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from Gay Activism in the Schools
New York Gay Rights Bill
Targets Schools
A recent press release from the National
Non-Sectarian Council of Pro-Family Activists
addressed New York's pro-gay "Dignity for All
Students Act," officially known as State
Assembly Bill A1118. According to Council
director David Eidensohn, the proposed bill
would have far-reaching effects.
The bill, if enacted, would place into New
York schools state issued teaching materials
(including textbooks) that would present such
things as homosexuality and cross-dressing as
normal, acceptable behavior. It would also
label those who disagree with this opinion as
bigoted and intolerant.
And not only would pubic schools be affected;
this material would also be required teaching
in the state's religious schools, conflicting
with the moral and theological doctrines
taught in Jewish and Christian parochial
schools.
"The Bill is called 'Dignity for All
Students' but does not teach dignity for
religious students," said Eidensohn, who is a
rabbi. He maintained that the bill would
"replace discrimination against gays with
discrimination against biblical and
traditional family people."
The bill itself is in five sections, the ones
of interest to the Council being sections two
and three. Section two, which adds text to a
previously enacted gay rights bill, contains
an exemption for religious schools, while
section three does not.
The urgency, according to Rabbi Eidensohn, is
due to the fact that section three includes
the requirement for all schools in New York
State to teach "civility" in terms of gay
rights and respecting cross dressers. With
religious schools not exempt from the
requirement, any parochial institution that
chose not to teach the pro-homosexual,
pro-transvestite material, would be violating
the law.
Furthermore, parents whose children attend a
school deemed in violation of the law could
be arrested for encouraging truancy. As even
the bill's sponsors admit that the vaguely
worded religious exemptions would not survive
a court challenge and, so are essentially
useless, the dilemma for schools and parents
is obvious.
"The...traditional family community is hiding
its head in [the] sand," said Rabbi
Eidensohn. "Surely, people think, this can't
be for real. Nobody is going to demonize or
criminalize [the] traditional family... but
this is exactly what gay rights bills are
doing. The gay lobby thrives," he continued
"on the ignorance of the masses."
Updated: 8 February 2008
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