Californians looking forward to voting on Prop 8 are taking notice that “legalizing” gay marriage goes way beyond a warm-n-fuzzy Kumbaya moment. In Massachusetts, the unpleasant reality is sinking in.
As highlighted by the accompanying video (below the jump) and related documentation, legalization of gay marriage empowers the government (primarily through the school system) to deprive parents of all kinds of their historical right to decide what their children, as young as five years, will be taught about homosexuality — and, by extension — anything else.
This is not a mere religious issue. It’s an issue of parental rights and state control of the family. And it won’t just affect public schoolers. Home schoolers will be especially vulnerable.
When the militant gay camel gets its nose in the door, it goes straight for the heart of American life: the relationship between parents and their children. Most Americans (including many gays) are happy to live and let live. Not so with many of the gays pushing gay marriage. They give no quarter and have zero tolerance for dissent.
Here’s a quicky backgrounder on one family’s experience, followed by one of several informative videos available at a related website:
On April 27, a Lexington, MA, parent, David Parker, was arrested by the Lexington police and charged with “trespassing” at his son’s elementary school during a scheduled meeting with the principal and the town’s Director of Education over his objections to homosexual curriculum materials. Parker had asked for notification and possible opt-out for his son for homosexual curriculum or ad-hoc discussions by adults in his son’s kindergarten class. After several months of communication, he was repeatedly told that his requests are “not possible.” He finally said he would not leave the meeting until this was resolved. . .
For more information on this story and the legal entanglements that have bedeviled Massachusetts in the aftermath of its legalization of gay marriage, click here.
By the way, one Oct 6 poll found that more Californians — led by young voters — support Prop 8 than oppose it:
According to the poll, likely California voters overall now favor passage of Proposition 8 by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent. Ironically [sic - somebody needs to consult the dictionary!], a CBS 5 poll eleven days prior found a five-point margin in favor of the measure’s opponents.
The list of organizations and individuals endorsing Prop 8 is a long and impressive one. Prop 8 doesn’t criminalize anyone’s behavior. It merely reserves official, legal recognition as “marriage” for unions between men and women:
“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
This, I believe, is a good thing for America’s families — gay and straight ones. Thanks, California, for standing up for such an important cause!
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“I know a gay couple who have been married over 25yrs, they are both Educated, engineers.”
Where were they married? Gay marriage wasn’t legal anywhere 25 years ago. If they want to play house and consider themselves married, I’ve no problem with that. But, I don’t believe in changing meaning of marriage to accomdate them. And, it is wrong to deprive children of having both a mother and a father because two people of the same gender want to play house.
mdallinm wrote:
“Evolution is just a THEORY”
What about “Germ Theory”? That germs cause disease is just a “Theory”. How about Relativity “Theory” or better yet “Gravitational Theory”? The “theory” part just deals with the mechanisms that describe these phenomena.
I agree with Mac. I was friends with several gay co-workers. We got along so well that we’d go out to dinner and shop at the mall together after work. I was fine as long as they didn’t make an issue out of their gayness; I never made an issue out of my straightness. But, on one visit to the mall and I overheard their comments as they lusted after adolescent boys, it made me sick. I also used to hang out with friends in Midtown in Sacramento. It is a huge gay area. In the restaurants, I’d also notice the same behavior from gay men there checking out younger boys.
This doesn’t mean that all gays are pedophiles, but enough are that it is clear they are not a positive influence in our society. There are some decent gay men, but they aren’t the rule. It is hard to be decent when you are involved in a sinful behavior.
And Creationism is just a theory too, with plenty of scientific backing to make it worth teaching. So, what are those who are opposed to teaching it afraid of?
Talk about Hypercritical! LOL
Most people here don’t see anything wrong with ONE legal wives and a whole bunch of “celestial ” wives. But bring in Gay marriage, and the place goes manic, lol
Polygamy is TODAY against the law in every state, and Federal Laws.
If gay people want to fight for the right to marriage, what makes them any different than polygamist want to institute MANY marriages?
I think there are LOTS of homophobes here, lol
md
The couple I know arent married legally by law, they were married with a ceremony, but not legally till this year in California. Now if something happens to one of them, legally in california, they have the same rights as a spouse when it comes to insurance, etc.
md, its up to each state what is taught in thier curriculum. Just Because Kurt say, it will be taught. Theres NO proof of that. And each education agency in each state decides.
