Teacher: NEA Uses School Safety Rhetoric to Push Homosexual Agenda
by Jim Brown, Bill Fancher, and Jenni Parker
December 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A former chairman of the National Education Association's Ex-Gay Educators Caucus says the NEA is engaging in a "big misinformation campaign" with the goal of changing public opinion on homosexuality, starting with the youngest generation.
The NEA has unveiled a new web page [Caution: This page contains pro-homosexual material] on "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students," stating that the educators' union is "committed" to fighting harassment, bullying, and discrimination aimed at those students. The page cites statistics from a study published by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, and even provides a link to an interview with that group's founder, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings.
Conservative critics of Jennings have blasted him for promoting what they see as radical pro-homosexual policies and ideas. Culture and media critic Bob Knight of the Media Research Center calls the GLSEN founder a "very controversial" figure, one "who has covered up an incident of molestation [of a 15-year-old boy by a homosexual man], who presided over a session in Massachusetts in which kids as young as 14 were exposed to graphic descriptions of homosexual sex acts," and who has said he wants children, even kindergartners, to be acquainted with homosexuality.
The NEA's web page on GLBT students provides a link to an NEA Today article and interview with Jennings called "Safe Schools for Everyone." In it, the homosexual activist advocates teachers helping to combat the problem of harassment faced by GLBT students -- by working "to create a classroom culture of respect and acceptance from day one."
California teacher Jeralee Smith, who founded the NEA's Conservative Educator Caucus and formerly chaired the union's Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, says the new web page on GLBT students is all part of the union's ongoing agenda to legitimize homosexuality. However, she says she hopes this latest move by the national organization will finally open the eyes of some of its members.
"Maybe, finally," Smith comments, "some of the conservative and Christian teachers and other faiths who take issue with children being urged to adopt a gay identity" will recognize the NEA's pro-homosexual agenda for what it is. "Maybe, finally, some of these people will really believe that this is what their dues money is going for," she says.
Is the NEA Helping to Spread GLSEN Misinformation?
In July, at the NEA's annual convention, the educators union voted overwhelmingly to endorse legal same-sex civil unions and same-sex "marriages." And now, with its new web page on GLBT students, Smith feels the NEA is using misinformation in an effort to change public attitudes toward homosexuality, and she suspects the union's embrace of GLSEN's "safe schools" rhetoric is little more than a smokescreen for its support for and collaboration with the activist organization's agenda.
According to GLSEN's 2005 National School Climate Survey, homosexual students were five times more likely than the general population of students to report having skipped school in the last month because of safety concerns and were twice as likely as the general population of students to report having no plans to pursue any post-secondary education. The survey also found homosexual students who reported experiencing harassment had an average grade point average a half point lower than that of homosexual students who were not harassed.
Jennings, as quoted in NEA Today, says the "safe schools" initiative is "not about how you feel about gay people, it's about making sure all of our students achieve.' However, Smith believes the NEA's and GLSEN's special emphasis on GLBT youth is telling. She says the NEA has no business encouraging students to adopt a homosexual identity, and the organization needs to recognize that all students are equally deserving of a safe learning environment.
"Children -- by children, I mean anyone younger than 18 -- need to all be protected from any kind of harassment at school," the California teacher insists. "I teach physically handicapped children," she notes; "my kids look different from everyone else in very obvious ways, and kids like mine are much more likely to get bullied and harassed at school."
Also telling, Smith suggests, is which data the National Education Association chooses to report about GLBT students, and what it chooses to omit. She notes, for instance, that the NEA's new web page does not provide statistics about the many young people who have had same-sex sexual encounters in the past but have since abandoned such behavior.
