What part should schools play in the personal development of our children? Most parents naturally expect teachers and administrative staff to assist their children in learning important skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic, but we now know a child’s development goes far beyond the basics at school.
Upon closer inspection, most parents recognize that schools often teach children additional skills, such as how to interact with others, follow rules, think critically, and in many cases, develop career aspirations for what their Mom’s and Dad’s hope will be a bright and happy future. All this instruction is positive and benefits our children. However, there is more still that students will learn.
If we pull out the microscope of reality and aim it at the classrooms of America, we will see that teachers and school staff are now modeling and teaching ethical and moral values to our children as well. Teachers model ethical values they support and then hold them up as important, as well as the social issues they talk about and those they withhold from classroom discussion. So while parents should hold the dominant role and have the right and responsibility for their children’s upbringing, when students are in school, they are greatly influenced by what happens in the classroom and all other aspects of daily school life.
With the amount of influence that teachers and school staff have on today’s children, is the school setting the proper place for exposing kids to the modern liberal’s pro-homosexual agenda? Should sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and all their expressions be placed front and center and included within the learning scheme of anti-discrimination discussions?
Well, liberals within the Topeka, Kansas Unified School District 501 have decided that sexual practices, including those considered deviant by the overwhelming majority of Americans, should be part of each Kansas student’s educational experience. The Topeka School Board’s 6-1 vote to add sexual orientation, gender identity and its expression to its anti-discrimination policy does much more than simply make an attempt to dissuade bullying. It validates the activities. Their policy change makes a public statement that homosexuality and transgender activity is part of the same immutable qualities as those that define a person as being short or having black skin. I, for one, believe homosexuality and gender identity are life choices. The Judeo-Christian foundational belief system was for much of America’s history a common standard within academia.
From the lips of these Topeka School Board members, it is clear that they actually believe that introducing deviant sexual behavior to their list of actions protected by school policy is an act of compassion instead an act of academic debauchery. In the Topeka-Capital Journal District Attorney Cindy Kelly says recommendations for this policy change came from information obtained from the Board of Education that stated that bullying due to sexual orientation and gender identity are on the rise. Kelly supplies no statistics or percentages to quantify her statements of this specific “rise” in bullying. If the claims of bullying in Kansas schools based on sexual orientation and gender identity have the same credibility as the assertions already submitted in attempts to garner support for radical alterations in the anti-discrimination ordinances in Manhattan and Lawrence, Kansas, then it is likely that actual documented cases of discrimination based on the criteria are almost non-existent.
I would challenge Cindy Kelly to statically show an epidemic of homosexual and gender identity bullying that is taking place in Kansas schools. As reported in the Topeka-Capital Journal, School Board member, Peg McCarthy said, “ The bottom line is that it (the new policy) sends a message that we won’t tolerate bullying or harassment of any kind.” Her statement demonstrates a rather naïve view of reality. Bullying is wrong for any reason, and there is no possible way to list every situation that might spark a bully into action. For the School Board to select deviant sexual behavior and lift it up above the endless list of possible bully triggers makes it special and unique and part of the educational curriculum. Moreover, that choice implies that deviant sexual behavior is okay and indeed socially acceptable within this particular Kansas school district.
Chairwoman Stephanie Mott, formerly Steve Mott, of the Topeka chapter of the Kansas Equality Coalition told the Topeka-Capital Journal that, “Your lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender students are counting on you,” and “You’re telling students that they have a safe place to go to school.” I believe that the Topeka School District is instead creating an environment of moral confusion where more and more students will find themselves falling prey to deviant lifestyles Apparently, the Topeka School Board wishes to make their school district a God-free zone and a morally relativistic environment where sexually deviant behavior is promoted under the guise of protective compassion and made part of the educational process for today’s youth. Parents must now decide if this “lesson” should be taught to their children and if they are willing to accept the long-term consequences of it.
Dr. Paul A. Ibbetson is a former Chief of Police of Cherryvale, Kansas, and member of the Montgomery County Drug Task Force. Paul received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Criminal Justice at Wichita State University, and his PhD. in sociology at Kansas State University. Paul is the author of several books and is also the radio host of the Kansas Broadcasting Association’s 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 award winning, Conscience of Kansas airing across the state.
