that they’re doing.”

This is our future, just in case you were sleeping, this is our future. I think I’m like, buddy, when I think about the kids I’m talking angrily but honestly I could just weep, I could just weep. If you see the pictures in Brian’s missive for MassResistance, if you see those kids, I just can hardly bear it. I remember what Jesus said about what we did to our kids: Better than a millstone be tied around our neck and that we be thrown in the bottom of a pool of water than to hurt little, innocent children. The other part of this is I would not want to be in the feet of these legislators or the shoes of these homosexual activists, wouldn’t want to be in their shoes, or the shoes of this President, who will in fact answer at some point and some day for the things that they’re doing.

After urging parents to withdraw their children from schools which have bullying-prevention programs that cover anti-LGBT bullying, Linda Harvey of Mission America is now telling parents to consider keeping their children from any school with any LGBT-inclusive policy at all. Harvey on her radio commentary discussed the case of an Illinois school board that rescinded a measure, which had been approved with unanimous support, to ensure the safety of transgender students. While that board repealed their policy, Harvey warned that more schools “are starting to buy in to the monstrous idea that some children should be supported as they try to flip their biological genders,” who she said “need compassion and help, not a stamp of approval.” “These children need help, not an open door into this lifestyle,” Harvey claimed, and she went on to say that parents should look into removing their children from schools with transgender-inclusive policies and transgender teachers in order to “protect their children and if needed move them to an environment where they won’t be subjected to outright lies and corruption.” 

Most of you are aware by now of the push to get our kids to accept homosexuality in our schools, in the media and even in some sadly misguided churches. But are you aware of how rapidly another agenda is moving in right behind this one? I’m talking about transgenderism, you know, boys dressing as girls, calling themselves by girls’ names, and vice versa. Amazingly, public school educators are starting to buy in to the monstrous idea that some children should be supported as they try to flip their biological genders. Instead of enabling this disordered behavior, we should be standing strong against such conduct and making it clear to all students that this is a path they do not want to travel. These kids need compassion and help, not a stamp of approval.

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It’s truly sad when there are students are so confused and troubled enough that they want to challenge the very basis of their biology and anatomy, their genders. These children need help, not an open door into this lifestyle. But the homosexual lobby and the big teachers unions have convinced a growing number of educators that there is nothing wrong with this, in some schools there are even teachers who themselves are transvestites or who have had gender-change surgery. It’s troubling when people who so easily waffle on basic ethical questions are in charge of our children’s education. When moral anarchy threatens to become the new normal, it’s up to parents to protect their children and if needed move them to an environment where they won’t be subjected to outright lies and corruption. These bizarre trends will only end if we speak out where we can and vote in new leadership where needed in these tax-funded schools. Please pray friends about what God would have you do if this comes up in your community.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey notoriously urged parents last year to refuse care for their children from openly gay doctors and nurses, and today on her radio show told parents that they should consider removing their children from schools which have anti-bullying programs that affirm and protect LGBT students. A consistent and rancorous opponent of such bullying-prevention efforts who wishes that school counselors can practice ex-gay therapy, Harvey repeated her claims that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and not a sexual orientation and warned that schools are teaching “false and immoral” beliefs about homosexuality through anti-bullying programs. She insisted that if parents cannot have their children removed from classes that discuss the issue of anti-gay bullying then they might want to consider withdrawing their children from the school altogether.

There are some blatantly false ideas being taught in our schools manipulating the very real concerns of kids and parents about bullying and harassment. Kids are learning to embrace the sexual orientation identify concept which holds that some people are born gay, lesbian or transgender or even bisexual and there’s no way out, now logically how can anyone be born bisexual, doesn’t the very idea of bisexual imply choice, which the gay agenda promoters deny? So parents, what can you do about such nonsense? First of all you can request copies of any upcoming school unit where kids might learn about homosexuality. This applies not just to public schools and Christian schools as well unfortunately because approval and respect for the homosexual lifestyle is creeping into Christian teaching a lot more than we would like.

