The Leftist's "No Child Left Behind" Act
A recent press release from the National Non-Sectarian Council of Pro-Family Activists addressed New York's pro-gay "Dignity for All Students Act," officially known as State Assembly Bill A1118. According to Council director David Eidensohn, the proposed bill would have far-reaching effects.
The bill, if enacted, would place into New York schools state issued teaching materials (including textbooks) that would present such things as homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal, acceptable behavior. It would also label those who disagree with this opinion as bigoted and intolerant.
And not only would pubic schools be affected; this material would also be required teaching in the state's religious schools, conflicting with the moral and theological doctrines taught in Jewish and Christian parochial schools.
"The Bill is called 'Dignity for All Students' but does not teach dignity for religious students," said Eidensohn, who is a rabbi. He maintained that the bill would "replace discrimination against gays with discrimination against biblical and traditional family people."
The bill itself is in five sections, the ones of interest to the Council being sections two and three. Section two, which adds text to a previously enacted gay rights bill, contains an exemption for religious schools, while section three does not.
The urgency, according to Rabbi Eidensohn, is due to the fact that section three includes the requirement for all schools in New York State to teach "civility" in terms of gay rights and respecting cross dressers. With religious schools not exempt from the requirement, any parochial institution that chose not to teach the pro-homosexual, pro-transvestite material, would be violating the law.
Furthermore, parents whose children attend a school deemed in violation of the law could be arrested for encouraging truancy. As even the bill's sponsors admit that the vaguely worded religious exemptions would not survive a court challenge and, so are essentially useless, the dilemma for schools and parents is obvious.
"The...traditional family community is hiding its head in [the] sand," said Rabbi Eidensohn. "Surely, people think, this can't be for real. Nobody is going to demonize or criminalize [the] traditional family... but this is exactly what gay rights bills are doing. The gay lobby thrives," he continued "on the ignorance of the masses."
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