THE SORRY LEGACY OF "ALWAYS OUR CHILDREN" by Gary Morella
cannot express in words the incalculable damage done to the cause of the
Truth (a Person - Jesus Christ, not a thing), by the issuance of the extremely
flawed letter from a committee of bishops of the NCCB entitled "Always Our
Children."
The open letter below to the State College Pennsylvania School Board speaks for
itself. Mr. John Bell is a local homosexual activist. Mr. David Brown is a
clinical psychologist, who in his comments to the Board, offered to supply
them with a copy of the "encyclical" 'Always Our Children', (his words) to
give them the "spiritual" evidence, as he put it, for legitimizing
homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle in our public schools.
Brown proceeded to tell the School Board that he was "appalled" that the
District had originally excluded nationally known militant homosexual speakers
from Penn State from making presentations to our teachers at an in-service in
January. The District had previously made this decision after complaints from
the State College Citizens for Excellence in Education (SCCEE), a group of
parents concerned with the usurpation of their rights by the public schools and
a voice for traditional Judeo/Christian values. Brown called these speakers
"responsible and very conscientious" - the same speakers who are on record as
promoting homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle and who are either
homosexuals themselves or homosexual advocates. One of which is primarily
responsible for sponsoring homosexual seminars at Penn State calling for the
recognition of homosexuality in our children at the earliest of ages. Brown
called it a "travesty of diversity" that the homosexual question be excluded
from a diversity seminar. He made the claim that the suffering of homosexual
children is primarily because of the insensitivity toward them by the comments
of an "ill-informed" public totally ignoring the evidence of Dr. Jeffrey
Santinover in HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE POLITICS OF TRUTH.
Santinover showed that, in spite of the superficial plausibility of the
activists repeated claims, "NO studies support the hypothesis that the social
disapproval of homosexuality causes any of the high levels of internal
distress in homosexuals - even long before AIDS." In his book, Santinover
clearly exposes the circular arguments and self-serving explanations for
homosexual distress. Santinover is a M.D. and has practiced psychoanalysis and
psychiatry for more than nineteen years. He is a former Fellow in Psychiatry
and Child Psychiatry at Yale University and a past president of the C.G. Jung
Foundation. He holds degrees from MIT, the University of Texas, and Harvard
University.
Brown went out of his way to state that "he used to be professionally involved
in the practice of Christian theology and the ministry of it" and that "he was
a Christian" and, as such, was appalled at the decision of the district to
disinvite militant homosexual activists to speak to our teachers. He implied
that it wasn't the Christian message to hate people which he inferred were the
reasons for the objections to the homosexual activists speaking to the
teachers - the typical "homophobic" straw man used to marginalize any who would
disagree as uncharitable and/or insensitive. I agree. That has never been the
message conveyed to the School District by Christians. They are concerned with
judging actions, not people. In particular, they are concerned with the
proliferation of lies about homosexuality as a normal, alternative lifestyle
which is the message sent by the District when they choose to include same in
the civil rights sense of skin color or ethnicity. Not only did he say that
he was appalled, Brown stated that "Jesus Christ would be appalled" if
homosexuality was not included on the teacher in-service menu.
Brown wasn't finished yet. He made one final appearance before the Board and
told them "that if anyone (on the Board) needed spiritual comfort, I would
encourage you to read the recent encyclical of the American Council of Catholic
Bishops and I think that you would all feel very encouraged with your vote
because of that document. I would be happy to supply each and every one of you
a copy of that pastoral letter if anyone wants to read it."
Thanks in no small part to the testimony of a litany of homosexuals and
homosexual advocates at a hastily called meeting of the School Board on Monday,
December 15, especially the testimony of Mr. David Brown, the School Board by a
8-1 vote saw fit to reverse the earlier decision of the District and reinvite
the militant homosexual activists thereby given them a forum for the
propagandizing of sexual perversion as an alternative lifestyle.
Upon being confronted concerning the outrageous nature of his comments speaking
for Roman Catholicism by my wife and a friend, Brown told them "you make me
ashamed to be Catholic."
