July 18, 2008 12:23 PM
Teens need freedom from pressure to choose gay labels - Part 3
From my April 23 post Camille Paglia: Teens shouldn't be pushed into gay identity.
This Question/Answer piece appeared in Salon magazine as part of Camille Paglia's standing column. Paglia is a brilliant philosophy professor who adores football and happens to be a lesbian. What is remarkable about Paglia is her ability to think outside the box: she formulates her opinions based on her own cultural observations and not on the Gay Party Line:
Dear Camille:I am a black, conservative female. I am proud to say that you are one of my heroes. I would like your opinion of the following press release, which I am forwarding to you. It's regarding the Gay Youth Pride Day. Now, according to some, I may have no right to have an opinion about this, because of my heterosexuality. However, I think some in the so-called "gay community" take this pride thing a bit too far. As a 19-year-old, openly straight female, I really don't understand the need for the self-anointed leaders of the gay rights movement to draw gay youngsters into their self-indulgent politics. Am I misguided or insensitive in my approach to the "young gay dilemma"?
Your conservative admirer in Va.
Dear Conservative:
The psychological turmoil of adolescents at sexual awakening cannot be underestimated. Everything is in flux -- impulses, fears, dreams, with simultaneous longings for independence and for protection by adults. What I dislike about the push of organized gay activism into high schools is that it imposes a rigid political paradigm on a stage of life that is in rapid, painful transition for everyone, gay or straight.
As an equity feminist, as well as an open lesbian, I oppose special protections for any group, including my own. Teachers and administrators should obviously not permit physical harassment of any kind on school property, but verbal epithets, however offensive or hurtful, have First Amendment protection. The PC thought police, having been defeated on college campuses after the court-ordered banning of the fascist speech codes, are now oozing their way into high schools. "Hate" cannot be stopped by authoritarian manipulation but by slow social change, which may take generations.
The Internet has been a boon to lonely gay teens in geographically remote areas -- but, of course, computers still remain largely a white middle-class luxury. I find very suspicious the statistics about teen suicides with which gay activists badger the media. If gay teens are indeed attempting suicide at a higher rate than straight teens, perhaps more questions need to be asked about the genesis of homosexuality. The intolerable sense of isolation may precede the homosexuality, rather than vice versa.
I have written repeatedly about my theory that homosexuality is an adaptation, rather than an innate trait, and that it is reinforced by habit. With its cant terms of "oppression" and "bigotry," gay activism, encouraged by the scientific illiteracy of academic postmodernism, wants to deny that there is a heterosexual norm. This is madness. We need more art and history and less politics in primary education. Art gives the young the psychological and spiritual tools for authentic self-discovery. And art is where sexual dissenters have contributed the most to the human record.
In short, I agree with your concern about the Trojan Horse of gay activism, which is being dragged into high schools under the false flag of compassion. Young people who oppose homosexuality for any reason have a constitutional right to express their views, in or out of the classroom. Whatever they may privately believe as individuals, educators have a professional obligation to remain ideologically neutral in their treatment of students.
Thought-provoking stuff.
The problem with the gay political agenda - as I've said before - is that it does not allow discussion. Organizations like GLSEN are eager to push confused kids into declaring their gayness and want to be free to provide them with information and support, but they are threatened by people who've chosen to leave the homosexual lifestyle and by organizations offering information or help to those who want to leave.
The key here is choice - informed choice. Freedom of speech and free flow of information. But thanks to organizations like GLSEN, the National Education Association will allow booths at their conventions promoting their agenda among public school teachers, while organizations offering any kind of support for students who want help returning to heterosexuality are banned (read more here).
Isn't that strange? What are they afraid of? It's like Planned Parenthood refusing to allow prospective abortion customers to be given all the facts concerning their baby's development. This whole control of information is so characteristic of the Left. They know what's good for you and your kids. And if you question they're judgment, why you're just a fanatic and a hatemonger!
Parents have a reason to be wary of Gay-Straight Alliances in public schools as they are backed by adult organizations like GLSEN, which is very intent on proselytizing in public schools - actively recruiting kids to declare themselves homosexual and censoring other choices.
~~~~~~~~~~~
In this series:
Homosexual propaganda in public schools
Teens need freedom from pressure to choose gay labels - Part 1
Teens need freedom from pressure to choose gay labels - Part 2
Teens need freedom from pressure to choose gay labels - Part 3
Posted in Media Bias, Public schools, Teens and Tweens | Permalink
Comments
Hello Barbara,
Thanks for the good articles about the push for homosexuality in high schools. Here is web page you may find helpful. www.banap.net
Keep up the good work,
Larry
Posted by: Larry Houston | February 9, 2009 8:40 AM
People who want help returning to heterosexuality? You do realize that every psychological association/organization has professionally stated that attempting to "fix" gays and make them straight again is nothing but psychologically harmful and does not actually work, right?
[Kathryn, you are wrong. Not every psychological association has stated that at all. There are some that haven't and that are shouted down by the political activists. No one is trying to "fix" gays, but the truth is that many. many gay people - and remember, I spent years experimenting myself as I lived among gay men and gay women - have been abused as children and have issues that need to and can successfully be worked out. Even Camille Paglia, an ardent and unashamed lesbian and an intelligent woman who thinks for herself, says that the teen years are too fraught with confusion to be an appropriate time for sealing your identity. And gay political activists revile and attack ex-gays, denying their right to their own experience and their voice. For gays who are secure in their own identity - and I assume there are some who are - I think the test would be that they would allow others the same freedom to leave the gay lifestyle in dignity and with love that they are demanding we those who want to leave the heterosexual lifestyle.
In addition to this - I do not believe public school is the forum for every social engineering cause that finds a way to intimidate others into submission. Again, Camille Paglia agrees.]
And again, there is no recruitment. They aren't telling kids to be gay. All they want is for kids who ARE gay to be able to safely live as they really are and not hide in fear.
[I disagree. As far as recruitment goes, my own observation from years I lived in the gay community is that this is definitely an agenda - and that it is much like Christians evangelizing. Some gays find affirmation in this sort of thing.
Also, you have not addressed the question I posed - why not a day of silence for kids with disabilities who are treated badly, ignored, and ridiculed by schoolmates? What about the R word that gay teens - like most teens - still feel free to use? If a desire for compassion is the goal, then why not start by doing more for these kids who are TRULY discriminated against for something they cannot help at all?]
Posted by: kathryn | April 17, 2009 12:05 PM