In particular, look at any lessons planned on preventing bullying, that’s where much of this agenda is packaged. If you find what I’m afraid you’re going to find here’s how it will go: there will be worthwhile sections about not being an uninvolved bystander in a bullying situation, about always contacting a trusted adult, but somewhere in the lesson plan many of these units will include a role playing scenario where students will be shown a video. Here’s where a subtle but unmistakable pro-homosexual message is usually communicated. Kids may learn that saying phrases like ‘that’s so gay’ or other slurs about homosexuality are wrong—and they are—but here’s the problem, there’s no allowance in these lessons that I’ve ever seen for kids to believe that homosexuality as a behavior is still wrong even if they don’t use insulting phrases to convey this. Our kids should learn to respect others and to be kind in their words and actions but they must not be taught the false concept that the identity of homosexuality is like race, that it is inborn in some people and that this is the reason for not using these insults.

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If the lessons remain unchanged, ask to have your child removed from that class and be sure to explain to your child that the lesson in question was confusing and inaccurate and you don’t want your son or daughter to learn material that is untrue. It’s also important if you can inform other parents as well, there is strength in numbers. If you encountered this situation, perhaps you should consider removing your child from this school. It’s my hope though that you won’t find this type of false and immoral teaching at your child’s school.

The American Family Association without fail hurls some of the most derogatory and incendiary rhetoric at the gay community,. For example, the group’s spokesman Bryan Fischer claims that gays are like drug addicts, domestic terrorists and Nazis and are responsible for the Holocaust, and the organization’s general manager blamed gays for Hurricane Isaac and linked the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to an increase in suicides in the military.

But now the anti-gay group hopes to teach people how to “reach out with biblical compassion” to gay youth, which they routinely call “Big Gay.”

The AFA’s Rightly Concerned blog reposted an article from Kerby Anderson Probe Ministries about the “gay agenda in schools,” fitting with the AFA’s new campaign to stop “Mix it Up at Lunch Day” out of the fear young people will eat the gay “poisoned candy.”

The blog post warns that homosexuality in and of itself leads to health and psychiatric problems and suggests anti-bullying efforts are simply attempts to “increase homosexual behavior among students.” Ironically, Anderson cites a study which concludes “educational efforts, prevention programs, and health services must be designed to address the unique needs of GLB youth” to argue that schools should not assist their gay, lesbian and bisexual students in anyway…unless it is with ex-gay therapy.

“We should reach out to those caught in the sin of homosexuality and offer them hope and point them to Jesus Christ so that they will find freedom from the sexual sin that binds their lives,” Anderson writes, claiming that “many in the homosexual lifestyle are there because of some emotional brokenness in their families” and are “trying to meet their emotional needs in ungodly ways.”

The strategy has obviously been successful because no one would want to be against making the schools a safer environment. It almost doesn't matter whether the allegations are true. Once you raise the concern of safety, most administrators, teachers, and parents quickly fall in line.

There is an irony in all of this. Many of the behaviors that are taught and affirmed in these school programs and clubs are unsafe in term of public health. For example, Pediatrics (Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) reported on a Harvard study that found more than thirty risks positively associated with self-reported gay-lesbian-bisexual (GLB) orientation.{2} So it is indeed ironic that the idea of "safety" is often used as means to introduce teaching and discussion of behaviors that have been proven to be quite "unsafe."

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Permitting and promoting homosexual activity through on-campus programs and clubs will certainly increase homosexual behavior among students. Administrators, teachers, and parents should reconsider the impact these programs, and the subsequent behavior, will have on the student body.

When we talk about the issue of homosexuality, it is important to keep two biblical principles in tension. On the one hand we must stay true to our biblical convictions, and on the other hand we should reach out with biblical compassion. Essentially this is the balance between truth and love.