I submit that, in the light of his comments to the State College Area School
Board, Mr. David Brown has a lot to be ashamed of but being Catholic is not one
of them. He would be easily acquitted in a court of law on any charges of
being a "C"atholic. The problem is that, given the woeful state of Catholic
catechesis to include sermonettes served up as homilies, the David Browns of
this world could care less. Brown and his kind would be better advised to be
concerned about a more final acquittal of the above charge with eternal
convictions.
I believe that the universally recognized extremely flawed nature of "Always
Our Children," in particular, its increasing usage as THE main tool for
homosexual activists to gain sympathy for the cause of legitimizing sexual
perversion as a civil right demands its immediate rescindment or modification
to absolutely insure that no ambiguity whatsoever remains between it and the
teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.
The silence of our shepherds cries out to Heaven for judgment per Matthew 18:6.
Gary L. Morella
Associate, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
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Gary L. Morella
P.O. Box 719
Lemont, PA 16851
December 18, 1997
An Open Letter to the State College Area School Board
I am a resident of the SCASD and have two sons who are graduates - Craig, who
was employed as a parking enforcement officer for the State College Borough and
who will be attending the Kentucky State Police Academy in January, and Kevin,
who works as an assistant manager for a produce company in Portland Oregon.
I deeply regret the SCASD Board's decision to override the recommendations of
the SCASD Diversity Committee to exclude two programs on homosexual issues at a
January diversity workshop for district employees.
This vote by the School Board cowered to an agenda of an extreme radical group
and, as such, does not come close to representing a clear majority of the
members of the school district. More to the point, it is a vote which does not
follow the primary safe secure learning environment guidelines of the
District's strategic plans.
If the Board was genuinely concerned about the children of the District, they
would not allow the legitimization of the homosexual lifestyle by including
homosexuality as a diversity concern in a civil rights sense. Homosexuality is
a behavior which has been proven changeable, not skin color or ethnicity which
isn't. There is NO definitive evidence to date that anything resembling
"homosexual orientation" exists. That phrase is an invention of homosexual
activists who use the media to further their cause by evolving sexual
perversion to sexual deviation to sexual preference to sexual orientation. To
compound this error, the Board saw no problem whatsoever in inviting militant
homosexual activists to conduct these "diversity" sessions. Could the District
expect no bias from these people? Are there any scheduled speakers who will be
addressing the dangers of living a homosexual lifestyle given the high
correlation of same with HIV/AIDS, pedophilia, Hepatitis A and B, gonorrhea to
name but a few of the consequences.
To encourage teachers that children should "adjust to a lifestyle many don't
accept," the reported proposal by Anthony D'Augelli, one of the invited
presenters to a teacher in-service in January, totally ignores the very good
reasons for nonacceptance - life and death.
By mandating that all employees of the SCASD attend such a problematic
in-service, the School Board runs the very real risk of inviting litigation by
those employees who, in good conscience regarding the tenets of their Faith,
cannot hold to the positions presented by the invitees which are anathema to
their beliefs.
In effect, this is exactly what would happen to said employees because by
legitimizing homosexuality as a diversity concern, it defacto becomes "correct"
behavior in the eyes of the state while abhorrent from a Faith standpoint.
This is a violation of the employee's constitutional rights. Moreover, it
becomes coercion and a violation of separation of church and state by the
state's own definition. The School Board in fact has forced the state to become
embroiled in an unresolvable controversy. There is no civil right to sexual
perversion. The attempted hijacking of the civil rights movement by homosexual
activists has been condemned by many civil rights leaders to include most
recently the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All of the open forums
called for by homosexual activists aren't going to change those facts one iota.
Such requests are nothing more than a call to dialogue ad nauseam by a radical
fringe whose positions are rationally untenable.
I would like to address some of the blatantly erroneous statements made at the
recent School Board meeting which I was unable to attend because of illness.
Mr. John Bell, local homosexual activist, invoked the well known mantra of the
homosexual rights movement that 10% of the population is "gay". (I refuse to
use the jargon of the militant activists as there is nothing "gay" about sexual
perversion.) These claims have been totally refuted by an examination of their
genesis which can invariably be traced back to the criminally fraudulent
studies of Alfred Kinsey and associates who used prison populations comprised
of known homosexuals, many of whom were pedophiles as there is a direct
correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia, to inflate their statistical
claims. Kinsey's research is currently being examined by congressional
investigators as to charges of sexual abuse of young children. As an aside, an
entire sex-ed industry, alive and well in our schools today, was built on
Kinsey's lies.
