Third in a series examining the state of the homosexual rights movement.

April 1999 – Homosexual activists have a vision for tomorrow, for an America in which their lifestyle is not simply tolerated, but celebrated. And to achieve that vision, activists have begun enlisting their footsoldiers for tomorrow’s army: today’s children.

The youngest Americans have been targeted for a change of heart. Since homosexual activists believe that adults in general – and parents in particular – have corrupted their own children with hate and homophobia, then children must be taught apart from their parents’ influence.

Obviously, “homophobic” parents will not invite homosexuals into their homes to instruct their children that “gay is O.K.” Where, then, can activists obtain access to children in large numbers, away from the watchful eyes of their parents? The public school system.

The “bloody war”
When parents expressed concern over the controversial activities of homosexual rights advocates at a high school in San Leandro, California, they were quickly put in their place. Karl Debro, a teacher at the school and leader of the Gay-Straight Alliance, said the parents had a right to hold “their own extreme religious views.” But, Debro added, “teachers have got to be free to expose their students to new ideas, so they can learn how to draw their own conclusions.”

This use of the public school system as a propaganda tool for the homosexual movement is merely the fulfillment of a decades-old goal. During their 1972 march on Washington, D.C., homosexual activists published a list of demands for social change. One of those was government “encouragement and support for sex education courses, prepared and taught by gay women and men, presenting homosexuality as a valid, healthy preference and lifestyle as a viable alternative to heterosexuality.” A similar demand made during the 1993 homosexual march insisted that such a view be taught on “all levels of education.”

Radical activists foresee a time when homosexuals literally rub elbows with children in an effort to alter their views. Lesbian author Patricia Nell Warren wrote in The Advocate of “the bloody war in our high schools and colleges for the control of American youth.” Part of what was needed to win that war, Warren said, was that homosexuals “need to be mentoring, teaching, canvassing” both gay and straight kids.

Homosexuals are not fighting this “bloody war” in a haphazard manner. Instead, homosexual groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), are organizing and developing a national strategy to get into public schools. Based in New York City, GLSEN has been enormously effective since it was formed in 1990. Some 7,500 GLSEN members now promote their agenda in more than 80 chapters throughout the U.S., and the number of Gay-Straight Alliances in public schools registered with GLSEN now stands at 400.

“Gays are tired of riding in the back of the bus,” said Kate Frankfurt, director of public policy for GLSEN. “The issue [of gay rights] is now being joined, and the schools are a very important battleground.”

GLSEN activist and New York kindergarten teacher Jaki Williams said starting in kindergarten is a must, since children at that age are still developing their values. Even at that age, she said, “the saturation process needs to begin.”

Williams, in fact, is a model teacher when it comes to this “saturation” process. She regularly initiates conversations with her children by reading such controversial books as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads. She also hosts a viewing of the video Both of My Moms’ Names Are Judy: Children of Lesbians and Gays Speak Out.

According to one writer for The Lambda Report, who infiltrated a 1997 GLSEN workshop, one former teacher admitted that changing the mind of a child required a constant stream of homosexual words and images, because, “It’s really a conditioning process.”

Only one correct view
Using a growing number of potent resources, strident activists such as Debro and Warren are challenging the values which parents instill in their own children. Schools which participate in this worldview overhaul, consistently teach children that there is only one correct view when it comes to homosexuality.

The intent of Both of My Moms, for example, is to combat “homophobia” in schools. Eric Strommen, formerly of Children’s Television Workshop – producer of Sesame Street – calls the video “an eloquent plea from children for their teachers’ help in fighting one of the most common forms of prejudice in today’s schools.”

Terms like “homophobia” and “prejudice” are readily thrown about the classroom, often linked with words like “hate” and “mean-spirited.” Children get the message. For the homosexual movement, the debate has been decided, and all that remains is to let the children know who won.

In Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children, author Louise Derman-Sparks addresses how children respond to differences in society such as race and gender. The curriculum is published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which claims to be the nation’s largest organization of early childhood professionals.

Most people would agree with much of what the curriculum tries to accomplish in breaking down racial and gender stereotypes. But as usual, such efforts turn to the subject of homosexuality. In a laundry-list of unacceptable biases is “ homophobia,” defined as “a fear and hatred of gay men and lesbians backed up by institutional policies and power that discriminate against them.” The curriculum clearly instructs children that a view which states that there is something unnatural in being homosexual is a “homophobic” concept.

