Education

Despite the common refrain that the Tea Party doesn’t care about social issues like gay rights, today the Tea Party Nation emailed its members a post by right-wing activist Alan Caruba on the dangers of marriage equality and anti-bullying programs. Caruba, who once called marriage equality “an act of societal suicide,” discussed how Tea Party activists need to stop “the queering of America.” According to Caruba, measures that promote tolerance and gay rights are “a distinct threat to the fabric of a society based on the undisputed normality of heterosexuality” and represent “one more factor in the destruction of America.” Like other conservative commentators, Caruba attacks President Obama and outgoing anti-bullying chief Kevin Jennings for promoting “the homosexual agenda”:

For millennia marriage has been recognized solely as the union of a man and a woman. No society has ever sanctioned “gay marriage” because to do so would be to undermine the keystone of society, the family.

For the first time in the nation’s history, we have a President who has lent his office to the advancement of the homosexual agenda, though it should be noted that former President Clinton attempted to do that when he tried to alter the military to the open acceptance of homosexuals in its ranks in 1993. After an outcry, this was modified into a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that Congress has since repealed.

Among the “czars” that President Obama appointed was Kevin Jennings, given the title of “Safe Schools Czar” overseeing elements of policy in the Department of Education. Jennings was and is a homosexual activist who will leave his office in July and return to Massachusetts. He has specialized in targeting children with the “gay rights” message through indoctrination in the nation’s schools that is intended to advance acceptance of homosexuality and its permutations as an acceptable lifestyle choice.

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I can speak only for myself, but I find all this activity to legalize “gay marriage” and to introduce a gay agenda into the curriculums in the nation’s schools a distinct threat to the fabric of a society based on the undisputed normality of heterosexuality. I am pretty sure the “straight” citizens of Boston and elsewhere find it offensive to host a gay parade.

I believe the greater society has a right to protect itself, its children and its military forces against these legislative intrusions, mandates and coercions to force acceptance upon it. If it continues, it will become one more factor in the destruction of America, a signal that its moral foundations continue to be eroded.

Candidates for elected office and those holding such offices should be challenged and removed when they advocate and vote for the queering of America.

After Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter declaring that Gay-Straight Alliances and similar groups are protected under the 1984 Equal Access Law, which was passed with the help of Religious Right activists, the Religious Right was unsurprisingly enraged. Many anti-gay organizations forcefully oppose the creation of such clubs, and the Family Research Council even urged schools to encourage clubs that support ex-gay therapy. Now, American Principles In Action (APIA) is denouncing Duncan’s letter as a threat to “the innocence” of children.

APIA is the political arm of the American Principles Project, an anti-gay group that is best known for launching the boycott of the Conservative Political Action Conference over the participation of GOProud and the alleged sidelining of the social conservatives. Even though APIA took on leading conservative groups with its CPAC boycott, recently presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum signed up for their Iowa “Tea Party Bus Tour.”

In a statement, the APIA charged Secretary Duncan with bullying for supporting students who want to form clubs that actively fight school bullying and harassment. The group instead claimed that it was part of the Obama Administration’s “sexual agenda” and need to “pander to the gay lobby,” requesting the Supreme Court overrule the decision:

Today, American Principles in Action (APIA) criticized Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan for another attempt to bully local schools into accepting the Administration’s sexual agenda. On June 14, he sent a “Dear Colleague” letter notifying schools across the country that they are prohibited from denying the formation of “Queer-Straight” and “Gay-Straight” Alliance groups.

“This is a situation where local school boards have been making their own decisions about how to protect the students entrusted to their care,” said Andy Blom, Executive Director of APIA. “It is simply unacceptable for Sec. Duncan to push local school districts around and force them to accept their sexual agenda, especially when case law is so conflicted on the issue.”

In his letter, Secretary Duncan backed up his decision by citing a July 2008 decision made in Gonzalez vs. School Board of Okeechobee County where a Florida federal judge prohibited the local school board from preventing a Gay-Straight Alliance Group from forming under the Equal Protection Act.

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“What we really need is for the Supreme Court to weigh in to protect the ability of local school districts to manage the innocence of their children without interference from federal courts,” said Blom. “Instead, Sec. Duncan has used yet another opportunity to pander to the gay lobby. It is time for the Supreme Court and Congress to step forward and reign in this overaggressive Department of Education.”

