By Linda Harvey
Perhaps you've heard, as I have, that our country is in a fiscal crisis. That wasteful spending needs to stop – at least, a few Republicans are saying that. Well, you wouldn't know Uncle Sam had any financial woes with the recent news from the Centers for Disease Control. It's one more example of the questionable priorities in Washington.
GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, proudly announced it has received a five-year grant from the CDC to establish "safe zones" in 20 schools nationwide. The group will receive $285,000 a year for five years, with the project to be launched this school year, 2011-2012.
GLSEN says this project will:
"…. increase the percentage of schools that identify and maintain 'safe spaces' for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. During the five-year project, GLSEN will partner with 20 targeted school districts across the country, including the 16 DASH-funded districts … [and will]establish sustainable safe space infrastructure by creating internal Implementation Team[s]. …"
How will this benefit students, in the view of GLSEN? "By supporting the creation of truly safe spaces where they can receive support from administrators, teachers or other school staff."
Just to explain, a so-called "safe space" is a classroom, counseling office or club area where homosexuality is always given a flashing green light. Students are told there that homosexual, bisexual and cross-dressing behaviors are good and wonderful things and that anyone who says otherwise is a person who probably "hates" them and poses a threat to their safety.
Kids are therefore "safe" if they are prevented from hearing traditional sexual morality and accurate information about the risks and downsides of homosexuality. They are also "safe" if they never learn about the well-documented option of leaving same-sex attractions and behavior behind. And certainly no religious information, which is the biggest danger of all!
For these kids, an unobstructed road into the "gay" lifestyle is "safety."
The 16 DASH funded districts where GLSEN is projected to implement this high-risk program are: Baltimore, Broward County (Fla.), Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami-Dade County, New York City, Newark (N.J.), Orange County (Fla.), Palm Beach County (Fla.), Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. There are four other districts, as yet unknown.
It's not certain whether this will involve elementary schools as well as high schools and middle schools. GLSEN believes openly expressed homosexuality and gender change are fine even at the grade-school level, among students as well as teachers.
This grant comes through the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, DASH. Apparently, these 16 school districts are evaluated on a whole range of federally developed guidelines, including such politically correct measures as whether they provide "services for gay, lesbian or bisexual students," or whether they have staff training programs for "gay, lesbian and bisexual" issues. This is where GLSEN will plug in, convincing nurses, teachers and school counselors to bless this deviant behavior and to never, ever warn kids against it.
GLSEN's idea of "safe," by the way, means students receive all this sketchy advice "confidentially" – i.e., without parental knowledge or permission.
How sad for these poor children who desperately need facts and sound guidance! And all courtesy of you and me, the taxpayers.
This grant seeks to establish in school policy the myth that there is an inborn "gay, lesbian or bisexual" human identity, but it's not true. There's only behavior, which God has told us is an abomination. By labeling kids with this "sin" identity, adults who should be caring and wise will instead encourage children to sin. It's essentially child corruption. But the bad news doesn't end there.
Another CDC grant was given recently, also for $285,000 a year, to a group called the GSA Network in California. This group is an alliance of hundreds of homosexual school clubs in that state and was formerly the California chapter of GLSEN, now spun off as an independent group. It seems likely this group will be coordinating efforts with GLSEN.
The project received enthusiastic endorsement from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She said: "By providing resources and people ready to help, the GSA Network is building a better tomorrow, filled with the promise of hope, acceptance and progress for all."
Nancy is always right there, 180 degrees from where she should be. Any truly informed adult, not to mention congressional representative, should be calling for hearings on the probable child abuse and victimization that will result from both these grants.
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Just a reminder of what we are actually talking about: 13-year-old boys ( or even younger children) being told anal sex together is their right, something they were born to do, which can be practiced safely.
Let's recall that GLSEN is the group that just a few months ago was caught in a scandal regarding the Facebook page for its "GSAs" (gay straight alliances, its term for homosexual school clubs). The page linked to numerous explicit homosexual sex hook-up sites, some featuring what appeared to be middle-school-age boys. GLSEN removed the page within four hours of the revelation by a pro-family group, but anticipating this, a screen shot had been preserved.
GLSEN was founded by Kevin Jennings, the highly controversial "safe schools" czar who resigned recently after two years of publicity by Christian groups and a letter signed by 53 members of Congress revealing his sleazy and child-endangering track record.
Jennings and GLSEN are also known for the explicit, highly inappropriate reading recommendations listed for many years on its "Book Link" site. Among the books GLSEN thought were excellent selections was the graphic "Rainbow Boys," where a teen has homosexual sex on his first "date" with an adult male he contacts over the Internet. Also, "Queer 13" describes a 13-year-old boy's anonymous sexual bathroom encounter with an adult man, leaving the impression this is just a typical coming-of-age incident.
And in "Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian," a 15-year-old who has a homosexual father describes in glowing terms his "wild" sexual encounter with an adult male friend of his dad's. In another chapter, two 10-year-old boys have explicit homosexual sex.
So "safe" spaces? Would any truly caring parent ever in a million years consider this behavior "safe"? This is routine for GLSEN, however. And now taxpayers are funding it.
What's next, off-setting the national debt by selling our children into prostitution?
Linda Harvey is president of Mission America and a radio talk-show host on Salem affiliate WRFD in Columbus, Ohio.