UPDATE 2/7/10: Chicago Tribune advocates normalization of homosexuality
-- From "Gay-awareness lectures at Oak Park school ripped" Sun-Times Media 1/22/10
Recent lectures on gay awareness to parents and faculty at an Oak Park elementary school have drawn criticism from a conservative group's Web site. [See excerpts below.]
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From "Oak Park school responds to critics of gay awareness talk" by Chuck Fieldman, Pioneer Press Sun-Times Media 1/21/10
Beye School Principal Jonathan Ellwanger said a notice to parents last week was an attempt to "clear up ... a known point of misinformation" about diversity lectures for faculty and parents at the school.
The Jan. 15 e-mail was sent in reaction to critics following the Illinois Family Institute that protested the school's choice in a speaker and her topic, which included gay awareness.
Shannon Sullivan, executive director of the Illinois Safe Schools Network, spoke to faculty in August and in November during a staff development session. She also spoke to about 85 parents at a Jan. 19 PTO meeting. [See video below.]
"Shannon Sullivan came in and talked about all kinds of different family structures, from gay and lesbian parents to divorced parents," [Ellwanger said.]
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From "Homosexual Activists Exploit Oak Park's Beye Elementary School" by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute 1/14/10
During her biased presentation, Sullivan showed the film That's a Family . . .
That's a Family implicitly espouses the offensive claim that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to those led by guardians, disabled parents, racial minorities, or heterosexuals. Some teachers at Beye are planning on showing this piece of political propaganda to their elementary students, citing the presence of families led by homosexuals in the Oak Park community as justification. But simply because a particular family structure exists does not require public educators either to discuss it or affirm it. Watch an excerpt from the film here.
Also, spend a few minutes wandering around the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance website to see how very busy Shannon Sullivan is in her efforts to use public schools as well as Illinois colleges and universities that train future teachers to promote her socio-political vision. Here's just one of her efforts:
The P Project is a partnership between the Alliance and an advisory board of representatives from Illinois colleges and universities involved in pre-professional preparation of teachers, counselors and social workers. Gathering data on the status of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) issues in pre-professional education, The P Project aims to support Illinois colleges and universities in further inclusion of diversity issues into their curricula in more meaningful ways. For more information, or to join The P Project, please contact Shannon Sullivan."Family Diversity" is a term that obscures the politically incorrect truth that not all family structures are worthy of appreciation or respect. Some differences are good, some differences are bad, and some are neutral. The forms of diversity of which Ms. Sullivan is enamored are, in the view of many people, profoundly wrong; and public schools have no right to use school hours, school resources, and public money to affirm Ms. Sullivan's unproven, divisive theories to children. The administration has no right to impose these unproven, divisive, and often religious beliefs, on teachers through Institute Day presentations or any other professional development workshops that focus on "anti-bullying" or "diversity." And administrators have no right to expect or compel teachers to share Sullivan's subversive ideas with young children, many of whose parents have political, philosophical, moral, or religious beliefs that conflict with them.
Elementary schools should not in any context introduce homosexuality or Gender Identity Disorder to children. I would argue that schools that affirm either implicitly or explicitly the following ideas are engaging in irresponsible, unethical, presumptuous, and perhaps unconstitutional moral indoctrination:
• The theory that homosexuality is ontologically equivalent to skin-color or race
• The theory that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality
• The theory that families led by homosexuals are morally equivalent to families led by heterosexuals
• The idea that moral disapproval of homosexuality constitutes ignorance, bias, prejudice, hatred, bullying, or harassment
• The idea that expressions of moral disapproval of homosexuality should be prohibited
Since many who affirm homosexuality attend churches that embrace "gay theology," I would argue that the charge so often leveled at conservative people of faith should be extended to liberal people of faith, which is that schools that affirm homosexuality violate the separation of church and state by imposing the religious views of some on all children.
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