When the Gay-Straight Alliance Network was awarded federal funds to help LGBT youth facing health and academic challenges, naturally the Family Research Council had something to say. Peter Sprigg, the FRC's senior fellow who wants to see homosexuality criminalized and gays "exported," thinks that helping youth on issues of mental, physical and sexual health will actually make kids less healthy. In an interview with the American Family Association's OneNewsNow, Sprigg explains that instead the government should encourage LGBT youth to become ex-gays:

The Gay-Straight Alliance Network is thrilled to have its first-ever federal grant of $285,000 for its "Safe and Healthy LGBT Youth Project."

The GSA Network says the money will be used to lower the health risks for those involved in the homosexual lifestyle. But according to Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council (FRC), lesbian, "gay," bisexual and transgender youth actually need to explore ways to change their sexual behavior.

"That is not what this...grant recipient -- Gay-Straight Alliance Network -- is geared towards at all," Sprigg laments. "They're geared towards accepting these kinds of high-risk behaviors."

According to the Des Moines Register, Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum will take part in Iowa’s Tea Party Bus Tour. The bus tour is led by a coalition of right-wing groups: the Leadership Institute, FairTax Nation, and the American Principles Project’s affiliated groups, Preserve Innocence and American Principles in Action.

Founded by noted anti-gay activist Robert George, the group is also closely linked to the Manhattan Declaration and the National Organization for Marriage, which it worked with to defeat marriage equality in Maine. Thomas Peters, the APP’s communications director, even participated in a conference tied to the notoriously anti-Semitic Polish broadcaster Tadeusz Rydsyk of Radio Maryja.

The APP is best known for instigating the boycott of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference due to its inclusion of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives, and rallied other Religious Right organizations to leave the summit.

Preserve Innocence is the APP’s education watchdog and is mainly a voice against comprehensive sex education and anti-bullying programs. The group outspokenly opposed the role of Kevin Jennings, the White House’s outgoing Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools and the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, asserting that his views represent a “moral atrocity”:

Kevin Jennings aggressively advocates using our schools to teach children—including young children—about homosexuality and homosexual practices. He is the author of a Foreword to a book called Queering Elementary Education, and as the former Director of GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network), he supports a radical agenda that includes bringing sexual liberationist teachings into public schools. That’s what he means by “queering” elementary education.

“Queering” our elementary schools means destroying the innocence of our children. Please help us to stop that moral atrocity from happening.

The APP also bizarrely claims that President Obama was establishing “death panels” and working with Planned Parenthood to encourage students to have abortions:

“There is a frightening disconnect between what American parents believe their children should be taught about sex and by whom, and the liberal, even promiscuous sex education the Obama administration wishes to inflict upon our children through Planned Parenthood”, stated Andy Blom, Executive Director of the American Principles Project and American Principles in Action. “But this goes beyond sex education. This is opening the doors of our schools and their health programs to the nation’s largest abortion provider.”

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President Obama’s Health Care plan threatens babies through Government mandated, taxpayer funded abortion. It threatens parental rights, pre-teens and teenagers through Planned Parenthood SBHC sex indoctrination. It threatens the elderly and disabled through rationed health care and end-of-life “Death Panels.”

Pseudo-historian David Barton visited the Christian television program Celebration on the Daystar Television Network with host Joni Lamb on Monday to discuss his right-wing, pro-GOP view of American history.

Barton, who says that the Founding Fathers like Ben Franklin opposed Net Neutrality, claims he also knows the views of the Founding Fathers in the debate over whether schools should teach Creationism alongside evolution in public schools. Naturally, Barton says that the Founding Fathers “already had the entire debate on creation and evolution,” and sided with Creationism. Of course, Charles Darwin wrote On The Origin of Species in 1859 andThe Descent of Man in 1871 – but apparently the Founding Fathers knew about evolution science:

Barton continues to lash out at “deconstructionism” in the education system for distorting the truth about the Founding Fathers, arguing that the Founding Fathers did not support slavery or engage in the practice themselves. While Founding Fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry were all slaveholders, Barton has created his own theory of the cause of the American Revolution: the Founding Fathers’ desire to reject the British Empire’s endorsement of slavery. “That’s why we said we want to separate from Britain, so we can end slavery,” Barton said:

He concluded his talk by saying “I want to see Christians take over the Democrat Party, I want to see Christians take over the Republican Party, I want to have a fight for who has the more Biblical candidate.” Barton, a proponent of Seven Mountains Dominionism, called on people “to move the most Godly candidate through” both parties:

Linda Harvey, founder of the fringe anti-gay group Mission: America, not only condemns the LGBT community but condemns anyone who isn’t condemning them. Harvey is also the host of the Mission: America Radio show, and last week she spoke out against pro-tolerance education:

Sex Change Pushed on Children

Recently, I read an outstanding article on the website American Thinker. It’s called The Left’s Dirty Little Secret. It exposed what has been obvious for a long time, that liberal values in schools and in our culture are leading to widespread sexual abuse of children. The author talks about the culture of Berkley, CA, during the hippie days of the 60s, how unsupervised kids in the bohemian communal living arrangements were often neglected, and so were vulnerable to abuse by drop-in friends or sketchy relatives.

