Schools

After campaigning to make construction workers take a pledge that they would refuse to work on the planned Park 51 Islamic community center, Andy Sullivan is now leading the charge to make people commit to stop the “creeping of Shariah into our American way of life.” Sullivan, the leader of the “9/11 Hard Hat Pledge,” is one of the most vocal opponents of Park 51 and even launched a boycott of musician Justin Bieber after reading a satirical article which made-up a quote of Bieber criticizing mosque opponents.

Now, Sullivan wants people to take an oath against Sharia: “It’s going to be an oath, and it’s going to say, ‘You will fight against any element of sharia being put into any kind of policy or legislation in this nation.’ If you sign that oath, and you live by that, then I will give you all the support that I can muster. So all of the sudden, the Anti-Sharia Oath was born.”

“Dark forces are using our own laws and freedoms against us,” according to the oath, “to promote Islamic doctrine and incorporate it into our finances, places of work, culture, courts, schools and most disturbingly our Legislative offices.”

The oath reads:

I the undersigned, will actively protest and vote against the implementation of Shariah or Islamic Law in all Judicial and Legislative matters. The War on Terror is not just being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan it is being waged in every aspect of our American life. Dark forces are using our own laws and freedoms against us to promote Islamic doctrine and incorporate it into our finances, places of work, culture, courts, schools and most disturbingly our Legislative offices. The Muslim Brotherhood have [sic] long declared that this war against the West will be won without spilling one drop of blood. They are counting on the Media, leftist groups and Politicians who stand for nothing more than another term of office, to achieve their goals. I stand with the 100,000 signers of The 911 Hard Hat Pledge who have sworn not to participate in the building of the Ground Zero Mosque as I take the Anti-Shariah Oath. I believe in the United States Constitution and the American way of life and will protect both.

Back in March Right Wing Watch reported on the anti-gay group Save California’s intense hostility to a “sexual brainwashing” bill that would include historical LGBT figures from California in the state’s education curriculum. Randy Thomasson, the head of Save California, predicted that SB 48 will produce “the worst school sexual indoctrination ever” and said that “California public schools are no longer safe places for boys and girls morally.” Commenting on the bill today, Thomasson said that SB 48 smacks of “in-your-face sexual indoctrication [sic] of LGBTIQ role models” and is one more reason for parents to take their children out of the public school system completely:

"Life has consequences. This is what parents get with the Democrats," said SaveCalifornia.com President Randy Thomasson. "It's what they get with the teacher unions. It's what they get by believing the lie that people are born 'gay,' when they're not. Or that this is a harmless lifestyle.

"This is what parents get when they place their children in the government school system and say that they have no other options," he continued. "Parents are seeing the tip of the iceberg in SB 48, and they need to wake up to the fact that the public school they went to as a child no longer exists.

"Government schools in California are mandated by more than half a dozens laws already to bring children to think that homosexual, bisexual and transsexual [lifestyles are] good and natural and maybe even for them," he said.

"The battle against this latest in-your-face sexual indoctrication [sic] of LGBTIQ role models is not so much about fighting a mere bill, but about turning on the light for fathers and mothers to realize they need to permanently exit the government system and place their children into the safe havens of church schools or homseschooling," he said.

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"The social engineers are already having their way with more than six million boys and girls, with or without SB 48," Thomasson said. "That's why we strongly urge loving parents to rescue their children by permanently removing them from government schools."

"We call on Gov. Brown to prepare to veto this bad bill that greatly disturbs parents, confuses kids, and would flush public schools father down the toilet."

Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries appeared on WallBuilders Live, the radio program of right-wing pseudo historian David Barton, to promote his new book about how the Constitution was supposedly shaped by the Bible. Speaking to Barton’s co-host Rick Green, Newcombe claimed that the goal of organizations such as People For the American Way, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation is to arrest and imprison people who pray in public. He points to D. James Kennedy, the founder of Coral Ridge Ministries, to argue that without prayer in schools, America will go down the road of Nazi Germany.

Newcombe: I think about that statement from George Washington, clearly in the context when he’s talking about Christianity when he uses the word ‘religion,’ and he says, what, of all that habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. He goes, in vain would that person be able to call himself a patriot who in anyway would subvert those great pillars of human happiness. So in other words, Washington was saying that it’s unpatriotic to undue these pillars.

Well that is exactly what these groups like the ACLU and People For the American Way, and so forth, with all their lawsuits, Freedom From Religion Foundation, whatever, with all their lawsuits. ‘Oh my goodness, this person said a prayer, a principal, oh heavens!’ Not only fire them but send them to prison, there have actually been attempts where they actually try to put people in prison for saying a prayer because they’re a public official.

