Mich. Parents Protest Pro-Homosexual Posters on Public School Campus
by Jim Brown
June 2, 2005
(AgapePress) - Parents in Troy, Michigan, are vehemently denouncing a school district's decision to hang several copies of a poster they claim promotes homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.
Two years ago, controversy erupted at Troy High School when, at the request of the campus homosexual group, English teacher Sandra Altemann put up a poster in her classroom that reads, "Gay people are everyday people." Afterward, despite the objections of parents who feel the poster promotes an unacceptable lifestyle, Principal Larry Boehms recently allowed four more of the pro-homosexual posters to go up at the school.
Tony Cruz, a Christian father of two daughters in the school district, wants the posters removed from classrooms during school hours. "They have no place in the school," he contends, "and as a matter of fact, according to the Equal Access statute, a club can lose its sponsorship if a teacher sponsors the dogma of that club during school hours. And that applies to Christian clubs, it applies to gay clubs -- it applies to any club in between."
The posters are distributed by the Royal Oak-based Affirmations Gay/Lesbian Community Center. School officials claim they are not trying to promote a certain lifestyle by hanging the posters, but that they are merely demonstrating tolerance. Parents like Cruz, however, feel the posters are a prime example of the intolerance of pro-homosexual activism.
The Michigan father says the posters represent "a very aggressive and, in my opinion, very mean-spirited way of trying to take minor children and imbue them with the mindset that, 'Hey, you will not only tolerate these people; you will celebrate, enjoy and promote this lifestyle. And even though you're one of those freaks who is not into your own gender, that's okay. We'll tolerate you, too.'"
The school officials' complicity with homosexual activists in hanging the "Gay people" posters at Troy High is only part of "just an absolutely terrible thing that they're doing with young children today," Cruz asserts. He says if the school were not promoting the homosexual agenda, surely it would not be allowing a pro-homosexual group from another city to place posters on its campus.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