On the one hand, it is crucial for us to understand how the homosexual agenda threatens to normalize and even promote homosexuality within the schools. Moreover, gay activists are pushing an agenda in the courts, the legislature, the schools, and the court of public opinion that will ultimately threaten biblical authority and many of our personal and religious freedoms. Christians, therefore, must stand for truth.

I have provided a brief overview of the groups and programs that are promoting the gay agenda in the public schools. I encourage you to find out what is happening in your community. We have also documented the potential legal liability associated with many of the behaviors that are encouraged by these programs. Often administrators and teachers are unaware of the potential dangers associated with homosexual education in the schools. Take time to share this information with them.

On the other hand, it is also important for us to reach out to those caught in the midst of homosexuality and offer God's grace and redemption. We cannot let the hardened rhetoric of gay activists keep us from having Christ's heart toward homosexuals. As individuals and as the church, we should reach out to those caught in the sin of homosexuality and offer them hope and point them to Jesus Christ so that they will find freedom from the sexual sin that binds their lives.

It is important to remember that many in the homosexual lifestyle are there because of some emotional brokenness in their families. They may be trying to meet their emotional needs in ungodly ways. Youth in the public schools may be experimenting sexually and find themselves caught up in the homosexual lifestyle.

Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, has been working with Focus on the Family to put together an “anti-bullying yardstick” that provides quite weak and watered-down measures to fight bullying. But backing ineffective measures to combat bullying may be the point, as the Religious Right has fiercely opposed comprehensive anti-bullying policies because of protections that would help curb anti-LGBT bullying, even to the point of supporting loopholes for bullies. Ironically, just today the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) released a report detailing the disproportionately high rates of bullying faced by LGBT youth, and how such bullying is less likely to materialize in schools with stronger anti-bullying policies.

ADF attorney Matt Sharp appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday to denounce “oppressive” anti-bullying policies, and while Sharp insisted that the campaign is not linked to either the ADF or Focus’s anti-LGBT advocacy, it probably didn’t help that he was speaking to a talk show host who has consistently denounced LGBT rights and people. Just before Sharp appeared on her program, Mefferd criticized the Democratic Party for backing marriage equality by asking, “where’s the lightning?”

Sharp said that gay rights groups are using bullying as “an avenue for them to insert their homosexual agenda into the schools” and promote “the re-education of students.” He claimed ADF and Focus will provide an alternative to “the propaganda of homosexual activist groups that seek to promote their agenda in the schools,” describing their “propaganda” as books that dare to recognize the reality that some children are raised by same-sex couples!

Sharp: It’s important for schools to have proper respect for the First Amendment rights of students to express their views on religion, politics and other subjects without fear of being labeled as bullies or being punished by an oppressive anti-bullying policy that violates their rights.

Mefferd: Definitely, so we’ve seen a lot of these activist organizations getting involved in the schools, GLSEN is one that comes to mind because they’re been so big and have been so active, talk a little bit about what they have done in the way of anti-bullying policies?

Sharp: Yeah, we’ve seen several instances where they will come into schools and place pressure upon schools to adopt their model policies that are really just an avenue for them to insert their homosexual agenda into the schools. We actually saw a situation not too long ago up in Iowa where the group was promoting the re-education of students and tolerance training and all of this stuff that was meant to normalize same-sex marriage in these books they were giving to young elementary students portraying a family with two daddies and two mommies and things like that. The school district really didn’t know how to respond so it was important for us to get involved with them and help them to know that you don’t have to cave into these groups, there’s alternatives, that’s why we’re really excited about teaming up with Focus on this to provide an alternative to schools, to help them know what a proper anti-bullying policy that protects all students equally looks like without having to accept the propaganda of homosexual activist groups that seek to promote their agenda in the schools.