These values have been dragged out into the mainstream and called everything else but what they are. Planned Parenthood calls it choice. The Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, along with their close allies in the teachers’ unions call it safety. Promoting explicit sex practices to kids, with the rationale that they have a “right” to these practices, is one of the biggest con-jobs going and it’s a pedophile’s dream.

I’m sure the adult who wants to prey on a minor, either heterosexually or homosexually, appreciates the schools, media, and liberal churches persuading the kids themselves that all this is okay, that early sex is normal, and that adults who try to teach restraint or delay are really bigots who are violating your rights.

Well, the lunacy is rapidly expanding to new territory. We’ve talked about this before, but the boundary of gender is being breeched quickly with the transgender issue. Recently, even liberal California wasn’t ready for where some goofy educators wanted to take their kids. In Oakland’s Redwood Heights Elementary School, an outside anti-bullying consultant taught special lessons advocating gender confusion. The presentations were from a group called Gender Spectrum, who was paid $1500 with a grant from the California Teachers’ Union. The male presenter told grade schoolers that “gender identity is a spectrum, where people can be girls, feel like girls, they feel like boys, they feel like both, or they can feel like neither.” All 350 students in the school were subjected to these lessons, which the principal claimed would make a more accepting and welcoming environment for students who don’t conform to gender norms.

No, actually, they have just planted disturbing and harmful doubts about themselves within the minds of little children. I think that what we’re dealing with are deviant adults working out their considerably weird issues through children. Many parents objected, according to Fox News, and three families kept their kids home.

This gender change agenda is everywhere. Have you noticed? It’s pushed on us by teachers, Hollywood, popular musicians, even a few political figures. Numerous incidents over the past decade involve teachers who begin dressing and acting, all of a sudden, as the opposite gender. Two years ago, Ohio came very close to passing a bill, House bill 176, which would have forced homosexual and gender-bending behavior on all work places in the state, including schools. It passed the Democrat-controlled House, but thankfully not the Ohio Senate.

Friends, we must be vigilant against such corruption of our culture. So we wonder why some children are desperately insecure? God never intended for them to be so. He designed us marvelously as male and female, and we should celebrate those lovely and interesting differences. When adults who should know better want to sell these disturbed ideas to impressionable children, it’s up to us to their rescue. We must commit to keeping sexual orientation and gender identity language out of local, state, and national policies. This just opens the door to sin, confusion, and heartbreak.

• PFAW: Senate Republicans Block Vote on Nomination of Goodwin Liu, Double Down on Partisan Obstruction.
• Lee Fang @ Think Progress: Sponsor Of South Carolina Anti-Sharia Law Claims 99% Of Terrorist Acts Committed By Muslims.
• John @ Bold Faith Type: Rick Santorum, Torture and "Intrinsic Evil."
• Benjy Sarlin @ TPM: Sarah Palin Blames ‘Lamestream Media’ And ‘Racist’ David Gregory For Newt’s Political Crisis.
• Rachel Tabachnick @ Talk To Action: Prince and DeVos Families at Intersection of Radical Free Market Privatizers and Religious Right.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Rep. Allen West: Debate About DADT Is Over, ‘Let’s See What Happens.’
• Timothy Kincaid @ Box Turtle Bulletin: Jennings to leave education department.

We have been writing about the growing overlap between the traditional Religious Right and the new brand of self-proclaimed prophets and apostles like Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner, Chuck Pierce, and Lou Engle, who have emerged out of the New Apostolic Reformation movement.

In recent years, old-school Religious Right leaders like Tony Perkins and Janet Porter have eagerly embraced leaders like Joyner, Engle and Jacobs and welcomed them into movement, often placing them front and center in their events. 

