From: greg_bradt@msmgate.mrg.uswest.com (Greg Bradt)
Subject: Re: Education Regarding Alternative Family Units
XXXDate: Tue, 5 Jan 93 17:58:44 GMT
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Date: 05 Jan 93 23:55:06 GMT

In article <1359@blue.cis.pitt.edu> Paul S Galvanek, psg+@pitt.edu writes:
>What I think is that many groups mistakenly believe that if they get to 
>kids young enough and expose them to enough of the ideas the idea their 
>reject, then they can eventually lay the ground work for the next
generation
>of young adults, ones that will embrace their goals and ideas whole
heartedly.

A laudable goal, as stated (though, I suspect, not as intended).  When we
can learn to embrace our fellow humans and judge them by the content of
their hearts, rather than by how they chose to live their lives, then we
will have grown as a society.

>In some cases it might work, usually where the prejudice they'll
encounter
>other places is clearly seen by them to be based on false ideas.   Why
>it won't work here is that as I said before, homosexuals are identified 
>by their behavior.

You don't see the contradiction in your own words?  There is nothing
harmful or threatening about their "behavior."  It's not =bad=  it's just
DIFFERENT!

>That behavior is eventually learned by the kids and
>many will simply reject it as unacceptable regardless of what they're
taught,
>just as some kids will reject or accept other types of behavior.

They learn how to have homosexual sex, then reject it?  Or do they learn
=about= homosexual sex and decide it isn't for them?  It's one thing (and
perfectly valid) to say "It's not for me."  It's another (and horribly
bigoted) thing to say it's wrong for someone else to do it.  If kids
don't understand the difference, then they grow in ignorance.

>And thirdly and probably the biggest mistake they make is, they don't
know when
>to quit.  It's foolish to assume that kids aren't seeing enough of the
homo
>sexual ideals and more needs to be taught in school.  From what I see
and hear
>of my own children's experiences, I think they're over saturated with
gay 
>rights matters already and as a result many are rejecting what schools 
>teachers have to say on the matter without giving so much as a thought or
>even listening.

Of course they are outwardly rejecting authority... that's what
adolescents have always done.  Yet the vast majority do, eventually,
mature and assimilate what they've learned.

Incidentally, you seem to miss the important difference between teaching
"homosexual ideals" (which isn't happening, even if such a concept had
meaning) and teaching =about= homosexuality (which, in fact, is what is
being taught).

>When I asked why they weren't watching MTV I was told by the group that
none
>of them watch that crappy station because it's nothing but fags.  I was
given
>a brief run down of the episodes of some show (which I've not seen yet)
called
>The Real World where gay men often tell of their dating habits which just
>made them "sick".

If, in fact, they weren't just mouthing off (probably the case, I hear it
all the time), then these kids have a serious bigotry problem.  They are
the best argument for the kind of programs you are putting down.

>He and my son both collect comic books and he told me of how, 
>when the main character in his Alpha Flight comics series "came out"
>he, with out any prompting and without his parents knowledge, threw
>away a rather extensive and expensive collection.  A collection I happen
to
>know he devoted a great of time and resources to putting together.

He probably didn't mention that he got a pretty good price for it.  The
popularity of that series is at an alltime high, boosted by the event
you mentioned.

Greg Bradt aka ()The Lensman()

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Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality,soc.motss