Whats wrong with not having children at all md?
In the 2000 census there was a reported 105.5 million households.
5.5 million were consisted of unmarried partnerships, of these 595,o00 were same sex partners.
Im not worried, lol
Lets not engage in peophile smearing. There are plenty of straight “older” guys who lust after “adolescent” girls. Heck, Tracy Lords was underage when she posed for Penthouse, whether everyone knew it or not is beside the point. Didn’t Kevin Spacey play a pedophile in the movie “American Beauty”? The producers and screenwriters seemed to be unaware.
I know people who are gay who are not pedophiles at all. I don’t think a few people having pedophilic behaviors is really the debate here.
Once again I ask, still waiting for someone to face the question, how do homosexuals’ have a right to have their marriage recognized?
Heterosexual marriage is recognize because it’s beneficial to society, homosexual relationships have shown no such thing. Until someone can show a benefit to society that would proceed from homosexual marriages being recognized, or demonstrate that it’s homosexuals’ right to have their marriages recognized, there is no reason why we should recognize them.
The difference between the condition of the FLDS & such polygamists, and those homosexuals desiring marriage recognition is immense.
Homosexuals can practice cohabitation without legal consequences. They can call themselves married, like Abbey’s friends have been. They want to be recognized under the law as a married couple.
The polygamists can be punished under the law for calling themselves married to more than one person. They aren’t asking to be recognized by society, their asking not to be punished for living with, and claiming marriage to, multiple spouses.
Hopefully everyone can see the difference here. There really is no basis for the claims that we who support the polygamists right for THEM to recognize THEMSELVES as married, with the homosexuals’ desire to have US recognize gay couples as married.
Oops, I meant to say at the end “There is really not basis for the claims…that we are being hypocritical”.
I’m just too stupid to write coherently.
.
well, California gays took their case to the supreme court. The Supreme Court said they could be married legally. So I guess take it up with the Supreme court in California.
That’s not much of an argument Abby.
Johannes
No it isnt. But thats what the Gay movement did. And even though California had voted NO to gays marrying. The Supreme Court overruled it. And said Gays could marry in California.
Wow, this stack of comments has more responses that altogether miss the point–with a few welcome exceptions- than any I have seen at this blog.
1) The point of Proposition 8 is NOT to take away any rights that gay and lesbian couples already have, and they DO already have everything anyone needs in the form of civil unions and/or domestic partnerships.
2) There is no gay bashing involved in the Prop 8 campaign. Gays are entitled to live how they choose. They will lose no rights if 8 passes.
3) But they are NOT (morally, at least) entitled to cram their lifestyle down the throats of other people’s children, or to overturn charitable societies and religious faiths that have legitimate objections to their life style. But they are aggressively doing just that, seeking out in one instance in California a gynecologist who refused to perform artificial insemination (in 1999; there was no law requiring her to do that at that time) in order to test the law. Recently, in a retroactive application of the law, the California State Supreme Court found the doctor guilty as charged. Her attorney said the court’s decision could well result in many doctors refusing to perform artificial insemination for any patient.
4) Catholic Charities in Massachusetts, faced with being forced to arrange adoptions of children for same sex couples, after providing adoption services in Boston for over 100 years, has quit providing adoption services altogether.
5) ” …Just last year, two women filed a complaint in New Jersey because they were denied use of a pavilion for their civil union ceremony. The pavilion was owned by a Methodist ministry. It had been rented out for marriages, but the ministry refused to rent it for civil unions because it is a religious structure, and civil unions are not recognized in the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline.” (See The Unintended Consequences of ‘Same Sex Marriage’ By Ronald J. Rychlak)
Many of you who are dismissing the importance of those consequences will soon, if 8 does not pass, have reason to regret your current views. It may be wise to reconsider while you still have time.
A take-no-prisoners attitude of intolerance is vastly more in evidence among the opponents of 8 than its proponents, who are simply trying to protect their right to teach their own children their own moral values, to protect their freedom of religion and their freedom of speech.
All of which will be aggressively destroyed if California does not pass Prop 8. That state has 12% of the population of the United States. What happens there, happens where you are very soon.
I meant to add: That Methodist ministry lost its tax exempt status in the state of New Jersey in consequence of refusing to rent its hall for the purposes of a lesbian civil union. Religious organizations and individuals should not be forced to provide services which are in opposition to their personal religious beliefs anymore than Quakers should be forced to serve in the military. To live by our beliefs is a God-given right as well as ours under the U. S. Constitution.
