God forbid that children should be taught that hatred is wrong.
Over 500 Helena, MT residents gathered at the Helena School District’s school board meeting Tuesday night to weigh in on a new K-12 health education plan released last week. The 62-page proposal, developed by community members and health officials over two years, promotes a broad health and nutrition education program for each grade. However, there is a small section dealing with sex education that has ignited a firestorm of backlash among conservatives, both locally and nationally.
The curriculum would teach first graders “that human beings can love people of the same gender;” second graders “not to make fun of people by calling them ‘gay’ or ‘queer;’” and fifth and sixth graders that “there are several types of intercourse.” These ideas spurred right-wing pundits Sean Hannity (and guest Fox News contributor Todd Starnes), Bill O’Reilly, and Laura Ingraham into a tail-spin on their shows this week over the curriculum as a weapon to promote the homosexual agenda:
– HANNITY: What right does a school district that can’t even teach kids to read and write — and this is, generally speaking, around the country — have to impose their values on the kids? [7/13/10] [Faux Noise delinked]
– STARNES: Sean, this is the report right here. Sixty-two pages. I have read every single word. And I’ve got to tell you something, Jack and Jill go up the hill, and they do some really inappropriate things once they get up there. […] Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub. [7/13/10][Faux Noise delinked]
– O’REILLY: This stuff comes from the school boards and the superintendent. They want to indoctrinate the children. The reason is they don’t want bullying. They want tolerance across the board. So you take a 5-year-old who just wants to play and, all of a sudden, it’s Heather has two mommies or Gary has 18 daddies. I don’t know what it is. [7/14/10][Faux Noise delinked]
– INGRAHAM: Children will learn that sexual relationships could happen between two men or two women. Why stop there? Why are they stopping at two? I mean that’s very exclusionary, don’t you think? No plant life invoked. [7/15/10][Faux Noise delinked]
Watch it:
Hannity, O’Reilly, Ingraham, and many right-wing conservatives actually have no problem imposing values onto students — as long as they’re the values they champion, as found in programs like abstinence-only education. Medical experts have concluded that not only do abstinence-only programs not curb teen pregnancy, but “there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active.” Despite clear evidence and increasing recognition of their inefficacy, such programs continue to receive millions in federal funding.
When it comes to curriculum content, the right-wing watchdogs are clear on what values are acceptable. Hannity slammed an Arizona school district for “refusing to end its Mexican-American studies program,” citing a Chicano civil rights textbook as evidence that the class radicalizes students to overthrow the government… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
People can love people of the same gender. They object to that. Those religious right hate-mongers had better start preaching in their pulpits that Jesus loves only the women in the congregation.
Don’t make fun of people by calling them gay or queer. When I was a second grader, we insulted people by calling then fags and queers. We had no idea what it meant, but we saw the big kids doing it, so we thought it was cool. I regret that now, because I was inviting children to experience self-loathing as they grew up and discovered they were attracted to the same gender. The Republicans object to teaching that this hatred is wrong.
There are several types of intercourse. By the time I was in fifth grade, I already knew that oral sex existed and also knew of at least half a dozen positions. I knew that homosexuality existed and had already been preconditioned by social intolerance to be disgusted by the idea. We’re talking 1959 here, and half a century later, kids know a lot more than we did. My point is that we won’t be teaching these kids anything they don’t already know. The Republican objection to the teaching of this is the absence of hate in the presentation.
These Republicans are hypocrites. They have no objection to teaching values, as long as they are their values.
Jesus would have no problems with this curriculum. He hung out with social outcasts of all flavors, and accepted them. He would object to the legalism and bigotry of the Pharisees and Sadducees of today, the Republican religious right.
15 Responses to “Republicans Go Ballistic Over School Curriculum”
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the GOP is an amazing bunch of liars and hypocrites – and throw in an organization steeped in brainwashing. i will say it here – people like coulter, bachmann, hannity and the very reprehensible laura ingraham are no better than hitler’s thugs.
the nazis taught hate was ok and that turned out so well
so now we have these people teaching hate is ok and what can we expect down the road
DC, I often said that there is a difference between comparing Obama and Bush to Hitler. In the latter case, the justification could be proved.
Ok, so the reich doesn’t want children taught to not call other people names, because, well, it’s gay people, and by geeeaaawwwwd they can call gays whatever they want! But, in the same breath, like Hannity does above, they cry about the sorry state of education, and then they’ll go on about how kids are out of control, mean, rude, etc. etc. ad nauseum…and, well, those apples don’t fall far from the parental tree, do they?
If right wing parents aren’t teaching their children morals and manners, then someone has to, or we all have to put up with their spoiled little brats for the next 80 years.
Bee, I’d say that we’re already putting up with their spoiled little brats. Now we call them Teabaggers.
But I guess it’s OK for a “school” being held in a large church’s basement in Kentucky to teach school kids THEIR version of history and the Bible. History is being taught with a biblical slant, and of course, the Constitution according to the RWNJs. The kids are being taught that it is better to look out for yourself, than it is to become part of of a larger group effort, eg, “socialism.”
But of course, this is not “indoctrination” as was Pres. Obama’s little speech to school children last year. I’m sick and tired of these baldfaced hypocrites and liars.
I was trying to find the link for my comment. Here it is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/15/vacation-liberty-school-t_n_647822.html.
Judi, I’m sick of them too. They think it isn’t fascism when they do it. I read that article a couple days ago. Good one.
Just like always with the right, Truth is in the way of their extreme hate mongering.
I’m disgusted with all things Republican.
Since when has the truth ever hurt or held back anyone.
Tim, the Republicans are right to fear that truth could hurt them or hold them back. It held them back in November, 2008.
If I had known any of these things in kindergarten or 1st grade, I wouldn’t have been so shocked as a teenager or young adult when I found them out for myself. Like everyone here, when the wing nuts want to teach the Bible in school, that’s ok (abeit unconstitutional, but hey so what), but when we want to tell kids the truth, well, that’s unacceptable. Don’t like it, put your kid in Catholic school. How very progressive for Montana!
Lisa, I agree. Hats off to Montana!
OMG, the irony is so loud, my ears are ringing. Sean Hannity says: “What right does a school district that can’t even teach kids to read and write — and this is, generally speaking, around the country…”
DUH. Yes, education has deteriorated and people can’t read, write or think any more. How the F%&# does Sean Hannity think so many Republicans and rightwing wackjobs have gotten elected? Hannity should be grateful for our collapsed education system. If we still had the same education standards we did 30 years ago, these rightwing fringe jobs would be a tiny percentage of the population, just like they always were until recently.
Tom, an excellent point. I only have an AA degree, but I went to HS in the 1960s. I received a better education in HS than most college grads have today.
It is interesting how the GOP and the right wingers always get their panties in a twist about homosexuality, yet when any of their family value people are found out, almost inevitable it is in a homosexual relationship. At least Spitzer and Edwards had the decency to fornicate with the opposite sex. And yes Ensign did have an affair with a woman, but the poor SOB had to have his family pay her off. As for David Vitter, I had really rather not know what went on with him, his prostitute and diapers.
And while they get so upset about the very idea of teaching kids about sex, a study came out a few years back that high school kids were participating in anal and oral sex, but did not consider it to be sex because it was not…. well, you know. Scratch a homophobe, find a closet case.
Such knowledge would block red state men’s favorite denial. When Clinton said “I did not have sex with that woman,” he was not lying. In the south, sex is culturally defined as genital-genital contact and nothing else counts. It’s a much better excuse than a “wide stance”.