[1]WASHINGTON (BP)–Elementary schools nationwide are the target markets for a new video designed by homosexual activists to teach tolerance for their lifestyles, according to a report by CNSNews.com, an Internet news site.
“It’s pretty pernicious,” Peter LaBarbera, senior analyst with the Family Research Council, of the “That’s a Family” video. “How can a young student be able to … understand homosexuality if they don’t even understand sex yet?”
Spokespeople for the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network in Chicago — where the film was recently released for marketing — did not return a telephone call for comment.
But the group’s Internet site outlined its members’ awareness of criticism from parents, religious organizations and family groups who have accused some homosexuals of demanding that special accommodations be made to support their activist beliefs.
“The following is a useful tool for times when we are called upon to refute the ridiculous charge that schools promote homosexuality,” the GLSEN site detailed, suggesting members handle such claims by maintaining that their organization only “affirms” that homosexuals “enrich our society in many ways” rather than “promotes” the idea the alternative lifestyle is “preferable to being heterosexual.”
That rhetoric is “very clever,” though misleading, LaBarbera said.
[2]“This is the line they’ve been using for a decade,” he told CNSNews.com. “When you affirm something without presenting the other side, then that’s promotion. They’re not teaching the Judeo-Christian concept of family. They’re trying to get away with a technicality while they’re promoting homosexuality to very, very young children.
“The whole topic of homosexuality, in this video does not belong in elementary schools,” LaBarbera continued.
The film is produced by Helen Cohen, an Academy Award winner who also worked on “It’s Elementary,” a homosexual education movie marketed as an aid for teachers and school administrators to teach tolerance. “That’s a Family” differs from “It’s Elementary” in that its target audience is elementary-level students rather than adults.
The movie depicts real-life students introducing their biracial, divorced or same-sex parents to the viewers.
“They don’t talk to the kids about their real feelings,” said Mike Haley, a specialist with Family in Focus. “Our objections are that … they sandwich in the gay issue between divorce and biracial families. They present homosexuality as just another thing, that it’s genetically no different than race.
“That’s what bothers me, is that the homosexuality is just another issue,” Haley said.
Haley also questioned what psychological harm befell those students who participated in the making of the video and whether they became bullied by intolerant classmates who viewed it.
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Chumley is a staff writer with CNSNews.com. Used by permission.