Here is a first hand account of the production and promotion of this play in one Massachussetts' High School.
From "“THE LARAMIE PROJECT” Undermines Parental Rights, Leads Students to Radical Groups" by Amy Contrada, 10/25/07 at MassResistance.org
“I always say, don’t f**k with a Wyoming queer, cause they will kick you in your f**king ass.” -- “Matt was a blunt little sh*t” --“sh*t outta luck” -- “a freakin’ nightmare” -- “I was just bullsh*ttin around with my sh*t” -- “I was in deep-ass sand” – “they better watch their f**kin ass” -- “pi**ed him off” -- “good to be with people who felt like sh*t” -- “why’d you f**k up like that” – “he tried to grab my d**k” …
These are direct quotes from “The Laramie Project” – the fall play at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, set to run the first two weekends in November. The play’s director says it has literary merit “worth six months of production time.” Certainly, it will teach students it’s OK to talk like this.
The school recommends the play for audiences “age 13 and above,” but it’s actually unsuitable for any audience. The play’s foul language is just one problem. It is also horribly violent, promotes homosexuality as normal, and undermines many parents’ values and authority. It manipulates the audience’s emotions through the language, violence, and blatant misrepresentations of Christians.
“The Laramie Project” exploits the savage 1998 murder of homosexual college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming for radical political ends. A jumbled compilation of interviews with Laramie residents, it is sorely lacking as drama — but effective as propaganda. The play essentially blames the murder on those holding traditional values. (A report from ABC News “20/20” in 2004 showed the killers were actually drug-using thugs intent on robbery. But the audience never learns this.)
All students at the high school are exposed to the message of the play, not just those who are in the production. Even those who choose not to attend are receiving incessant messages about its content and merit through the school’s promotions and student newspaper. The school even handed out the script and led discussions of the play last spring (and possibly earlier), without some parents having a clue their children were being roped in.
The script, and accompanying handouts given to ABRHS drama students, make the play’s agenda crystal clear: 1) normalize homosexuality in the minds of children and the community; 2) lead children to homosexual advocacy groups (i.e. recruitment); and 3) promote “hate crimes” legislation (and local vigilante activities) to stomp out so-called “hatred.”
We hear graphic details of the terrible murder over and over: Matthew begged for his life as he lay tied to the fence posts, while the enraged murderer continued to pistol-whip him mercilessly about the head. Tears streamed through the caked blood on Matthew’s cheeks. He lingered for days in the hospital, as his distraught parents awaited his certain death.
In one handout, students learn what a scary place Focus on the Family is (Dr. James Dobson’s Christian, pro-family organization): One of the playwrights tells how fearful she was before, during, and after her visit there. In the play itself, the ranting Fred Phelps is dishonestly set up to represent the (false) “Christian message” that “God hates fags.”
The teacher’s guide from HBO makes the play’s goal clear: “Students may even come to view their most basic values — values that have been a part of their families and communities for generations — in a new light.”
Read the rest of this article.As usual, the truth once again gets the short shrift. New details have since emerged that the Matthew Shepard murder was not motivated by hatred for homosexuals but actually a drug related robbery.
Unfortunately truth doesn't seem to matter - even to our educators.
