<p>Well you know, no one would have to worry so much about being deprived of grandchildren if the “homosexual agenda” is successful.</p>
<p>The amazing thing about life is that integration has the power to break down walls more than any words or thoughts could ever break them down. Or set them up. It’s really remarkable. It does turn out a lot of times, when people have someone they love that is a different race or orientation, their perceptions have to be challenged. </p>
<p>I don’t think a 5 year old needs to know about the sexual orientation aspect of homosexuality any more than they need to know about that aspect of heterosexuality. Meaning, on an age appropriate basis as they are ready for it (asking about it). Which at 5 probably won’t be all that advanced into the details. However I wouldn’t have any more of an issue about them knowing some families have two moms or two dads than I would have with them knowing some families have a mom and a dad. That doesn’t have anything to do with sexuality really IMO. It has to do with family structure. I don’t really think most 5 year olds would be needing you to go into attraction and the mechanics of it all either way. I don’t really know why another child having two same sex parents would have to be hidden. I mean if they were opposed I guess I could see them telling their child it was wrong (I’m not advocating that so don’t take this the wrong way anyone - I’m just analyzing the situation). But just hiding that families with same gender parents exist? Seems a little overboard and unrealistic.</p>
<p>The point is that NO ONE is teaching about homosexuality!!! This is a patent lie!!! Never once was anything related to the"details" of women loving women or men loving men even discussed. The words “gay, lesbian, homosexual” etc are not part of Massachusetts curriculum for five year olds. This is ridiculous!</p>
<p>The curriculum teaches that children come from different kinds of families. Five year olds can know that some people have two mothers or two fathers. In many communities, including the one in which the Parkers live, there are gay and lesbian parents, raising children, so different types of parents would be seen at school events, etc. It isn’t in the slightest unusual.</p>
<p>If parents like the one in this lawsuit are so afraid of homosexuals, there are plenty of other places they could choose to live, where they wouldn’t have to meet a single lesbian parent, and their precious sensibilities wouldn’t be challenged at all. If they choose to live in a town that celebrates diversity, like many of the towns in our commonwealth do, then they have to deal with their own prejudices, as the minority they are.</p>
<p>So “bigotry” means failing to support the desire of adherents of the majority religion to prevent children from learning in school about the normal everyday lives of different families because of religious opposition to the private behavior of the adults in those family? That’s your definition of “bigotry” HH?</p>
<p>If so, I guess that makes me a bigot. I also oppose teaching creationism instead of evolution, and reading tea leaves instead of using the scientific method, in addition to being against reinforcing the biases of the majority against the weak and “different”. What does that make me? </p>
<pre><code>* WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
</code></pre>
<p>(George Orwell, 1984, Slogan of “the Party”)</p>
<p>Way to miss the whole point. All these people are asking is to “opt-out” their own child. They are not asking to influence anyone else, although the court’s decision mentions that by the very act of opting out their own children they may influence other children; that is, just by not having a handful of children in the room when the diversity discussions take place may influence other children regarding the “diversity” instruction. I find this astonishing.</p>
<p>I am well aware of prejudices, since I am in the minority (as you already know). However, I would not choose to live someplace where my fundamental beliefs would be compromised or at odds with the rest of the community members, or where my family would be subject to prejudicial thinking due to our non-majority religion.</p>
<p>This family lives in a town in which their way of thinking is out of the mainstream. It was their choice to live there, and as such, they will not find much sympathy to their point of view. There are other towns where the prevailing thinking might have been more in line with theirs.</p>
<p>Similarly, if I lived somewhere where there were only Christians, I couldn’t be too upset if they didn’t have school days off for the Jewish High Holidays. I couldn’t expect that, if I chose to live in such a town.</p>
<p>Those are the choices people make. </p>
<p>And they could simply have “opted out” of the bookbag. Not brought it home. Not opened it. That’s why the whole case stinks to high heaven.</p>
<p>I’ll repeat a story I posted on CC before. When my S was in a combined 1/2 class, a girl whose parents were going through divorce was teased by second graders for that (Note: MA reportedly has the lowest divorce rate in the nation). This teasing, on top of the upheaval caused by the divorce upset her greatly. Then some second graders found out that the reason for the divorce was that the father had “come out.” The second graders started taunting the girl: “Your dad is gay, your dad is gay,” causing the girl to cry. When she found out, the teacher organized for someone to come in and explain that despite the fact that the parents were getting a divorce, much in the girl’s life would remain the same. The diversity instructor also explained that “gay” meant people of the same sex loving each other.
