A seminal strategy of the radical homosexual movement was their enlistment of children as pawns in their war against normality. Take this sad example from Lexington.
Just a few weeks ago, an unsuspecting father was shocked when his elementary-school child came home from school with a "diversity bag", including the book Who's In a Family?. (Well, you can imagine who's in that family...) When the father complained to the principal of the school (who said the school can do anything it wants), and a school committee candidate addressed the issue, it became a topic on the local politics chat board. A very telling post came from a lesbian mother (printed below).
Conservatives do have hearts. We feel for the letter-writer's family. We are struck by the woman's obvious normal desire to be a mother -- but also her self-delusion, her efforts to "normalize" the unnaturalness of her situation. And we are struck hard by the boy's situation. How sad to inflict this twisted reality on a child.
Needless to say, the boy and his classmates are forced by the unnaturalness of his family composition to dwell upon sexuality more than when regarding a normal family. Yes, it is sex education to consider a "marriage" that is obviously so different. How sad: for the mother, for her boy, for our society. Her letter:
Subject: Sex Education in the Lexington School Curriculum
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005
Dear Lexingtonians,
[A]s a lesbian mother here in town, I feel the need to address two basic assumptions that Mr. P seemed to be (and Mr J as well?) making: first, that talking about gay families is the same thing as talking about sex, and second, that it is okay to exclude our families from our school books and resources because some people don't like us being here.
First, the assumption that including books that have families like mine, headed by two mothers, in our elementary schools is somehow "sex education". Is it sex education to read a book about a man and a woman getting married? About a family where you have the birth of a younger sibling? If you think that a book that includes families with a man and a woman as parents ARE about sexuality issues or sex education, then our curriculum for kindergarten and first grade is, surprise, all about sex!! Of course, this may seem a bit silly. Why would it be different if it is a gay or lesbian headed family.
Please do take a look at the few books that include our families -- such as "Who's In a Family" that [Mr. P] mentioned. If you actually read them it is immediately obvious that these are not books about sex, or about 'sexuality issues' --- they are books as T wrote about families, all our families. On the second point: is it right to exclude our families from the resources and books in the classrooms? Or to give parents "advance notice" so they can pull their child out?
Let's be clear: everyone has a right to their own beliefs. Where we share a public space, however, as we do in our public schools, our behavior (teaching and other) must be inclusive and non-marginalizing. To quote the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: “neither the mantra of tradition, nor individual conviction, can justify the perpetuation of a hierarchy in which couples of the same sex and their families are deemed less worthy of social and legal recognition than couples of the opposite sex and their families" (from Justices Meaney's [sic; should be Greaney] concurrence in the Goodridge equal marriage case).
If our families are left out of the books that are read, if we are invisible in the curriculum because some people feel we shouldn't be here, then our schools indeed hurt our children and families by treating us as "less worthy", by, in the justices' terminology, 'perpetuating a hierarchy in which couples of the same sex are deemed less worthy... than couples of the opposite sex and their families.'
I will share a story: our older son came home very excitedly when he was in first grade. He was talking about a book at school that had mentioned someone who was "gay", and he was very happy. I didn't say much except the "oh that's nice" type of thing. Then he came home again with another such book. When it happened a third time, I finally felt I had to explain to him that "gay" in these books probably didn't mean people like those parents in his family, but "happy". He was deflated.
What was so clear, what stuck with me so strongly, was how hungry he was for stories at school that included our family. Finally, you may believe divorce is morally wrong, but would you say to the schools, I don't want you including books with any of those divorced families in them because it's mature subject matter and doesn't send the right message? I trust that most of you would answer no, for the same reasons that you should answer no as well to excluding the families of gay and lesbian people from books.
We are here, our children are here taking flute lessons and playing soccer, trying to be good people and good citizens and good neighbors, just like each of you. And we need to be included in the sense of who our large and diverse community is, reflected in our public institutions like the schools.
Thank you! -M.