Green: And it’s just as dangerous I think, especially in this environment with the Tea Party and everything and everybody’s getting involved and studying the constitution and whatnot, but there’s a strong libertarian bent that also leaves out religion and morality and doesn’t want God to come back into the equation, and I’m somewhat libertarian in many ways, but look, Washington said you cannot be a patriot and leave those things out so don’t leave that out. Don’t go to this, this kind of conservative version of the ACLU where we don’t want God in the equation at all, we just don’t want the government spending money, because that’s just as dangerous, isn’t it?

Newcombe: Well I don’t know if it’s just as dangerous, yeah, in the long run, yes, it is, in the long run it is. In fact, as D. James Kennedy once pointed out, in 1935, what was the most educated nation on earth? The answer was Germany. But that didn’t prevent Auschwitz from taking place. So there is such a thing as education, where if it’s devoid of God, it is dangerous.

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber took to the airwaves to bash President Obama and organizations working towards bullying-prevention, joining other Religious Right opponents of anti-bullying programs. Along with Shawn Akers, who like Barber works for both Liberty University and Liberty Counsel, Barber railed against the alleged use of “a ‘Trojan Horse’ strategy, using language of bullying and violence and creating safe schools” to implement “a homosexual activist political indoctrination agenda and a curriculum of pro-homosexual propaganda.” Barber also said that Obama is “furthering a separate but equal policy” that supposedly favors gay and lesbian students and employs an “Alinsky-style, homo-fascist tactic to stifle any dissent.” Barber concluded by claiming that “kids who are engaging in homosexual behavior often look inward and know that what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, is immoral, and so they become depressed and the instances of suicide can rise there as well.”

Watch:

Watch the full interview here:

Yesterday, RWW reported on the Religious Right’s virulent opposition to a California bill that would make sure lesbian and gay historical figures are represented in the curriculum. Now, Focus on the Family’s political arm CitizenLink is linking the curriculum bill to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in its post “Indoctrination 101: From the Battlefield to the Ball Field.” Focus on the Family has consistently railed against “homosexual indoctrination” in schools and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, demanding its reinstatement. CitizenLink looks to traditionally anti-gay groups such as the Center for Military Readiness and the Pacific Justice Institute, along with its affiliated California Family Council, to blast the purported “indoctrination”:

The California Senate Education Committee passed legislation Wednesday that would mandate public schools teach U.S. history, California history and social science with a deliberate emphasis on the roles and contributions of gay- and lesbian-identified individuals, as well as those of transsexuals and bisexuals.

“It seems a bit like a quota system,” said Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council. “It’s based less on the level of contribution and more on one’s sexual orientation.”

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said: “Our Legislature just doesn’t get it — with thousands of teachers getting pink slips, this is not the time to place more expensive, politically correct mandates on our schools. This bill also undermines parental rights and is insensitive to those whose cultures and belief systems are at odds with the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) agenda.”

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Meanwhile, the military has been ordered to “re-educate” its members on similar issues. The U.S. House Armed Services Committee soon will hold hearings on the repeal of the law known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which prevented open homosexuality in the military.

In 1993, the House and Senate conducted 12 hearings and field trips before passing the policy. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said the committee needs to hold a similar number before any repeal is made permanent.

“Imposition of LGBT law and policies on our military would be enormously complicated and anything but simple,” she said. “Members of Congress must ask questions and insist on honest answers.”

Among the issues Donnelly wants addressed: sexual privacy violations; “zero tolerance” of dissent; impact of sexual misconduct on unit cohesion and trust in leadership; infringements on religious liberty for chaplains and people of faith; plans to accommodate same-sex couples in military family housing; LGBT “sensitivity” training in all Defense Department training programs, academies and schools; and personal dress and behavior.

A proposal in the California State Senate that incorporates the state’s important LGBT historical figures into the social studies curriculum is stirring up intense anger on the anti-gay Right. Known as the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, S.B. 48 ensures that schools discuss the contributions made by “gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” along with a multitude of other groups, including “Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, [and] European Americans.” But the militantly anti-gay group Save California is fiercely resisting the measure.

Save California, which is led by Randy Thomasson, already runs the “Rescue Your Children” campaign against public schools. The group’s “ten reasons to leave your government-run school” includes “#1 homosexual-bi-trans indoctrination;” “#2 abortion indoctrination;” “#3 condom/birth control indoctrination;” “#4 anti-God, pro-evolution indoctrination;” and “#9 Anti-Christian indoctrination and widespread rejection of religious and moral values.” Thomasson was also a strong opponent of California’s Harvey Milk Day, which he called a “moral crime,” saying “teachers, principals, and schools that push Harvey Milk's values are responsible for the degradation of children as human beings.”

Thomasson now tells WorldNetDaily that SB 48 will lead to “the worst school sexual indoctrination ever”:

Randy Thomasson of the family-promoting SaveCalifornia.com said parents "don't want and children don't need 'LGBTIQ' role models in school."

