WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE DO WE SEND TO OUR CHILDREN?
by Gary L. Morella
ome questions arise as a result of the draft of the new harassment policy for the State College PA School District (SCASD). These questions are shown in CAPS for clarification purposes per excerpts as reported in the local paper.
This policy is used as an example for the subsequent discussion about similar problems around the country.
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Tuesday, May 25, 1999
Centre Daily Times Online
State College harassment plan in works
STATE COLLEGE -- A draft of a policy that punishes harassment based on sexual orientation and a recommendation against adopting tax reform were two topics the State College Area school board discussed Monday.
THERE IS JUST ONE PROBLEM HERE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "SEXUAL ORIENTATION" IN AN INNATE FINAL SENSE. IT DOESN'T EXIST PER CURRENT RESEARCH. RATHER WE TALK ABOUT HETEROSEXUALS WITH HOMOSEXUAL ATTRACTIONS OR INCLINATIONS. WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE INCLINED TO SADISM, MASOCHISM, AND PEDOPHILIA? THE APA SAYS THAT THESE CONDITIONS ARE NO LONGER DISORDERS IN THEIR CONSTRUCTION OF THE PSYCHOLOGICALLY NORMAL SADIST, MASOCHIST, AND PEDOPHILE. DO THESE INCLINATIONS COME UNDER THE BLANKET OF THIS HARASSMENT POLICY?
The anti-harassment policy is a response to a year-long debate about whether to include "sexual orientation" in a separate non-discrimination policy.
IBID.
The eight-page draft is still a work in progress and is geared mostly at students who are victims, but it's much more specific than the existing sexual harassment policy.
It spells out the types of harassment covered: sexual, racial and color, religious, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or "other" harassment -- including "harassment on the basis of such things as clothing, physical appearance, social skills, peer group, income, intellect, educational program, hobbies or values."
WHAT ABOUT HOBBIES THAT MIGHT INCLUDE MAKING BOMBS? WHAT ABOUT VALUES THAT MIGHT INCLUDE YOUR LIFE ISN'T WORTH LIVING ANYMORE? TRYING TO TALK SOMEONE OUT OF MAKING BOMBS OR TAKING YOUR LIFE WOULD BE CONSIDERED HARASSMENT UNDER THE CURRENT WORDING OF THIS POLICY. THIS IS THE ONLY RESULT POSSIBLE WHEN BEHAVIOR, IN PARTICULAR, ABERRANT BEHAVIOR, IS EQUATED WITH IMMUTABLE NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED BEHAVIOR.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that school districts can be sued under U.S. civil rights law if employees know of sexual harassment between students but do little or nothing about it.
WHAT THE HOMOSEXUAL ADVOCATES ARE DOING HERE IS TO USE THIS SUPREME COURT RULING AS AN OBVIOUS CRUTCH TO FURTHER THEIR AGENDA IN THE SCHOOLS. ONE HAS TO ACCEPT THE BOGUS CONCEPT OF ORIENTATION BEFORE ONE ACCEPTS THE BOGUS CONCEPT THAT THE BEHAVIOR IS NORMAL.
(End of commentary on excerpts from SCASD new harassment policy.)
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At the risk of being characterized as one of those paranoid, homophobic, religiously stupid individuals not agreeing with the promotion of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle, some comments are in order in regard to school districts insisting that "sexual orientation" be included in their harassment policies.
The attempt to protect the sacred cow of "sexual orientation" has resulted in policies which are inclusive in the extreme to the point of making anyone afraid to comment about anything less it be construed as harassment by an easily offended party with litigious aims.
The obvious problem is that school boards would be creating a class of people erroneously characterized as having a "sexual orientation" to homosexuality in an innate final sense when no such class exists per current research coming from organizations like The National Association of Research and Therapy for Homosexuality. NARTH holds that homosexuality, sadism, masochism, and pedophilia are still disorders unlike the American Psychiatric Association.
What you DON'T do is create protected zones of advocacy for aberrant behavior which is what homosexuality is per NARTH and the religious traditions of the vast majority of the world's population.
Someone could easily adhere to values and participate in hobbies which would be detrimental to the common good. You cannot confuse freedom with license in this regard. We are free to do what we ought, not what we want. That should be the credo of any harassment policy for the school district.
The important point here is that you are discouraging not only invidious harassment which all oppose but also good advice which might help students fight inclinations to aberrant behavior.