Sharp later asserted that groups like GLSEN “focus upon specific characteristics and elevate those to say ‘bullying against this is really bad and we don’t want that in school but other types of bullying may be tolerable.’” Actually, that is exactly what the ADF is doing by supporting religious exemptions for bullying. He even speak about bullying as almost only dealing with physical harm, which again ignores the serious harm posed by verbal abuse, cyber-bullying and harassment.

His argument is that enumeration, the policy of mentioning certain distinguishable characteristics tied to bullying to help combat bullying not only after it occurs but also to prevent it from happening in the first place, somehow doesn’t protect all students. For example, research shows that students with mental and physical disabilities are more likely to face bullying, and therefore enumerated anti-bullying policies frequently list ability as a highlighted characteristic. Similarly, studies demonstrate that LGBT and LGBT-perceived youth have a higher likelihood of being bullied.

Policies that mention sexual orientation and gender identity, along with ability, race, class, sex, national origin and religion, as characteristics that are linked to bullying help strengthen anti-bullying programs and don’t leave anyone out, as Sharp implies.

But ADF and Focus don’t really have a problem with enumeration, they just have a problem with anti-bullying plans that may be used to protect LGBT students. If ADF or Focus simply took a principled stand against enumeration in anti-bullying policies, then why haven’t these groups denounced them before they began including characteristics like sexual orientation and gender identity?

Indeed, putting an added emphasis on factors that are commonly connected to bullying does not make any student less protected—or as Sharp baselessly argues, allow for other cases of bullying—but help reduce bullying and create a safer climate for all students.

Today on Faith & Freedom, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver and Matt Barber railed against Dan Savage, with Barber reminiscing that “there used to be a time when we arrested middle aged men who got their jollies talking dirty to children” and accusing Savage of trying to “poison” the minds of children. Staver warned that anti-bullying measures will even lead to students who oppose “homosexuality or any kind of deviation outside of normal sexuality” being punished and suspended from school.

Watch:

Barber: You know there used to be a time when we arrested middle aged men who got their jollies talking dirty to children, well Dan Savage does that for a living.... This is a forty-seven year-old self-identified homosexual who advocates publicly, he advocates what he calls non-monogamy, he advocates having the occasional three-way tryst, this is a guy who is a sex columnist who MTV has given a platform to reach out to our children and to put this poison in their minds.

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Staver: What he has done here and what I think this really unmasks is what ultimately is behind some of these anti-bullying laws: it is reverse bullying, it is the opportunity to use a club to people who are Christians or have moral convictions with regards to homosexuality or any kind of deviation outside of normal sexuality. Anybody who believes that sexuality outside of normal sexuality with a man and a woman in a husband and wife relationship will ultimately be the target of bullying, they will be ridiculed, they will be attacked, they will be punished, they will be sent to the principal’s office, they will be disciplined, they will be suspended, they will be ultimately forced to accept that agenda and that was exactly what was unmasked here with Dan Savage.

After President Obama announced his support for the Student Non-Discrimination Act, Gordon Klingenschmitt went back on the attack against the anti-bullying bill, in an email message warning that the “sick and perverse” legislation will “give homosexuals and perverts protected status,” “mandate pro-homosexual recruiting of kids in public schools,” promote “child abuse” as “homosexuals will have full control of classrooms” and even allow for harassment and “sexual assault”:

If we lose this fight, then public, private and even religious schools will be forced to accept and teach a pro-homosexual agenda, or face lawsuits. One agenda even encourages students to 'experiment' with homosexuality. Pro-homosexual students will soon harass Christian students, making sexual assault protected as 'freedom of self-expression.'

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As sick and perverse as it is to "re-educate" six to twelve year olds to reject their parents' faith, and encourage them to embrace homosexual sin as normal, this is only the beginning of child abuse promoted by Obama's cronies at the Homosexual Rights Campaign.