This whole debate is — or should be — about the welfare of children. Not about the rights of adults to have sex with whom they will.
Children need a mother and a father. Study after study shows the best situation for children is with a loving mother and father. While the ideal is not always possible, arrangements that are less than ideal for the child should be advocated as of equal value to the child, or therefore, to the State.
that is, “should NOT be advocated as equal”. Sorry.
Thanks April, that was very well said. I do worry about the state forcing religions to preform gay marriages. And don’t think the gays will not go after that next and the way the younger generation is being bombarded by it on tv and in schools and in politics they will be for it. So it won’t take long before all of the older generation who will fight against it will not be around anymore. It didn’t take Germany long to turn into a hitler group, it hasn’t taken Canada long to become socialized. And it won’t take the US long if we don’t stand up against it now.
And I meant liberal, after all that is who supports obama and the rest of the dems.
Let’s face it, and quit P-C-ing. It is ultimately about God’s laws, too. There is a reason He gives commandments, and that is because that is the way things work best. He is not arbitrary. Gay men have 4,000 times the incidence of anal cancer that straight men do. Why? there is a more complex explanation, which is not needed here, but bodies are just not made to work that way.
While families ARE meant to nurture children, and that requires two parents of opposite sexes. Simple, if we let it be.
Kleiglights-
While I agree on homosexuality being against God’s laws, that seems more of an argument against homosexuality in general, than of the intrusion of homosexuality into the institution of marriage.
The proper reason to prohibit gay marriage is that homosexual unions have proven themselves detrimental to society. We do not, therefore, confer the special status of marriage or the benefits thereof, on them.
We do not however prohibit the homosexual behavior, despite its obvious discord with God’s laws, natural laws, or moral laws; however you want to style it.
April 38, Both 4 and 5 that you listed are not nearly as clear-cut as you’ve presented them. First of all, both of these received public funding which generally means you must abide by certain guidelines that are not required for organizations that do not receive public funding.
Ocean Grove is one of the most unusual communities in the US. The Camp Meeting Association owns the property in Ocean Grove and leases it to the citizens, generally on 99 year leases. Upkeep of these properties, including the pavilion is done with public funds. The pavilion is thus legally a public facility.
I do not believe there is anything in either of these cases that provides any foundation for preventing a church from preaching for/against homosexuality or that would prevent a privately funded church from only allowing who they want to be married in their church.
I just found it funny the guy presented it as though he was arrested because he asked for parental rights. No… you were arrested because you refused to leave an office in which you had no right to remain in past your welcome. This is an isolated and over-dramatized case that could have been dealt much better than the people in the video handle it.
I’ll just leave my comment at that I guess.
David, I’ll bet you read all about in the Boston Globe. Does the Globe have a rep for fair and unbiased reporting on those who oppose the gay agenda?
Dream on, David. That father was arrested because if they had given him what Massachusetts law requires, parental notice for any sex education, then the gay agenda to indoctrinate his AND other parents’ children would have been exposed and undermined.
There is every reason to believe he was made an example to other parents. He had been *invited* to the school principal’s office to discuss the question they had exchanged emails about for four months. He had been led to believe they were going to finally give him a commitment — to honor that law.
They promised notification, then withdrew the promise when he was in the office. They hoped for more than a passive sit-in. They hoped he would scream and rage and threaten, but he didn’t. So they had to settle for a trespassing charge — it was a set-up.
Read the facts at the blog on David Parker.
Crusty: The facts are as I presented them. The Methodist Church owns that property; it is not leased. Quote: “The government can’t force a private Christian organization to use its property in a way that would violate its own religious beliefs, said Alliance Defense Fund senior legal counsel Brian Raum, who is representing the Methodist group. “This action by the state of New Jersey is a gross violation of the First Amendment.” Quote, CBNNews.com
Catholic Charities has in fact discontinued providing adoption services for all couples, rather than provide them for same-sex couples, which is contrary to their Catholic doctrine.
We are either free to believe what we believe, and act in accordance with that, or we have lost our freedom of religion. Same-sex couples have other avenues to adopt, they do not need to apply to Catholic Charities unless they intend to prove a point. But that is what it was all about.
In regard to kindergarten homosexual instruction — children should be entitled to be children for a few years, not the objects of indoctrination by those with insidious agendas.
