8th-Graders Told Stripping, Exotic Dancing Are Rewarding Career Choices
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
January 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - A California pro-family activist is urging school officials in Palo Alto to ban a speaker who told middle-school students that stripping is a profitable career choice.
Speaking at the annual career day on January 11 at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School, management consultant William Fried urged girls in the audience to consider stripping and exotic dancing as lucrative career options. According to a report by Bay Area television station KTVU, Fried went so far as to say that, depending on their bust size, strippers and exotic dancers could make upwards of $250,000 a year or more.
Speaking to Associated Press after the fact, the Foster City executive said "It's sick, but it's true. The truth of the matter is you can earn a tremendous amount of money as an exotic dancer, if that's your desire." The speaker had included the questionable career paths along with others -- accounting, nursing, etc. -- in a list of more than a hundred potential careers. The list, distributed to the eighth graders as part of Fried's presentation, also included the option of acting as a spiritual medium.
Randy Thomasson, executive director of the Sacramento-based Campaign for Children and Families, sees the incident as another example of schools in his state allowing children to be indoctrinated with concepts contrary to parents' values. He says it also exemplifies what happens when society stops degrading prostitution and strip dancing -- and is yet another reason for Christians to remove their children from public schools.
Randy Thomasson | |
"In California's public schools, we already know that before a child graduates -- unless a parent intervenes -- that child will be given abortion education, condom education, evolution education, homosexual education -- and now, apparently, stripping education," Thomasson says. "This will fuel the fire of more parents leaving the government school system to protect the innocence of their own children."According to the KTVU report, the school principal is considering barring Fried from next year's career day, and planned to send letters of apology home with the students. In addition, a school board member notes that Fried deviated from the message of achievement trying to be promoted by the district. Mandy Lowell said the district is not trying to nurture girls' "natural or implant-inflated bust size," and that her aspiration is "not to have children in this district become exotic dancers."
According to Thomasson, adults in Lowell's position can have a positive influence on schools' treatment of the issue of sexuality. He directs his advice at those who consider themselves to be followers of Christ.
"The greatest impact a Christian can make in the public schools is to run for school board, get elected, and help other people run and get elected to maintain a majority that is pro-parent and pro-family," he advises. "Absent that, the school district is going to indoctrinate all children, no matter who they are."
He notes that schools typically have control of students several hours a day -- "and whoever spends more time with a child is going to own the child's heart eventually."
The CCF spokesman says Christian parents with children in California public schools need to get a student exemption form that will allow their kids to opt-out of objectionable activities and classes. And the schools, he adds, need a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual indoctrination.
