Oh no, the "gay agenda" in schools
WorldNetDaily does its usual hand-wringing:
U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf yesterday dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by David Parker, ordering that it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality.
Personally I think it's a Good Thing to teach children to accord homosexuals the respect due to all human beings. But then, "all human beings" includes drug dealers, axe murderers, and politicians, so this isn't necessarily a moral endorsement.
The anti-gay side goes a bit off the rails here:
"In addition, Wolf makes the odious statement that the Parkers' only options are (1) send their kids to a private school, (2) home-school their kids, or (3) elect a majority of people to the School Committee who agree with them. Can you imagine a federal judge in the Civil Rights era telling blacks the same thing – that if they can't be served at a lunch counter they should just start their own restaurant, or elect a city council to pass laws that reflect the U.S. Constitution?" the organization said.
It's pretty absurd for gays and Christians to compete for the title of "oppressed minority du jour", and it's pretty offensive to equate ideas (which can change) to skin color (which can't). Maybe we need a codocil to Godwin's Law. And these are the folks that say "Gays can change," so why can't Christians change? For that matter, if Jim Crow weren't then legally supported and encouraged, a voluntary approach to integration might have been more successful.
The problem here is that Parker wants a "free" public education without public values.Unlike in Germany, the judge is perfectly willing to allow Parker to teach his child as he wishes...just not at taxpayer expense. It mystifies me that evangelicals think that the public schools can be transformed, or that things will be OK if they just teach Godly values. Civil institutions are "of the world". About the only religious sect that really gets the church-state thing are the Amish; they realize that the Christian ultimately can't coexist with "the world", and seek to withdraw both from paying for the world's poisoned candy and from eating it. The Southern Baptists are beginning to come to the same conclusion about education: that they need to "come out of Egypt".
As the judge said, diversity is a positive value. That includes religion. But when two diversities clash, each must find its own corner. And given that the only arguments against public acceptance of gayness are religious, wouldn't it be best (and arguably constitutional) to not support those religious arguments in a public school?
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