Inclusive policies if literally implemented result in anarchy since the school finds itself in the position of saying that "anything goes", "I'm OK, you're OK". Is this what school boards call creating safe environment for our students? That's allowing the inmates to run the asylum. How does education result here, by accident? Discipline is one of the highest forms of love. Without it society collapses. It must be encouraged, not discouraged which is what the proposed inclusive harassment policies do.
I would recommend a common sense approach using universally recognized norms for harassment based on natural immutable characteristics, constitutionally protected behavior, and universally recognized norms for acceptable and aberrant behavior. I would ensure that such a policy is enforced in support of beleaguered teachers that have discipline removed from their lexicon as a function of empowering students. Just what are we empowering these students for? To bully their classmates and/or teachers with impunity since anything resembling discipline could be construed as harassment. Who's teaching who here?
You want to know why we have Littleton Colorados? Simple. We've forfeited our responsibilities as parents and educators to ensure that our children and students know the difference between right and wrong and see that there are consequences for their actions. We've told them that "anything goes", and "I'm OK, you're OK".
It's time to get back to the basics of education? That's what our primary focus should be, not indoctrination through social engineering experiments.
The intransigence of school boards in insisting that "sexual orientation" exists polarizes communities. As with all actions there are consequences. Boards will accomplish nothing other than to continue to alienate a large segment of their districts whose support they need if their public schools are to flourish. Evidently, many school boards don't care about that!
Noted Catholic moral theologian, Msgr. William Smith of Saint Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie for the Archdiocese of New York once commented on how "rights talk" and "tolerance" have reached intolerable proportions. He observed that G.K. Chesterton was right to say that tolerance is the only virtue common to those who don't believe in anything. What Msgr. Smith was referring to is directly related to the situation in the public square where many believers are being coerced into supporting laws which their faith holds in anathema. Somehow, this clarion call for unconditional tolerance conveniently excludes those who, for reasons of faith, cannot welcome the sin with the sinner. Moreover, they are certainly not required to do so in any sane reading of Sacred Scripture and Church tradition which does not erase significant portions of same to accommodate the current vices in vogue.
The Church is aware that the view that homosexuality is equivalent to or acceptable as sexual expression of conjugal love in marriage has a direct impact on society's understanding of nature and the rights of the family and it puts them in jeopardy. The Church cannot budge from that position because the promotion of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle is not really a neutral advocacy. The only sexual relationship which enjoys the sanction of civil law in our society is stable marriage and family life. We have no special laws for fornicators. We have no special protected zones of advocacy for adulterers.
What kind of message do we send to children growing up? If we send an ambiguous or ambivalent message, a message that human sexuality whether it's normal or deviant is just like being right or left handed, we are sending a very dangerous message leading to physical as well as spiritual destruction.
Law functions as a teacher as to what we approve and disapprove of in society. Thus, to imply that "sexual orientation" is equated with immutable natural characteristics or constitutionally protected behavior says that being inclined to behavior which is an intrinsic moral evil is OK, and there is nothing wrong with inclinations that are objectively disordered (morally reprehensible).
What we must never lose sight of is that we're talking about a disordered form of behavior to which no one has any conceivable right. If there is no right, there can be no discrimination in regard to opposing this behavior.
The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a "heterosexual" or a "homosexual" and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.
Every parent with an IQ in double figures knows that growing up with extra burdens, extra pains is not good for children. Sending wrong signals in our society will only complicate their lives.
If we can't affirm the normative position of stable, heterosexual marriage and family life of "mother, father, and children," then our society will become a footnote in history like so many others which destroyed themselves from within.
The late Justice Brennan, in order to give benefits to illegitimate children, said that marriage was a legally impermissible category. If you want to give food lunches to illegitimate as well as legitimate kids, there must be some way to do that without coming up with a radical statement like Brennans.
Similarly, if you want to discourage the harassment of students, there is a way to do this without legitimizing objectively disordered inclinations to deviant acts by equating universally recognized normative, immutable natural characteristics and constitutionally protected acts with universally recognized aberrant behavior. This is behavior which has the unanimous condemnation through millennia of religious tradition and Sacred Scripture involving very different contexts but always coming to the same conclusion. The early fathers of the Church are in total agreement with the harmony of the Pauline epistles and Genesis in this matter.
We have to think of family all the time in the promulgation of our laws which are rooted in the natural law which is a participation in the eternal law of God. The Ten Commandments can be considered an early warning system. They are not the ten suggestions. If you obey them, you will flourish; if not, you will participate in your own destruction. Where are the societies that have played fast and loose with the Commandments, stable marriage and family life. I'll tell you where they are, they "USED TO BE."