X-Delivery-Notice:  SMTP MAIL FROM does not correspond to sender.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 09:22:00 EST
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.OIT.UNC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Uncl: Re: Uncl: new topic -- Queens controversy
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>

> >So instead we teach children that their parents (homosexuals DO have
> >childen in school, you know) are filthy, deviant and should be met
> >with epugnance rather than respect and love.  Brilliant.
>
> Why do you feel this need to *teach* them anything about their parents?
> Since when is it any of your (public school) business?  Stick to education.

You're the one who said that the proper attitude toward gays is
repugnance.  If you think, though, that the schools should be
neutral toward the topic, then we don't have a quarrel--providing
we can agree what "neutral" means.  To me, neutral means that we
tell students, when the subject comes up, that homosexuals are
people and citizens, with exactly the same rights as all other
people and citizens.  If you think that any teacher who _exhibits_
repugnance toward gays in the classroom is not doing his or her job
properly, then we're in agreement.  If you think that when a teacher
is asked "Should people be fired from their jobs, or thrown out of
their apartments, solely because they're gay?" the proper answer
is "No, no more than if they were black, or Jewish, or single," then
we're even closer than I think we are.

But, before we go on, a few more facts about this particular issue.
This is _not_ a local autonomy issue.  When the New York Board of Ed
released this guide, it gave the local districts the option of
adopting it, adopting it with revisions, or proposing an alternative
curriculum of their own.  Most of the districts adopted it.  A few
made revisions, such as postponing the family section from the first
grade to later grades.  But the Queens district tried to kill the
guide for everyone, despite the fact that the vast majority of districts
had no problem with it.

I'm puzzled by your distinction between "tolerance" and "acceptance."
You seem to be using the word "acceptance" to mean a cross between
approval and advertisement.  Then you react to that as though it is
normal practice in schools around the nation.  That's nonsense.  Kerry
reported a _charge_, and you took the mere charge as verified fact, with
a lot of loose talk about "indoctrination" taking the place of
"education."  From this I take it that you don't have much first-hand
experience with the things that go on in real schools (i. e.: with your
own kids).  Well, many of us have had long experience with the schools
and with the books they use.  Recently I was quizzing my son to prepare
for a fifth-grade social studies test.  We were working on the history
of the English colonies in America.  The textbook went on about the
motives of the founders of the earlier colonies, with religious freedom
being prominent among them.  In a later section, it told about how, only
a few decades later, others fled those same colonies to find acceptance
of yet another religion.  But there was no mention of the irony of a
religious refugee from a colony founded to promote religious freedom
(not even by juxtaposition).  You see, texts don't do that kind of
interpretation.

Aside: the textbook did imply (though it was never stated openly) that
all of those who sought religions freedom deserved it.  And it did
mention that the idea of tolerance toward all religious beliefs was
the one that was finally incorporated into the Bill of Rights.  So
citizens of a country with a state religion might very well take even
that as "indoctrination."

So what we have here is a small and rather irresponsible group (they did
their best to fudge the fact that the bibliography they objected to was
optional, and that they were invited to propose an alternate guide if
they didn't like the one the Board of Education had prepared) trying to
reduce the choices available to the rest of the city's 32 school
districts.  And we also have a citywide Board of Ed which had bent over
backwards to provide maximum local autonomy while still trying to make
sure that students in different districts got equivalent educations.
And, as Anneliese's reading of the guide shows, the actual content of
the pages in question was far from objectionable.

Hardly seems like The Great Secular Humanist Conspiracy to me.

Best,
Peter

> ---Robert
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU