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from Gay Activism in the Schools
Explaining the Argument for Design and Purpose
"Gay activism is finding its way into more and more schools--promoting
destructive behavior under the guise of tolerance and compassion. How
can you ensure that the truth gets a fair hearing?"
So says the educators' magazine Teachers in Focus, published by Focus on
the Family. The publication recently featured a lead article by J.
Budziszewski, professor of Philosophy and Government at the University
of Texas, Austin.
In simple language, Dr. Budziszewski explains how to speak in the public
arena against gay-affirmative programs.
He says a parent or teacher can make his case by offering explanations
that resonate with the listener's own latent knowledge of human design
and purpose. Dr. Budziszewski also advises teachers to speak up with a
blunt description of the negative health consequences of homosexual
behavior.
"We need to live a certain way because we are designed to live that
way," he explains. "Everything in us has a purpose: everything is for
something. At some level this is plain even to children, though of
course they do not have words to express it.
"To make proper use of a designed thing, we have to know how it works.
That involves knowing its purpose--what its for--as well as knowing how
each feature contributes to the fulfilment of that purpose...When you
thwart a thing's design, it either works badly, stops working or breaks.
Something goes terribly wrong. The same thing is true of the human
design."
Dr. Budziszewski explains that the sexual powers, being part of our
design, have the twin purposes of bonding men and women together and
creating new life. As he explains, men and women are complementary, and
"It's not just that they're different--it's that their differences are
coordinated in such a way that each contributes what the other lacks.
In every dimension--physical, emotional and intellectual--they fit like
hand and glove; they 'match.'"
This applies to both the procreative purpose of making new life, he
says, and the unitive purpose of bonding the partners together.
The complementarity of both parents is necessary to provide an optimum
upbringing for the child--to nurture him (for which the female is better
designed), and to protect him (for which the male is better designed).
While gay couples may adopt children (or have then through artificial
indemination), a same-sex relationship is incapable of providing
balanced gender modelling. Gay parenting is also inherently unable to
provide the model of man-woman relationships that the child will need
for building a future marriage.
When human design and purpose is thwarted, we can expect to see a higher
level of emotional and physical problems. Dr. Budziszewski points out
some of those problems--particularly, widespread promiscuity (even in
"committed" gay relationships) and the bodily damage that is the
byproduct of sexual practices that are incompatible with one's anatomy.
"It's hard to see what is loving," Dr. Budziszewki notes, "about sexual
acts that cause tearing, stretching, bleeding, choking, death, disease
and pain."
To help educators present their case against gay-affirming programs, he
explains some of the ways they can respond to the arguments they will
inevitably encounter, such as ""Don't you believe in tolerance?" and
"The school is not endorsing homosexuality, we're just presenting it as
an alternative lifestyle."
Teachers in Focus magazine is available by calling (719) 531-5181. The
above article appeared in the October 2000 issue.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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