S came home that day and explained that “gay” meant people of the same sex loving each other. For example, he explained, “when a mom and a daughter love each other, that’s what being gay mean.” Obviously, the diversity instructor had not discussed sexuality. Nor had the instructor “advocated” a particular life-style. She had just explained that some families had same sex parents. In fact, as my S progressed through the school, I learned that quite a few kids had same-sex parents. These were just as stable as families with one father and mother.</p>
<p>While I had not thought that my kid needed to learn about human reproduction as a first grader–and he did not learn about it then-- I was happy that an instructor had come in to talk to first and second graders about the need to be accepting of difference among one another and among one another’s families. From that day on, I did not hear another report of the girl being teased or taunting other kids about their parents being gay.</p>
<p>The Parkers were asking to opt-out their own children; they were not asking to influence others with their beliefs. The simple act of not having their children in attendance was viewed by the judge as influencing others. Your post is absolutely astonishing, AM–the idea that these parents must pick up and move; homeschool or send their kids to private school. Be careful what you wish for.</p>
<p>Also, your statement that they could have opted out of the bookbag is wrong: they were not given prior parental notification about the bookbag. This is what the initial complaint centered upon.</p>
<p>Btw, some kids are smart enough to know at age six that the stork does not bring babies. A man and a woman make babies. How does the professionally trained diversity teacher answer the question: “how do two mommies make a baby?” I’d rather explain that to my kids myself, thanks.</p>
<p>I guess that we should be grateful that these days we don’t have the thorny issue of whether white kids should be allowed to leave the room when racial equality is discussed. Only the most vulnerable groups in society are still subject to public shunning and exemption from the general rule of treating others with courtesy and respect. Of course, preventing our children from being exposed to the fact that many utterly normal families include same sex couples will help to preserve that legacy of intolerance.</p>
<p>Obviously, the diversity instructor did not explain human reproduction, nor did she see the need to do so. The point of the session, and I believe the point of the disputed book, was that there are different types of families. </p>
<p>In the Cinderella story, the author does not go into the details of the marriage between the prince and Cinderella (I personally would love to know how Cinderella coped with the demands of life as a royal). There should be no need to go into the details of the marriage between a prince and a prince.</p>
<p>In Massachusetts, the state decides what the appropriate time for kids to be introduced to more sexual details about same-sex unions might be. Some parents want the right to decide for themselves when that time is. Apparently, any parent who feels this way in Massachusetts must: move, homeschool, or pay private school tuition on top of public school taxes.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that there aren’t five, six, seven and eight year olds who have an idea that two mommies can’t make a baby is kidding themselves.</p>
<p>hereshoping. You seem obsessed by sex. The kids were interested in family structure. There’s a difference even if you don’t seem to see it.<br>
Do you speculate about the sex life of every heterosexual couple you meet? Do you ask how their kids were conceived? Adopted?</p>
<p>When nothing else works–throw out the line “YOU seem obsessed by sex.” LOL</p>
<p>Try to live with the idea that some people have beliefs different from yours when it comes to the education of their children. They don’t care how you raise yours; they just want to raise their own as they see fit. </p>
<p>Because they are not introduced to same-sex couples at the elementary school age does not necessarily mean they will turn our to be homophobes and hate filled people. </p>
<p>I’ll bet that there are same sex couples with children in the Lexington elemtary schools, just as there are in my kids’ school. That is the reason why the books were sent home; this was the reason why a diversity instructor was brought in to tell second graders that it was not right to taunt a first grader about her family’s domestic arrangements. </p>
<p>here is some information about the books from a link provided by hereshoping.</p>
The Christian right is not the harmed minority in this country. I’m guessing that the point of the diversity books was actually to help minority populations.</p>
<p>I’m from Texas, so I can’t say my observations are representative of the country or even the state, but I do live in a more suburban/city, upper-class area and homosexuality is constantly under attack, especially in schools. It is not the norm here, but is slowly becoming more accepted.</p>
<p>Fact is, HH, there are a whole bunch of things happening in public school with which I don’t agree in the slightest, including boring, routinized instruction, and too many state tests.</p>
<p>Since I can’t sue the school system. just because I don’t happen to agree with the teaching methodology (as this family did) yes, my husband and I did take our daughter out of public school. I remember that this is the same thing that you did with your son when you had a fundamental disagreement with a teaching methodology.</p>
<p>If people are unhappy with the way things are going in public school do you suggest they always sue? Somehow I can’t imagine you support such action in our overly litiginous society. So yes, you pull your kids out. If the Parker family had half a brain, they would do the same thing. According to my friend who teaches there, things are a bit “tense” for their child. Why would any loving parent do leave their child in such a situation, where they have made themselves pariahs?</p>
<p>And for the last time, this case has absolutely nothing WHATSOEVER to do with sex, and only with family structure. There are not books explaining how women have sex together. There was a book with a picture, yes, a picture, of two women cooking together. No five year old connects two women cooking with sex. That connection is only made in the minds of homophobic adults.</p>
<p>Please spare me the usual patronizing lecture and namecalling (homophobic is a pejorative, not descriptive, term, btw).</p>
<p>This has to do with fundamental religious freedom. Things are “tense” for the Parker’s child? How lovely. In this manner, the other children are learning a powerful lesson in religious intolerance. And your solution is that the Parkers should move out of the community. Incredible. Tolerance only swings one way here, doesn’t it. </p>
<p>The Parker’s requests were more than reasonable. It is the response that is unreasonable. </p>
<p>Be careful in agreeing that it is constitutional for parents to have their rights so blithely taken away. It could be you in this position someday.</p>
<p>Indeed. That is the point.
There is much preceding case law pointing in the other direction.
That this judge ruled this way does not make it so in the opinions of other well-informed legal scholars.
If this case ends up in the Supreme Court, I don’t think the ruling will stand.</p>