Is it really appropriate for elementary schools and their kids to take part in gay Pride parades?
Hey, I'll bet you're a bigot if you even ask the question, wait and see.
Update on Nettelhorst Elementary School and the "Pride" Parade
by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute
On Thursday morning, June 25, three days before the Chicago "pride" parade, I called Nettelhorst Elementary School Principal Cindy Wulbert to ask whether the school was participating in the parade as was reported in the Chicago Tribune. I was told that Principal Wulbert was unavailable and that the school would be participating in the parade.7
I asked the woman I was speaking to whether school time was used to make and/or tie the "thousands" of rainbow-colored fabric strips that the Trib reported were adorning the school fence. She claimed that she didn't know and that when she "arrived at school one day, they were just up."
I left a message asking that the principal return my call.
I called again in the afternoon and was told that Principal Wulbert was still not available and that Nettelhorst was not participating in the parade. The new person told me that there are Nettelhorst parents who are members of the gay and lesbian community and that they would be taking their children to march in the parade. She also informed me that Nettelhorst "does not have any school policy that prevents these parents from identifying the school their children attend." This raises the question, what is the difference between officially participating in the "pride" parade and unofficially participating if anyone can carry signs that say "Nettelhorst Elementary School"?
Since Nettelhorst was purportedly not "officially" participating in the parade, I asked her if the school had removed the sign that the Chicago Trib reported was on the school fence announcing Nettelhorst's participation in the parade. I was told that there was no such sign and never had been, and that the statement in the Trib was "inaccurate."
I then asked this new person, who was giving me remarkably different answers from those that I had been given in the morning, about the fabric strips. Lo and behold, I was again given a different answer. I was told that the thousands of rainbow-colored fabric strips had nothing whatsoever to do with the "pride" parade. I was told that "they're always up." She claimed that the fabric strips represent student wishes, and whenever a student makes a wish, he or she ties a fabric strip on the fence. I wonder why the first woman I spoke to, who I believe was a teacher, didn't seem familiar with this longstanding tradition.
This new version of the story contradicts not just the Chicago Trib story but also the account offered by Darius Kemp on the blog "Not in Our Town":
In May, teachers and parents, both gay and straight, collected ribbons and created a rainbow "Pride Fence" with a sign that read: "Each Nettelhorst student has tied a piece of fabric to the fence as a tangible sign of his or her personal intention to create a better world."
Furthermore, to show children and the neighborhood that fighting intolerance and bullying is not a one-time event, parents and teachers from the school will march in the Chicago Gay Pride Parade to demonstrate their support for inclusion in our schools and in our towns.
I called again on Friday to try to get to the bottom of this very curious story by speaking with Principal Wulbert but was told she would not be in the office until Monday. I then asked the gentleman on the phone if he could answer some questions about Nettelhorst and the "pride" parade. He said that he was "not at liberty to discuss that issue." Apparently, the Nettelhorst administration has as much commitment to transparency as they do to truth.
I left yet another message for Principal Wulbert; I'm still awaiting her call.
I had one last pre-parade hope for clarification: Rex Huppke, the Trib reporter who wrote the story on Nettelhorst.
I called and emailed Mr Huppke, leaving detailed messages about who I am, what Nettelhorst told me, and what my questions were. I'm still awaiting his call also. Mr. Huppke is likely very busy writing yet more glowing, transparently biased stories about the LGBT community, some of which you can read here, here, here and here:
I guess we're all just left to figure out the truth for ourselves. Perhaps this disturbing video provided by Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) can shed some light on the darkness created by the Nettelhorst administration and the homosexual activist organizations that promote the depraved "pride" circus:
Two final thoughts:
The dissembling or outright lying engaged in by Nettelhorst public school employees makes one wonder how people with so little commitment to truth can possibly foster integrity in children.
Pay attention to the Log Cabin Republicans' float in this AFTAH video. The GOP must sever all ties to Log Cabin Republicans. The "big tent" must not become so big that its support structures collapse under the weight of pernicious ideas
illinoisreview.typepad.com
Appropriate for elementary school kids participation?
Chicago gay pride parade glows in its growing acceptance
Gay community's parade celebrates its 40th anniversary
By Rex W. Huppke | Tribune reporter
June 29, 2009
Gay pride marched Sunday in Chicago, noisy and joyous. It was the crash of marching band cymbals, the megaphoned whoops of celebration, the sirens, the car horns and the ground-shaking roar of Harleys straddled by leather-clad women unabashed.
It was smiling faces striped in rainbow colors, sweaty brows turned to face a cool summer breeze, women hand-in-hand, men kissing men, children on the shoulders of straight parents, dazzled by the flags and shimmering floats and dancers that filled North Halsted Street.
Pride was remarkable on Sunday, tens of thousands drawn together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a parade that, when it first happened, was barely a parade at all.
Those in Chicago's first gay pride parade in 1970 were just a bold but loosely organized stream of activists and drag queens who marched the sidewalk along North Halsted Street, shouting and vamping for gay rights.
They did it again the next year and the next. People driving past would gape, a few might cheer from storefronts.
But each year it grew.
Now the parade consumes the street with color and sound. The sidewalk is for spectators, so many that metal barricades are linked together to keep them at bay.
Often lost in the carnival atmosphere is the reason those first women and men stepped out of the closet when it was dangerous to admit you were anything but straight.
The first gay pride parades -- here and across the country -- came the year after the Stonewall riots of 1969, when gays and lesbians stood up to New York City police outside a Greenwich Village bar, birthing the gay rights movement.
Sunday's parade displayed the cumulative impact of that movement. The traditionally flamboyant floats of bare-chested men and near-bare-chested womenwere flanked by floats carrying straight politicians and gay and lesbian police officers, church groups and, for the first time, a coalition of parents -- gay, straight and lesbian -- from a Chicago public school.
The parade now pulls the curtain back on Chicago's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and shows its diversity: Republicans and Democrats; Christians and atheists; buttoned-down businesspeople and outlandish artists.
David Sinski gazed down at the river of humanity on North Halsted Street from the third-floor balcony of the Center on Halsted, a GLBT community center, the very idea of which was once impossible to imagine.
"Twenty years ago, this was a very solitary event," said Sinski, 46. "You'd come along with like-minded people. But now there are so many straight people, politicians, corporations, youth groups. Now there are so many things that just aren't questioned. It's much more of a celebration."
Nettelhorst Elementary School parents marched near the front of the parade, leaving behind a wave of bubbles. One kid-filled wagon was topped with a sign that read: "School is out and so are my dads."
Veterans marched, some in full uniform.
There were straight parents with gay kids and gay parents with straight kids and an undeniable sense that, at least in this swath of Chicago on this day, people could be wholly themselves.
Cynthia Lafuente, embraced by a girlfriend from Texas, felt that way: "We can just be free. No worries, no judgments."
Nikki Carlton came out when she was 16. She's now 52 and drove in from Glen Ellyn not so much to see the floats and dancers but to immerse herself in the spirit of the parade: "This shows there's growing acceptance. I think, over the years, this has widened people's eyes about us. They see us as people, as not threatening. They come here and realize we won't turn them gay."
Over three hours, nearly 240 entrants followed the parade route, cheered on by crowds that clogged sidewalks and jammed the balconies of apartments above. At times multicolored confetti rained down and colorful beads were tossed about and balloons drifted off.
Pride was noisy and joyous on Sunday, messy and unpredictable, colorful and exhausting, 40 years old and going strong.
chicagotribune.com |