"S.B. 48 micromanages public schools by forcing teachers, administrators, local school boards, textbooks, and instructional materials to promote a gaggle of sexual lifestyles that disturb parents and confuse kids," Thomasson said. "This costly state mandate targets children for sexual brainwashing, behind the backs of parents, teaching boys and girls to admire those who engage in homosexual, bisexual or transsexual behavior."

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In a letter to Rep. Alan Lowenthall, chairman of the Senate Education Committee where the vote – six Democrats in favor and three Republicans opposed – was recorded, Thomasson's organization had opposed the plan.

"On behalf of the millions of parents we serve and the children they love, please oppose S.B. 48, which is the most radical sexual indoctrination ever of children in California public schools, which are supposed to be about academics," the letter said.

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"The California public schools are no longer safe places for boys and girls morally," he told WND. "This new bill, S.B. 48, reflects the desire of the Democrat state legislators to recruit boys and girls to support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda both personally and publicly."

An organization that backs private school vouchers is campaigning against the recall of the eight Republican Wisconsin senators who backed Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union legislation. The so-called American Federation for Children (AFC) is an ardent supporter of the voucher scheme in Milwaukee, the unsuccessful voucher program which Walker and his GOP allies want to export to other parts of the state as part of bolstering the Republicans’ attacks on public schools and teachers.

Listen to their robocall defending GOP Senator Sheila Harsdorf:

At the same time that Walker and the Republicans proposed a massive $834 million cut to public schools, endangering the state’s esteemed public education system, they seek to spend more taxpayer money on a wasteful voucher program that has been unable to improve the education of Milwaukee students. A comprehensive study in 2009 found “no overall statistically significant difference between [voucher school] and [public school] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after they were carefully matched to each other,” and that fourth graders in the voucher program were actually performing worse than comparable public school students.

While the private school voucher scheme did nothing to improve education, it did funnel taxpayer dollars to religious schools: of the 120 schools receiving vouchers examined in the study, 95 were religious and 7 operate within a religious tradition.

Renowned education scholar Diane Ravitch, once a proponent of the so-called “school choice” movement, told OnMilwaukee.com that the voucher program “has not worked”:

Milwaukee is indeed the nation's laboratory for assessing the value of school choice. The advocates of school choice predicted that academic performance in choice schools would not only soar, but that the competitive pressure would cause achievement in the regular district schools to improve. None of this has happened. The latest studies show that students in voucher schools and in charter schools do not perform any differently from those in the regular public schools.

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"Reformers" in Milwaukee have been pursuing strategies that we now know are ineffective. The more time and resources devoted to ineffective strategies, the less attention there is to finding useful improvements. Choice got the support of foundations and business leaders, but it has not worked.

Even the state schools superintendent Tom Evers agreed that “choice schools have proven to be no more effective and in some cases less effective than Milwaukee Public Schools.”

But organizations like the AFC ignore and dismiss the clear findings that the Milwaukee voucher program is a wrongheaded and ill-designed effort to improve education, and instead want to expand the program to more school districts and tear down the public education system. Now, they want to make sure that Republican legislators keep their jobs and continue to support vouchers and bust unions representing public school teachers.

Tom McClusky, the Vice President of Government Affairs for the Family Research Council, joined in on the chorus of unrelenting right-wing attacks against anti-bullying programs. According to McClusky, the problem isn’t that gay and gay-perceived students encounter widespread bullying, but the way the White House and progressive groups are trying to tackle the problem. McClusky accuses Obama and others of “bullying” students by supporting efforts to combat anti-gay bullying, and even says that they are trying to force anti-gay students “in the closet.”

Listen:

It’s ironic that when the President was trying to push this bullying program that he cited that he was once bullied as a child, because that’s exactly what his policies are leading to, is bullying by the federal government and by a homosexual agenda that seeks to make children hide their Christianity and their religion in the closet and to silence those who would speak out against what they don’t believe.

In 2004, voters in Alabama were given an opportunity to remove racist language mandating separate schools for "white and colored children" and poll taxes from the state constitution ... and they refused.

In 2012, it looks like they will get another chance ... and "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore is opposed to the effort because apparently trying to rid Alabama's Constitution of the vestiges of racism makes Alabama look racist: 

Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur got a Senate committee to vote unanimously Tuesday for his proposed constitutional amendment that would remove language providing for poll taxes and for schools separated by race.

The vote by the Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics and Elections Committee sends his legislation to the Senate, where its passage is almost assured because more than two-thirds of the senators are co-sponsors. If approved by both houses of the Legislature, it would go before Alabama voters in a statewide referendum in November 2012.

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Moore, however, opposes the current amendment. He said the racist language is meaningless because of court rulings and is ignored by people, and he said Orr could do more damage to the state's image by bringing it up for a statewide referendum.

"Painting Alabama as still racist is not a good thing for our state," Moore said in an interview.