So imagine our surprise when we took at look at the American Family Association's blog today and saw a post by Marsha West laying out her concerns about the movement and calling out various Religious Right leaders by name for aligning with false prophets like Jacobs:

Last year self-professed NAR prophet Cindy Jacobs’ and General’s International held the May Day 2010: A Cry To God For A Nation In Distress at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial where “local representatives shared about their state’s Christian heritage and lifted up prayers for their state and the United States. National leaders offered up prayers of repentance for seven main issues: family, the church, education, arts and entertainment, business, government and the media.” Janet Porter of Faith2Action had an active role in organizing the gathering. In attendance were such notables as James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Wendy Wright, Jerry Newcombe, Peter LaBarbera, David Barton, Mathew Staver, Robert Knight, Alan Keyes, to name a few. Also in attendance were several NAR leaders including C. Peter Wagner, Chuck Pierce, Dutch Sheets, Lance Wallnau and Rick Joyner.

In April 2010 conservative Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA hosted The Awakening 2010 conference sponsored by the Freedom Federation. They define themselves as “a group of the nation's largest multiracial, multiethnic and multigenerational faith-based and policy organizations representing more than 30 million Americans united by core values. The group’s mission is to bring together community leaders committed to mobilizing the Judeo-Christian worldview to preserve freedom and promote justice.”

One of the speakers at the event was Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Other influential leaders include Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Wendy Wright, Richard Land, Andrea Lafferty, Kelly Shackelford, Ken Blackwell, Mat Staver, Rick Scarborough, and NAR Apostles Cindy Jacobs, Lou Engle, Harry Jackson and Samuel Rodriguez.

What is wrong with this picture? People from the NAR who are in the grip of evil were invited to participate in both of these events. One example is Cindy Jacobs. Jacobs is the NAR’s “lead U.S. National Apostle.” Cindy is supposedly a modern day prophet. But I beg to differ. This woman has uttered more false prophecies than Walgreen’s has pills, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she is no more a prophet of God than Lady Gaga! The truth is, Cindy Jacobs is a false prophet.

Considering that Perkins regularly co-hosts a radio broadcast with AFA head Tim Wildmon and Dobson, Barton, Staver and the like are key ideological allies of the organization, I wonder how they feel about being called out for associating with people "who are in the grip of evil."

Private school voucher advocates and their allies in the so-called “education reform” movement readily talk about the need for rigorous, constant testing along with the application of free market principles to education: reward high-performing schools and teachers and punish bad ones.

Over the last decade, Milwaukee has been a laboratory for private school vouchers, and the results have been poor: numerous studies have shown that vouchers failed to make any difference in student performance. Just like in Washington, DC and Cleveland, private school vouchers in Milwaukee failed to produce the gains their supporters promised as students, with students in the Milwaukee voucher program actually performing worse than comparable public school students.

But now Republican Gov. Scott Walker wants to expand the ineffective voucher program while cutting funds to public schools. And so much for the emphasis on testing -- voucher students will now be exempted from the tests that revealed the program’s failure.

The Wausau Daily Herald reports:

Milwaukee’s voucher school program would be expanded under a Republican-backed bill expected to pass the state Assembly on Tuesday.

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State Superintendent Tony Evers has questioned expanding the voucher program at the same time Walker is proposing cutting public school aid by more than $800 million over the next two years.

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Walker is also proposing eliminating in his budget that voucher students take the same statewide achievement tests that public school students must take.

This year, results were released for the first time comparing public school and voucher students. They showed voucher students lagging behind their peers in public schools.

That’s right, even though voucher students are “lagging behind their peers in public schools,” voucher programs are being rewarded with expansion while public schools are punished with cuts. With little care for accountability and testing, this move by Walker and the Wisconsin GOP demonstrates how the push for private school vouchers is really about the Right’s ideological war against public education.

The pro-voucher American Federation for Children is even launching an ad campaign to defend Wisconsin Republicans facing recall votes, and recently hosted an event where they honored Walker for his voucher advocacy. AFC was founded and funded by Betsy Devos, a Religious Right activist and wife of Dick Devos, the son of the founder of Amway and an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Michigan. Today, AFC is one of the most aggressive pro-voucher groups, and aims to fully privatize public education.

Through their advocacy for private school vouchers, the Devos family merged their anti-union and anti-public school beliefs with their mission to chip away at the separation of church and state. The Devos family is a key benefactor of Religious Right groups across the country, financing major social conservative organizations like Focus on the Family and the Council for National Policy, and provided almost the entire funding for Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

With Scott Walker admitting that the private school voucher movement’s emphasis on testing, results and accountability is hogwash, it is abundantly clear what the real goal is: privatizing public education.