AFA Follies

[herveus]

The American Family Association [sic] broadcast this missive (along with a call to spam your address book with it). I've inserted comments in italics.

Maryland Board of Education: State's right supersedes parent's rights

Only a positive view of homosexuality can be taught in classrooms
...and this is a bad thing how?

Dear Michael,

The Maryland State Board of Education has ruled that the right of the state supersedes the rights of parents in teaching children about homosexuality. The Board said the "right (of parents) is not absolute. It must bend to the State's duty to educate its citizens."
of course! After all, parents may not refuse their children an education

The ruling means that the teaching of homosexuality as an accepted and approved lifestyle in Maryland public schools can move forward. Very important! Some professionals feel that the Maryland curriculum could become the model for promoting the homosexual lifestyle in public schools across the nation. That is the reason we are asking you to send the email.

The new policy prohibits any unfavorable view of homosexuality from being presented. A video for use with eighth-graders instructs students on how to put a condom on a pen-s.
the word is "penis". You don't put condoms on pens.
Update: the DVD is for 10th graders, not 8th graders. Liars, they are

The Board has been trying to incorporate the promotion of homosexuality into their sex-education classes. A federal judge overturned a previous attempt to include the promotion of homosexuality because of the curriculum's expressed hostility toward Christianity.
the previous challenges raised concerns that have been addressed in the latest revisions. It's not a "christian" thing.

But in approving the new curriculum, the Board refused to hear arguments from those who oppose the promotion of homosexuality in the classroom.
The state board didn't "refuse to hear arguments"; they found them without sufficient merit to warrant refusal. Imagine that!

AFA suggests that parents find out if sex education is being taught in their schools and, if so, ask to examine the curriculum being used.

To read the Washington Post article on this, click here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070300991_pf.html

Take Action
# Send an e-mail to the president of the Maryland Department of Education and to the Governor of Maryland.
The head of the Maryland State Department of Education is the State Superintendent. One might reasonably mis-state that position as "Secretary", but to call it "President" raises the level of ignorance to an impressive level, even for the AFA
# If you have children in public schools, ask the local superintendent if they have a sex-education program. If so, request an opportunity to review the curriculum.
# Please forward this to your family and friends.

This is in regard to the Montgomery County School System's effort to update their sex-education curriculum to be more inclusive and comprehensive. I'm amazed that the AFA didn't carp about abstinence-only education!

Comments

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. I'm glad the AFA doesn't have *my* e-mail address (yet). *shudder*

A Silver Spring friend of mine, who would be great at doing SCA stuff if she could only tear herself away from volunteering with Equality Maryland and similar groups, has been very active in the "more inclusive and comprehensive in Montgomery County" battle.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I've allowed them to continue to send me stuff. If I get the slightest hint of them sharing my email address with anyone else, they get smacked hard.

In the meantime, I figure it's useful to see what they are saying. It provides the occasional bit of material for posts.

[wolfette]

I dunno - are all these fundies secretly gay and convinced that the rest of the world is likewise that they think any child can be "taught" to be gay, or not? The only reason I can see that they'd think that is that they're actually attracted to people of their own gender and think that everyone is.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Actually, I know a woman, a psychologist back in Boulder, who debated the then-head of Coloradans for Family Values back in 1992. He admitted to her, off camera, that had he had a counselor to discuss such issues with when he was a teenager, he probably would have decided he was gay.

So, yes, I think a lot of them do have deep-seeded gay feelings that they've been terrified of for years.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

It sounds like it's time to write in support of more sex-ed in schools. And to point out the flaws in the letters that may be coming their direction.

[wulfsdottir.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

[wulfsdottir.livejournal.com]

I don't know. If I thought it might keep stray coworkers from borrowing my pens, chewing on them, and returning them to my desk, I'd put condoms on them.

I'm tempted to do that just to see the reaction, but I really, really like my job.

More on topic: Go, Maryland!

[silme.livejournal.com]

I'm always amazed and saddened that as soon as schools say you can't bash gays, you're suddenly promoting homosexuality, as if you're going to tell everyone that they must be gay. Or else. Of course, the AFA is sort of telling everyone they must be straight... *sigh*

Founding member of the Colorado branch of GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) here, y'know, and starting to become involved with similar groups here in England. I was saddened when I started teaching here and saw how behind the UK is in terms of gay issues in schools. I was used to sponsoring gay/straight alliances and running teacher trainings on how to make classrooms safe for everyone. Here? Not so much.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

On the AFA side of things, I learned a lot about cataloguing integrity from the ALA about a decade ago.

Back then I was the cataloguer for a collection of literature dealing with drug abuse treatment and treatmetn evaluation. I was working for a government contractor supplying government funded, drug treatment centers with info on how to better run their programs and better serve their target groups.

We acquired some of AFA's drug treatment literature which absolutely astounded me. The majority of the research it cited was from the mid seventies or earlier (by then 20+ years old) and had been refuted by more recent and more rigorous studies. Then there were the statements like, "Drugs don't make you feel better, they only make you think you feel better." WTF?

As they were drug treatment related, I entered them into the system, but only gave them the scantest records possible. I brought them up to my surperviser's attention because, in good conscience, I couldn't put them into the system knowing they supported erroneous treatment methods. I never even filed them them with the other white papers because they always remained in my "questionable" stack (a stack of articles I never knew what to do with for various reasons).

Eventually, I was able to pitch them, because they were too old. Our collection was meant to be the most recent info available and our cut off was 5 years. I was terribly happy the day I got to pitch those.

I find the AFA to be truly appalling in just about every way imaginable. It ticks me off that they use both "American" and "family" because in my mind they represent neither American nor family values but pure bigotry and narrow-mindedness.