Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
April 1999 – AFA has long resisted the incessant push of the homosexual movement to insinuate its agenda into public life. Now a pro-homosexual video targeting the nation’s public schools has led AFA to produce its own video in response.
In reply to the pro-homosexual video, It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, AFA has produced and is distributing Suffer the Children: Answering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools. It takes a critical look at the carefully crafted message of It’s Elementary by examining segments from the film. AFA’s video also shows the ways in which teachers are taught to skillfully manipulate children in order to get them to reach politically correct conclusions about the homosexual lifestyle.
The producers of It’s Elementary are Helen Cohen and Academy Award-winning documentary producer Debra Chasnoff. In 1992 Chasnoff became the first woman to openly declare her lesbianism at the Oscars.
Although portraying itself as a video that merely teaches children to “respect” differences, It’s Elementary depicts adults – including parents – as the wellspring of ignorance, bigotry, and homophobia. Christianity was the recipient of especially venomous treatment in the video, with Christians portrayed as hate-filled bigots who advocate the “torture” and death of homosexuals.
The widespread influence of It’s Elementary cannot be overstated. According to Cohen and Chasnoff, since its premiere in 1996, the video has been shown “in thousands of diverse settings,” including nearly 500 college and university teacher training programs, and in faculty and staff in-service training in over 200 public school districts.
The nation’s third-largest city, Chicago, announced last year that It’s Elementary would be used to train the teachers in all of its districts schools.
The video also has the enthusiastic support of the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union. “Schools cannot be neutral when we’re dealing with [the issue of homosexuality]. I’m not talking about tolerance. I’m talking about acceptance,” said NEA President Bob Chase. “It’s Elementary is a great resource for parents, teachers, and community leaders working to teach respect and responsibility to America’s children.”
AFA President Donald E. Wildmon said he was determined to try to stop this encroachment of the homosexual movement into the nation’s public schools. “That’s why we produced Suffer the Children, because we could not allow this attempt at brainwashing our children to go unanswered,” he said.
“Homosexual activists have had great success in the 1990s getting their agenda into the government, corporation and media and entertainment circles, and we’ve fought them all the way,” Wildmon said. “But our children always have been and always must remain off-limits to these activists.”
PBS to air video nationwide?
Cohen and Chasnoff persuaded San Francisco’s KQED to offer the video to PBS stations nationwide. Jan Goldstein of American Public Television confirmed to AFA that her agency is providing a satellite feed of the video to all PBS stations. Individual stations will choose whether or not to air it.
“On the heels of an extremely effective grassroots distribution campaign,” said a fund-raising letter from the two women, “we now have an important opportunity for It’s Elementary to gain an entirely new level of
public exposure.” 
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