Another Threat: Home Ec.

A quick glance at this message board suggests that clearly, this forum has touched a nerve. Angry people are talking, and finally their voices are being heard.

So I figure that, while some ears are bent, we might as well throw some other issues on the table. It's time we take a lot at some of the other insidious ways that Montgomery County Schools are pushing their gay agenda (or "gaygenda," as I sometimes call it):

1) "Home Economics" class. I took this class at Walt Whitman in the fall of 1991. In it, every young person was taught simple sewing and basic cooking. I know what you're saying right about now: "Back up, Ben -- EVERY young person?!" That's right folks, EVERY young person: both female and male. Now, honestly, what is the point of teaching young men about what goes on within the private world of women? I have a few thoughts about the ideas they were pushing on us, and they don't involve "making doilies" or "baking meatloaf" (or maybe they do, in the event that those terms happen to coincidentally be some kind of "gay slang.") The real kicker is that this class was REQUIRED. I don't remember Whitman making the girls take auto maintenance class, or Monday Night Football class (you know, it just dawned on me, look who our school was named after!? A poet?! They might as well have called it "Ballerina Unicorn Pony Pink Frilly Sundress School.").

My point with all of this is that you need to dig deeper... the gaygenda is being sold in far more subtle and insidious ways in public schools these days.

We need fewer schools named after poets (have you READ this Whitman character? The guy's queerer than a fruitpunch waterfall!), and more named after NASCAR drivers.

We need fewer classes about baking, and more about true American freedom.

In closing, We need less Home Ec. and more "Homo? Ick!"

Laura writes:

growing tired

You know, I shouldn't involve myself in this exchange but I am growing tired of you new hobby Brian, chasing people all over this website and insulting them, but it is so typical of people like you, liberal professors who have no tolerance for others who have different points of view from your own. You crack me up with how you always want to psychoanalyze exactly what twisted version of reality is REALLY on the minds of people like Kathleen that you insist on insulting. You intentionally misunderstand 98% of the people leaving messages on this website. Most of us are well educated, well informed, very tolerant and very loving and involved parents who are tired of the constant assaults on our efforts at parenting our children. There are many things we cannot control in this world but that doesn't mean we must just sit here and take it as people like you and the school board try to tell us how misguided we are and that you and they know better. Maybe when you 'grow up' you will understand what I am talking about, but I do not hold out much hope for you. You have proven in your many elitest posts including the vile ones that were deleted yesterday (yes, I read them) that you are immature and ignorant and have no tolerance or respect for people of faith or anyone who dares object to the agenda that is being put forth. I do feel sorry for you.

Blicero responds:

"Under Assault"?

Laura, a very nice piece of disingenuousness.

We live in a culture in which our children are constantly under assault from forces--namely commercial and corporate entities who act only upon greed--bent on turning our children into overstimulated, underchallenged, hyperconformist demographics: in other words, consumers of crap, and nothing else.

However, your children are not "under assault" from teachers simply doing their job: imparting the information that gay people exist, and are to be respected like any other people; and that condoms prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Now, if your gay child were to be harrassed, verbally abused, ostracized, discriminated-against, or physically attacked: THAT would be an "assault" on your child. If your child were to contract HIV or herpes, THAT would be an assault on your child. Trust me: if your child had unsafe sex because he/she hadn't received the proper information, you would learn the true meaning of an "assault" on your child.

But it is clear from your comments that you are not really concerned with protecting your children from the things which significantly threaten them: you are only interested in conducting a political witch-hunt because it gives you a sense of purpose, imparts the thrill of righteous anger into your otherwise quotidian life--anger directed at a very easy, very wrong target: the school board.

My position is proven by the fact that you have every right to exempt your child from sex-ed should you choose to do so. Keep your children at home that day--or for those few hours--and instruct them according to your values. But that's not enough for you, for the reasons I outlined above.

And please, don't throw around "faith" like it's some kind of ping-pong ball to be swatted around in opinion forums. "Faith" is not just some old item in the rhetorical toolbag. And it should not function as a stand-in for what you really mean, or what you're really trying to articulate. You have yet to demonstrate a) that you have any faith to speak of, or b) that your faith has any connection whatsoever to your crusade in this context.

If you want to talk about faith, we can do so--but what we are talking about now is your fear, the way you've displaced your fear onto gay people and the reality of sex in general, and the way your thinking has been addled by the intoxicating feeling of righteous anger and (misguided) collective purpose.

Now: if you care to respond, see if you can do so without using code-words like "liberal" and "elitist." Not because these terms offend me, but because they've been drained of meaning by overuse and misuse, and because they're not your own words: they've been given to you. See if you can express yourself in your own words. But first think about what you mean.

posted by Blicero : 12/03/2004 02:14:00 PM