This is a carefully waged campaign to destroy any opposition to homosexuality, and Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee.
No, I did not read the Boston Globe. All I had read and seen was this site at the time, actually. I deduced that merely from the circumstances presented here. It says on this page that he wouldn’t leave until he got what he wanted… well, that would mean they’d have to escort him from the premises eventually, because you have the right to express an opinion but not refuse to leave someone’s office.
Sage, you claim knowledge of many things you weren’t present to know. You claim knowledge of what the school board hoped for (their wicked scheme to get this man in the office to yell and scream wildly) You get your information from blogs with the agenda to present it a certain way. Those aren’t, de facto, “the facts” as you claim in the end of your comment.
And the state law you refer to deals with the teaching of sexual subjects. Mentioning a family with two mothers does not deal with anything sexual. If you argue it does, then you’d have to argue that teaching about families with a mother and father deals with sexuality as well. And that the law requires notification for any time a mother and father are represented in any lesson. Which is certainly not what the law refers to. If what is done in the privacy of bedrooms were mentioned in the lesson… then it would fall under the law.
The sad thing here is that your argument was the same argument that was used for segregation and anti-miscegenation propaganda back in the 60′s and 70′s. “The government should not force children to be taught about tolerance and acceptance, because that is the job, the will, and the religious right of the parents.” Well back then the parents only reinforced false stereotypes and prejudices against African Americans in their children. In fact back in the 70′s Jane Elliot was nearly fired and almost ostracized by her community for teaching tolerance towards African Americans; that there were in fact “human beings” deserving the same dignity and respect as everyone else. What is sad is that the arguments against her for doing so are the same ones you represent now. Its somewhat redundant that I have to state myself twice but I find it necessary since this issue of how tolerance should be taught has some very skewed ideals with people who adhere to oppressive mentalities. So it was finally documented in 1988, thanks to a override veto against Regan, that no government funded or supported institution, including churches, have the ability to preach or teach anything that conflicts with hate crimes legislation so long as they receive governmental funding or support. Because of that the prejudice against African Americans has decreased dramatically now that the school systems are allowed to teach children about how normal being “black” is. The same thing will happen in the cases of LGBT families. They exist, sociological case studies show a prodigious amount of evidence that children raised by LGBT parents are more successful, well adjusted, and more altruistic than when raised by heterosexual couples. LGBT families exist, LGBT people exist; if you will not teach your children how to show respect, but only how to disrespect and denigrate such loving families, how do you think the school system will react in proactive areas? If you will not teach your children reality then someone else will. It’s time that you end this invisible hate, this oppression and see the truth or the evidence at least. Oppressing people does nothing but hurt this country, its Constitution, and its people. It’s neither a wise economic ideal or a capitalistic ideal. Tolerance of people like LGBT in places like Denmark, Norway, Canada, and yes MA, have brought higher revenue to states and countries; the people are happier now in such states. The divorce rate has dropped immensely, hate crimes against LGBT people have dropped by more than 60% in MA, almost 85% in Norway. Children grades in the classroom are improving because they no longer have to worry about bullying because where they live and who they are. People are taught about tolerance and acceptance. You have every right to be a bigot, as unproductive, hateful, destructive, and disconcerting as it is, however we in the science and health community also have the right to fight against your misinformation, your use of fallacious studies that have been long disprove, and your constant misconception that your ideologies are precedent over the lives and liberties of innocent individuals who do nothing to you but live in loving committed relationships that they wish to be recognized as the marriages they truly are.
Chris, as a child of the fifties, before there was any civil rights movement, I can tell you that you are wrong about what white parents taught their children in regard to African Americans. There were NO such stereotypes taught in the home I grew up in, no conversations in which we demeaned blacks, at my home or among my friends. The social circle in which I circulated included kids of every ethnic and religious background. It was not forced on us as it would be a few years later — it was natural, open and our choice. It was a diversity we chose to enjoy without coercion, which is the only way people will enjoy it. Cramming things down people’s throats, as those who try to through legalizing so-called “marriage” among gays and lesbians will do all sorts of harm — not least to acceptance of the gay-lesbian community. It solidifies resistance and discredits the entire community.
Your claims that children raised in GL homes do better than average is utter fiction. You may believe them, but they have no support in credible studies. Statistics run heavily the other direction: the best chance any child has to grow up and achieve comes out of straight, natural parents of both sexes households.
