Philadelphia schools promote 'gay' agenda

Philadelphia schools promote 'gay' agenda
District threatens truancy charges against parents who keep kids home

The Philadelphia School District has launched a new advance in the battle to indoctrinate school children into the "gay" agenda with its announcement that October is "Gay and Lesbian History Month."

And a report on Family News in Focus said officials there will make sure parents relinquish their children for that "education."

"If there is a parent who wants to remove their child from school," district spokesman Fernando Gallard told the report, "they would have to deal with the truancy regulations."

His comments came after a number of protests erupted over the school system's formalization of its "gay" agenda recognition.

The district reports that it already has had about 120 complaints about the recognition, even though Gallard explained there are no special activities associated with the formal recognition.

One of those complaints was from a parent who said she would keep her child home for the month, and that prompted Gallard's threat.

School officials say they added the recognition this year "to be more inclusive" and follow a district policy requiring equity for all races and minority groups, according to Cecilia Cummings, a school community relations executive.

However, of the many minorities available for recognition, the only other groups receiving that are the Hispanic Heritage in September, African American in February and Asian Pacific American in May, officials confirmed, all three racial minorities.

"We knew that this would be controversial," Cummings told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "When you deal with diversity, there are some hot-button issues that emerge."

Parent Senita Watson took it a step further than many, traveling to school district headquarters to see about arrangements for her to homeschool her daughter for October.

"How can you celebrate gay and lesbian month? What are you going to teach my daughter," she demanded. She also called on other parents to boycott the district.

Leaders within the "gay" movement have praised the school district's decision to promote, at its own expense, their goals. A "gay" newspaper Philadelphia used the school district's announcement for a promotion, asking a survey question on its website about whether schools should be teaching "gay" perspectives.

They already are, according to Alberta Wilson, of Faith First Education Assistant Corp. She told Family News in Focus that even elementary school phonics cards have been through the "'gay" editing process.

"They're teaching three syllable words, the word 'fam-i-ly,'" she told Focus. "And on those phonics cards they have a mom and a dad, an elderly grandparent and grandfather raising children, and then they have two men and two women," she said.

"They are teaching our young children that this is acceptable and that they should tolerate it. It is an outrage; it's against God, and God is not pleased."

One e-mail about the situation gave rise to a new perspective on the issue.

"Whatever happened to the separation of church and the state, that liberals keep harping about? Everyone knows, or should know that homosexuality is one of the tenets of the church of the devil. So, why is it that the devil's tenets can be espoused in school, but not the word of God?"

"Besides, is there a month for heterosexuality?"

Cummings said school officials have heard such questions over and over, but the district hasn't made plans for any such balancing recognition.

And Peter LaBarbera, president of the conservative Americans for Truth, told Baptist Press in promoting homosexual rights "by definition you have to undermine people's religious rights and religious beliefs.

"If you have a gay history month, you're basically saying, 'This is a wonderful part of American history – homosexual history – let's celebrate it and let's teach the kids that this is like civil rights.' Are they going to teach the role that homosexual behavior had in the onset of HIV and AIDS?"