Not only is Sen. Franken's perverse child-recruiting legislation dangerously close to passage, it now has official public support from President Obama. The White House told the Washington Blade "the president supports the goals of the Student Non-Discrimination Act" [aka Homosexual Classrooms Act] and Mr. Obama boasted: "I hosted the first White House conference on bullying prevention and many in my Administration, including myself and Vice President Biden, participated in the It Gets Better Project that [recruits] young people who are [confused about] their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity."

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If we lose the battle to stop S. 555 or H.R. 998, we will lose our kids in all 50 states. Homosexuals will have full control of classrooms, and kids. Let's demand Congress stop Sen. Al Franken in his tracks, right now.

The controversial Senator is also the driving force behind S. 555 and H.R. 998 which would "re-educate" elementary school children in all 50 states to accept homosexual sin as normal, against the teaching of their parents' faith. Both these bills are an attempt to give homosexuals and perverts protected status, and mandate pro-homosexual recruiting of kids in public schools (or else the school loses funding).

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This is also true in DC, where Homosexuals are trying to push pro-gay bills on elementary children very quietly and without spotlight or attention. Your petitions to Congress expose their evil, and deny them any stealth ability. YOU shine the light on their dark sinful deeds.

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera thinks about gay people a lot, even admitting that he talks about issues concerning gays and lesbians “all the time.” Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise to see him appear on VCY America’s Crosstalk with Jim Schneider where he disparaged the Day of Silence for making students “celebrate perversion” and creating “pro-homosexual indoctrination zones,” and criticized same-sex parents and their children for appearing at the White House’s Easter egg hunt. And after all that, LaBarbera grumbled that gays and lesbians have “an almost pathological drive” to their activism:

Schneider: Peter, what harm is there in having a Day of Silence?

LaBarbera: I think there is great harm in the schools becoming pro-homosexual indoctrination zones and that’s what’s happening Jim. Now GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, has created a whole host of events, National Transgender Remembrance Day, all these various activities all designed to celebrate perversion, what we as Christians consider sin and perversion. So the school, a place of authority for schools, you have your parents and you have your teachers for your children and if the teachers and the administrators of the school are basically telling the kids that celebrating homosexuality is OK, then our schools are directly promoting immorality and corruption to children, and that’s wrong. This is one reason why many parents are just getting out of the public school system altogether.

Schneider: Let’s transition from the classroom now to the highest office in our land, the White House, Peter they are doing anything but remaining silent as they are going full force, year-round now in the promotion of LGBT, just a week ago the White House made a big deal over their Easter egg roll and all the LGBT families that were coming to the event. But Peter, I didn’t see any news release talking about all the heterosexual families coming out?

LaBarbera: It’s so obnoxious, Jim, and I know we agree on this because we talk about it all the time. Everything they can use, the homosexual activists are using, even innocent events like an Easter egg hunt at the White House to promote homosexuality, because it’s all about the homosexual activists, right? Every institution, every event they can use to promote their lifestyle, they do. It’s an almost pathological drive to gain and to promote the acceptance of that which is unacceptable—homosexuality—so we see these innocent, wholesome events like the Easter egg hunt, being hijacked by the LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender movement, and this is one of those cases.

But LaBarbera’s tirade didn’t end there, as he warned that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is transforming the Pentagon into “the world’s largest so-called gay rights organization.” LaBarbera even attacked the “so-called gay families,” including their loved ones that serve in the military, for bringing “immorality” to military bases.

LaBarbera: When you open up the military to perversion, which is what President Obama and largely the Democrats although some Republicans helped, this is what you would expect. We shouldn’t be surprised when we assaults happening and Jim again, this administration, we’re going to see more homosexual activism in the military. Now they’re going to be lobbying hard for bases, for families, so-called gay families, to be allowed on bases. What does that mean? That means if you have a family with a young son or a young daughter next door could be homosexual soldiers modeling that immorality to your youngsters, right there in the military.

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We’re seeing what we predicted which is that under the Obama administration, with the homoseuxalization of our military, the Pentagon has become the world’s largest so-called gay rights organization.