You will also find among blacks — widely evidenced by the overwhelming support among blacks in California for Proposition 8 — a strong objection to comparing being black to being LGBT. That is a false comparison. People are born black or white, but they are rarely if ever born LGBT. There is no “ethnicity” in being gay, etc; no gay gene. Contrary to the above, it is a choice. You are entitled to make that choice, but you are not entitled to force it on my children.
“… but they are rarely if ever born LGBT.”
Am I wrong to believe that people are indeed born that way? One doesn’t become homosexual by choice.
Except for rare genetic anomalies, one doesn’t “become” homosexual at all. One may find oneself attracted to people of the same sex or to pigs, sheep, or plastic toys. However, when one acts on such attractions the result is misbehavior not a new “status” or “identity”.
Why would God create homosexuals? With a special meaning?
Can’t be just a mistake. Still, a bit cruel isn’t it? Like giving people eyes and then say it’s misbehavior to look. Or legs but not allowed to walk.
Was it cruel of God to give you eyes, trigger finger and a shotgun and yet say it’s misbehavior to shoot your brother-in-law? What you do with the eyes God gave you isn’t God’s choice, it’s yours.
Except in cases of possible rare abnormalities, God does not create homosexuals. As much as the LGBT crowd would like to have science find one, they have done the whole enchilada, and there is no gay gene.
For that matter, there is no adultery gene, either. Those are both choices people make. The devil may make you do it, but don’t blame it on God.
Oh, but I didn’t say I blame God. In time it will be known what causes such an “abnormality”. I am sure it’s not the devil.
“There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. The main reasons cited include genetic and environmental factors, likely in combination. Other factors that may play a role include prenatal hormone exposure, where hormones play a role in determining sexual orientation as they do with sex differentiation and prenatal stress on the mother.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that “sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences”.
There are all sorts of sources to quote, in or out of context. Some are more politicized, some less so. But there is no gay gene; that much has been determined.
When you refer to environmental factors, in addition to molestation, a primary cause is the political choice made many years ago by the homosexual lobby that the life style would be more readily marketed if it were promoted as an intrinsic characteristic. Up till then, it was firmly described as a choice. The change in approach was deliberate and calculated.
The father of the “born-gay” ideology was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 1825-95, who at fourteen was seduced by his riding instructor. He promoted the idea of a “third gender” in which SSA was an innate characteristic. Along with another apologist for the lifestyle, he promoted the term “Uranians.” It did not take, but another term he promoted did: homosexual. Up until that time, those who lived that life were called sodomites, pederasts, etc.
A half century later, along came Alfred C. Kinsey, whose life was dedicated “to the normalization of sexual deviancy.” Although for several decades Kinsey’s work went unchallenged, in recent years it has been widely and thoroughly discredited. Immediately in his wake came Hugh Hefner and Playboy, with the promotion and normalization of recreational sex. (Accompanied by a 400-fold increase in out-of-wedlock births and a host of other societal ills.)
Yet there is no intrinsic aberrant sexuality in the numbers that we are supposed to accept: aberrations are rare and short-lived in nature.
Those who want to more of the history of the movement can check it out at http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/08a/born_gay_hoax/TheBornGayHoax.pdf
It is not about sex. It is about being able to tell the person you love that you love them. How can you say that your love is worth more than mine? how can you look at your friends and tell them that they are not equal to you. What right do you have to take away my rights. I am deprived of 1200 of them. How can you say its for the benefit of children of america, when those are the children you could be depriving of there rights. How is it a good argument that because gays are a minority, we shouldnt teach our children about them, so that they dont grow up to be judgemental but grow up to be accepting, so that we can all live together happily in the same country. Gays dont want to convert your children, or steal them, or molest them, The same as how you dont actively look for people to molest on the street. the fact is people are people, and what right do you have to make people feel and be treated as subhumans. This is a greeat country, but Prop 8 was a disgrace and I am ashamed to travel overseas, because people dont know the good points of americans, they know that we treat people completely unequally, in many ways, heealthcare and gay rights and education all suck in this country, and yet we claim to value equality. It is really emabarrasing. You are all so involved in the politics, and opinions that you have forgotten that your actually effecting people I think.
It is about being able to tell the person you love that you love them.
So telling people you love them has been outlawed?
Try proofreading that little rant of yours. As it is, it’s nearly incoherent.
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