Imposing San Francisco Values On First-Graders

Thank God for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. If, when the dust settles at the ballot box this Nov. 4, California voters definitively repudiate the California Supreme Court's unjust gay marriage ruling by voting Yes on Proposition 8, Mayor Gavin Newsom will be a big part of the reason why. Even the San Francisco Chronicle acknowledged on Monday that in recent weeks, Mayor Newsom's role in the gay marriage debate "has turned decidedly unheroic." "He's become everyone's worst nightmare," said Barbara O'Connor, a professor of political communications at Sacramento State University

Gay marriage is coming "whether you like it or not," Mayor Newsom intones in news clips featured in the first round of Yes-on-Proposition-8 ads, looking unbearably smug and arrogant in dictating the future of marriage for the rest of California from his San Francisco perch. (See the ads for yourself at www.protectmarriage.com.)

Public opinion polls showed a dramatic surge in support for Prop 8 after these Yes-on-Propostion-8 ads featuring Newsom hit the airwaves. Faced with a dramatic drop in public support once the real potential consequences of gay marriage for parents, public schools, church groups and others are highlighted, gay marriage advocates have responded with a rebuttal ad. (See it at www.noonprop8.com.)

Their allegedly pro-gay marriage message? Labeling the concerns that public schools will teach about gay marriage, if we permit gay marriage to remain the law of the land, as just "lies!" Right. What do gay marriage advocates think public schools should teach about marriage if gay marriage is the law of the land? Could we have a reasonably honest discussion please about what you have in store for California's first-graders? Instead of standing their ground and defending their moral views, gay marriage advocates are simply pretending to voters that legalizing gay marriage won't affect anyone else at all.

Marriage is a publicly affirmed status -- a shared social ideal -- not just a private act. When the government says gay unions are the ideal -- exactly the same as husband and wife -- a whole lot of people who disagree are going to find life gets a whole lot harder, especially when it comes to raising our children.

So what does Mayor Newsom, the poster boy for arrogance among gay marriage advocates, do in the middle of this campaign to deceive California voters about the real consequences of gay marriage? Why, he presides over a lesbian teacher's wedding ceremony at City Hall, to which public school children are bused, at taxpayer expense, during school hours. (Newsom claims he wasn't aware of that fact when he agreed to preside.)

That's right. Taxpayers paid for first-graders to take time from reading, writing and 'rithmetic to strew rose petals after a lesbian marriage ceremony -- no doubt in the belief that there was something educational about witnessing a historic civil rights victory the courts have endorsed as the law of the land.

Let me be clear about one thing: I know many, many gay people who have no truck with the arrogance of so many leaders of the gay marriage movement in California (see for example www.gaypatriot.net). I even know some gay people (though, not very many) who think marriage means a husband and wife, and that the California solution struck down by the courts -- civil unions for gay couples, marriage remains marriage -- is common sense, not some kind of gross injustice motivated by seething hatred to gay folks.

If Prop 8 loses, expect a lot more public schools to join Mayor Newsom's crusade to promote gay marriage, "whether you like it or not." People who think that's a good thing should have the decency to stand up before California voters and say so, instead of pretending it's not going to happen. It already has.

Source






Australia: The high standards of government schools again

No wonder around 40% of Australian teenagers go to private schools. Government education departments don't give a stuff about anything -- except their tea-breaks, of course. I worked in one once so the story below does not surprise me. "Just don't bother us", is their attitude.

It's the poor who have to put up with all this crap, of course. So we see what the "compassion" of a Leftist government really leads to: The opposite of what it claims. They don't give a stuff about the poor. All they care about is sounding good

The mother of a student at a country primary school plagued by years of inappropriate sexual behaviour between its pupils has hit out at the lack of action by authorities. As revealed by The Advertiser yesterday, a country primary school has reported to the Education Department at least 60 incidents of inappropriate sexual behaviour by its students in the past three years. Among the incidents were boys exposing themselves in class, throwing girls to the ground and simulating sex, pulling down other students' pants and underwear, writing sexually explicit stories and the use of threatening sexual language among students. In one case, a student brought a plastic penis to school and sexually harassed another student. The school's plight only became public after the 28-year-old mother complained to her local MP.

The MP used Freedom of Information laws to obtain pages of school incident reports detailing a catalogue of shocking sexual behaviour since 2006. The mother yesterday told The Advertiser her five-year-old son had only been at the school for a fortnight when he was urinated on twice by another student. "This same child later on knocked a toilet door off and asked him to touch his penis, and this same child was also asking my son and other children at the school for sex," she said.

"We reported it to the school. The school counsellor then told us she had already been into the reception classroom a couple of times to talk about inappropriate sexual behaviour. "As parents, we were never told a counsellor had been having sex education talks with our reception-aged children."

The mother said her 11-year-old daughter also had been the victim of violent sexual threats by boys at the school, who had talked of raping her. "Teachers dismissed that as children just learning a new word over the holidays," she said. The mother, who has since pulled her son out of the school, said Education Department officials only took her complaints seriously after she told them she had met with her local MP.

University of South Australia child development professor Freda Briggs told ABC radio yesterday that "this is the tip of the iceberg". "I'm getting desperate parents ringing me every other week about this sort of thing," she said. "We are dealing with teachers ignorance and also ignorance in the department."

Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni yesterday called on Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith to explain what was being done to address the problem. "The Minister repeatedly refused on ABC radio today to reveal what steps the department had taken to protect children and stop the extraordinary behaviour involving children as young as five," he said. "It is not good enough for the Minister to say these incidents happen in disadvantaged schools and blame forms of media. "This is totally inappropriate sexual behaviour and parents want to know what the Minister is doing about it."

But Dr Lomax-Smith accused the Opposition of using children to "score political points". "I have been assured that the school and district have dealt with the incidents immediately and appropriately when they occur, including advising relevant authorities where necessary," she said.

Education Department chief executive Chris Robinson said swift action had been taken, but he remained "very concerned" by groups of students who were "multiple" offenders. He said some students had been suspended, mandatory reports had been made to child protection authorities and students and parents had been counselled. Police have not been involved, he said.

Source