Clinical psychologist David Brown left you with the impression that the Roman
Catholic Church somehow changed its position on homosexuality via what he
called the "encyclical, pastoral, Always Our Children" which he implied was a
dogmatic document of the Catholic bishops. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Brown was wrong on ALL counts. This document was not an encyclical.
Encyclicals come from popes. It was not, technically, a bishops pastoral.
Pastorals in that sense speak for the entire body of Catholic bishops which
the document, as was recently clarified at the most recent meeting of the
National Council of Catholic Bishops, doesn't. It most certainly was not
dogmatic by its own admission. As it turns out, "Always Our Children", was
nothing more than a very problematic letter issued by a small committee of
bishops on the reported questionable advice of homosexual advocates within the
clergy, many of whom are well-known dissenters from Roman Catholic doctrine
and, as such, their orthodoxy and that of the document is open to question.
In particular, the advice to parents by the authors as to letting any
homosexual tendencies on the part of their children go unquestioned. This
bogus charge to parents has been condemned by Catholic authorities, clergy and
laity alike worldwide, especially by Father John A. Harvey, the founder of
COURAGE, a Catholic ministry to homosexuals with the emphasis and proven
success on "leaving" as opposed to "living" the lifestyle - something
homosexual advocates like Anthony D'Augelli and Sue Rankin of Penn
State don't want the public to know. (I challenge you to find in any of their
writings, speeches or presentations to date where the success of COURAGE and
EXODUS, the Protestant counterpart, are reported.) This fact has been
universally recognized and reported throughout the Catholic world. For Brown
to convey otherwise is a gross misrepresentation of what Catholic teaching is.
As an Associate of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars I feel obliged to
correct Brown's misstatements and formally define what the Catholic Church's
position is on homosexuality as referenced in paragraphs 2357-2359 of the
recently released Latin version of THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, the
OFFICIAL statement of the Church's teaching Magisterium in accord with the
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph
Cardinal Ratzinger's pastoral to the worlds bishops on the care of the
homosexual person. The invariant Catholic Church position on homosexuality
follows.
"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience
an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex
... Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts
of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are
intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close
the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine
affective and sexual complementarity. Under NO circumstances can they be
approved. [CCC]
"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it
is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and
thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. [CCC]
"Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward
those who have this condition lest they be led to believe that the living out
of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. Is
is NOT." [Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith]
I and a large number of the taxpaying constituents of the SCASD cannot believe
that our experienced and sensitive teachers need an in-service presented by
militant homosexual activists who encourage sexual perversion as a "civil
right" to tell them how to treat the "alleged" abuse of what is, I maintain, a
grossly exaggerated "homosexual" population in our schools. You are treading
on very thin ice as by openly taking a position of acceptance of homosexuality
as an alternative lifestyle, you are polarizing this district by offending
people whose beliefs hold that position in anathema. This is a foolish and
needless stand on your part as the correct position of the state in such
matters is one of strict neutrality as opposed to your defacto advocacy.
It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of
violent malice in speech or action. Such treatment deserves condemnation
wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers
the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity
of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law. But the
proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to
claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is
made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil
legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any
conceivable right, society at large should not be surprised when other
distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent actions
increase.
Sincerely,
Gary L. Morella
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The editor of the local liberal tabloid VOICES, Wilson Hutton, put his unique
spin on the recent State College Area School District (SCASD) Board meeting
where a decision was made to allow militant homosexual activists to make
presentations to all faculty and staff of the district at an in-service in
January.
Hutton tells us that this "Decision was not about a gay agenda." I'm not sure
what meeting Hutton was referring to but it wasn't the School Board meeting my
wife attended and which I watched on the local issues cable TV network. (I
could not be at the meeting because of illness.) What we saw were two
homosexuals, a member of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and a
psychologist who presumed to speak for Roman Catholicism - all of whom using
the worn out cliches justifying the acceptance of what has, is, and will be
recognized as "perversity" as opposed to "diversity." The lie that 10% of the
population is homosexual, based on the criminally fraudulent research of Alfred
Kinsey surfaced at this meeting with an activist providing materials to the
Board. Also, the usual tactic of calling for dialogue when your position is
rationally untenable was observed. And Hutton tells us that there was "no gay
agenda."