In Derman-Sparks’ mind, “It is not differences in themselves that cause the problems, but how people respond to differences.” Thus, according to the Anti-Bias Curriculum, there is nothing wrong with the homosexual lifestyle; rather it is the people who respond improperly (with homophobia) who are the problem.

The curriculum says, “Differences are good; oppressive ideas and behaviors are not.” Merely viewing homosexuality as abnormal or immoral becomes one of many “oppressive ideas.”

The transformation of their world
Almost uniformly, these pro-homosexual campaigns coat their efforts with a veneer that masks the true intent of activists.

Derman-Sparks, for example, implies that her curriculum is intended to reach a simple yet profound goal to which only the most backward parent could object: “The development of each child to her or his fullest potential.” Yet even in that same paragraph, she admits that “at heart anti-bias curriculum is about social change.”

Children are instructed to actively oppose biases such as homophobia. Through this curriculum, Derman-Sparks says children are learning “to think critically and to speak up when they believe something is unfair,” thus discovering “how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

Anyone wanting to view a transformed world as homosexual activists see it need look no further than Provincetown, Massachusetts. There education officials voted to require schools to present a positive image of homosexuality beginning in preschool. The board also called for hiring preferences for homosexuals within the school system.

“We are on a trailblazing path,” said school superintendent Susan Fleming, who insisted the schools were “going to be a change agent.”

Celebrating homosexuality
Kevin Jennings, GLSEN executive director, admitted to that organization’s 1997 conference that his goal was the promotion of homosexuality in public schools. “I can envision a day when straight people say, ‘So what if you’re promoting homosexuality.’ Or straight kids [will] say [to a male homosexual friend], ‘Hey, why don’t you and your boyfriend come over before you go to the prom and try your tuxes on at my house?’ If we believe that can happen, we can make it happen,” he said.

The end-game was made clear by Stephen Glassman, a GLSEN chapter board member from Pennsylvania. He said, “I don’t want to be tolerated. I don’t want to be put up with. I want to be…celebrated.”

Such a transformation of society’s views is expected to occur piecemeal. During the GLSEN workshops, activists were instructed to first ask education administrators to make schools “safe” for homosexual youth. Such a move, however, was a “stepping stone” to further goals – including complete curriculum revision and the use of pro-homosexual materials.

Karen Kalteissen, who hosted a GLSEN workshop entitled “Conversing with the Christian Community,” said, “We might start with people who…say, ‘Well, I can go as far as tolerance,’ and then we’ll build from there. And our job, I believe, is to move them down the scale…Tolerance is not enough, let’s keep going.”

GLSEN board member Grant Peterson said, “Across the nation, we are organizing to make this the last generation that will be taught the lessons of hatred and intolerance while at school."

When it comes to filling the hearts and minds of little children, homosexual activists seem driven to insure that they will be the only ones to do the teaching.    

For other articles in this series, see AFA Journal, February, March, May, and June 1999.

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Replacing God with a pink triangle
Liberals have long recognized the tremendous power of symbols, role models, and school activities to shape the beliefs of children. In fact, it has been this recognition that has driven the attempt to “cleanse” the public school system of all vestiges of religion.

In Stone v. Graham, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a law passed by the Kentucky legislature which required public schools to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in each classroom. In reversing a lower court decision and, in effect, prohibiting the posting of the Decalogue in Kentucky’s schools, the Supreme Court said: “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments.” (Emphasis added.)

In the view of the high court, the impressive power of symbols upon the impressionable minds of young people was such that Kentucky had violated the separation of church and state doctrine created by the court in previous decisions.

The Supreme Court said in Stone that “the mere posting under the auspices of the legislature provides the official support of the state government…” That is, when children see a poster on a wall in their school, they implicitly understand that the message of that poster has the approval of “the state government.”

In matters of religion, such as the school prayer ruled unconstitutional in the famous 1962 case Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court said such government propagation had a coercive effect on children. “When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain,” said the court. (Emphasis added.)

But if such coercive power is inflicted on children and teenagers when the subject is religion, what happens when the subject is homosexuality? Don’t young people immediately recognize that a mere poster, or a teacher’s class on diversity, or a pro-homosexual video has “the official support of the state government”? Is there not also an “indirect coercive pressure” upon all schoolchildren?

Thus, hand-in-hand with liberal attempts to expel any remaining vestiges of Christian influence in the public lives of children, there now has come the use of equally powerful instruments to propagandize children with a pro-homosexual viewpoint.

On one hand, liberals have created a vacuum by removing God; on the other, they have filled the vacuum with a worldview that is humanistic, relativistic, and immoral.