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Virginia pro-family group sounds warning about 'liberal' state educators

An email message from the Virginia Education Association (VEA) reportedly alerts its members to a new concerted partnership with the state's largest homosexual rights lobby to add "sexual orientation" to Virginia's official non-discrimination and employment policies.

A notice from the state's largest pro-family coalition, the Family Foundation of Virginia, says the subject of the recently sent email alert informs recipients of a new resolution -- NBI 31 -- passed at the VEA's yearly convention this past spring. NBI 31 involves joining with the homosexual lobby organization Equality Virginia on the new policy implementation. The Foundation says the email alert also encourages readers to use the activist website to lobby legislators on the issue.

Family Foundation spokesman Chris Freund says it is not completely surprising, as he considers the VEA -- the Virginia arm of the liberal National Education Association -- as having taken positions for many years that were outside the mainstream of most teachers and other Virginians on issues of homosexuality and abortion.

He offers as an example their effort to repeal the state's ban on civil unions as one of their top ten legislative priorities for 2005.

"But it's been, for the most part, behind the scenes -- and this is just a new level of a more public notice that they're going to lock arms with homosexual rights activists in Virginia on this issue," says the Foundation spokesman.

Freund says because of that, teachers in the Old Dominion State need to know about alternative professional support organizations to the VEA -- such as the Virginia Professional Educators, which offers the same legal and benefit protections but does not support radical political agendas.