As Catholics we want to make it clear that the Church holds that "homosexual
acts are acts of 'grave depravity' and 'intrinsically' disordered, contrary to
the natural law. They do not proceed from a genuine and affective sexual
complementarity. Under NO circumstances can they be approved. The homosexual
inclination is a more or less strong tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil;
and thus must be seen as an objective disorder." No document, universally
criticized by Catholic sources as an extremely flawed letter originating from a
small committee comprised of some well known dissident bishops, supersedes the
aforementioned invariant Catholic dogma. In particular, any references to
letting homosexual tendencies in youth go unquestioned has been resoundingly
condemned by Catholic authorities, clergy and laity alike, especially those
directly involved in homosexual ministries where the success of "leaving" not
"living" the homosexual lifestyle is THE Catholic message. Moreover, it was
made clear that the letter in question in no way speaks for the entire body of
Catholic bishops and is, in fact, not a pastoral at all by the admission of one
of the principal sponsors.
The Catholic Church calls all to chastity, regardless of their station in life
and recognizes that we're all created heterosexual with homosexuality being an
aberration of same. Sexuality in the Church's context is a gift from God with
the sexual act reserved for monogamous Marriage which the Church reveres as a
Holy Sacrament. Thus, in no way does the Church single out those heterosexuals
with homosexual tendencies in its universal call to chastity. The Church is
interested in genuine compassion for those with special crosses to carry, not
the pseudo-compassion associated only with worldly matters. It understands
the special Grace of the salvific view of suffering and the privilege of being
able to unite one's crosses with that of Christ. The Church never loses sight
of the reason for our creation, to show forth God's goodness, to know, love,
and serve Him and to share with Him everlasting happiness in Heaven.
The message from Hutton, whose paper unashamedly proclaims the virtues of
living the homosexual lifestyle as an alternative in an affirmative action
civil rights sense, is standard PC fare - tolerance for all with one BIG
exception - those who have the audacity to disagree with him. We will let the
facts speak for themselves.
It is unconscionable that our School Board violated their own "safe secure
learning environment" guidelines in allowing the legitimizing of the homosexual
lifestyle as a cause for diversity training. What about the danger of
HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis A and B, the high correlation of homosexuality with
pedophilia, a fact recognized in the homosexual literature? The main reservoir
for HIV/AIDS remains within the homosexual community in the developed countries
with the proliferation of same in the third world primarily due to the
intersection of various subgroups to include homosexuals - documented in
objective compared to homosexual agitprop research.
Hutton tells us that a university (Penn State) vice provost attended this
meeting as if, somehow, whatever Penn State says, is the "law of the land." It
should be common knowledge by now that Penn State through the Vice Provost
Office of Educational Equity, an office which will be supplying one of the
speakers - avowed lesbian Sue Rankin, blatantly promotes the homosexual
lifestyle. What's interesting is how Penn State gets away with this "moral
murder" at taxpayer expense. Penn State, in effect, is promoting a state
religion, secular humanism - recognized as such in a court case. How can Penn
State do this and not promote any other?
What we find tragic in all of this is that the cure for HIV/AIDS along with any
number of other social ills with fatal physical consequences is well known but
totally ignored. We're referring explicitly to following a "strong moral
compass." It is ironic that the people who dare to tell the truth out of a
genuine sense of love, who truly care for those with homosexual tendencies are
the very ones that group and their advocates vilify the most. You don't need
to be a believer to see this. All that you have to do is check the death
counts in the news. We value our youth enough to tell them a truth that they
will never get from all of the world lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered and
AIDS Projects organizations combined. They certainly are not getting it from
universities like Penn State where truth is "relative."
We will not be marginalized by bogus charges of insensitivity, hate and fear
from the left. Neither will we be intimidated. It's high time that towns like
State College, PA wake up and see how morality has been hijacked by an amoral
PC movement that plays by its own rules. There are parents out there who know
the answer to a familiar question recently posed by a SCASD administrator,
"what is truth?" And we're not about to let those who don't or won't
acknowledge that answer foist their agendas on us.
Gary L. Morella
Margaret Morella
Lemont, PA