Originally published May 2014 in WND's Whistleblowermagazine.
Sitting in the Capitol Hill hearing room of the House Judiciary Committee and listening to a Justice Department report from Thomas Perez, former assistant attorney general and right hand of Eric Holder, I was as surprised at the proceedings as some of the congressmen in attendance. Perez, currently President Obama’s newly minted Labor secretary, at that time, June 2011, headed DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. And his report described DOJ efforts to defend a transgender student in a case of supposed “bullying” in New York.
The reaction of Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., to the Perez report was, essentially, “What?!” How, Franks asked, does the federal Department of Justice have time to devote to cases like this?
Or the authority? Is it a federal crime when Jake shoves Matt into a locker? Apparently, if denigrating slurs like “fag” or “sissy” are uttered, the answer is “yes” for the Obama Justice Department.
But Mohawk, N.Y., was just the beginning of the DOJ’s pro-LGBT school blitz. Given what was about to unfold in Minnesota, California and elsewhere, Perez, Holder and their team were just getting warmed up.
The Department of Justice, along with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division, devised a creative application of Title IX and Title IV to situations involving homosexual and gender-bending students. The feds believe some schools are just not doing enough to support the lifestyles and behaviors of such students, or to punish bullies – which can include those holding an opposing viewpoint, no matter how civilly expressed.
Many more real bullying incidents occur with regard to overweight kids, homely kids and unpopular kids, but these hold little apparent interest for the DOJ, without a well-funded, politically influential lobby to take up their causes.
Local school authorities already are fully empowered to punish bullies who harass others, for any reason. And federal Titles IV and IX prohibit sex-based discrimination. But overreach is a finely honed skill of the Obama administration, and almost any excuse will suffice for advancing any part of the progressive agenda, which prominently includes sexual anarchy.
In Minneapolis, the tragic suicides of several students prompted the feds to join the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center in a lawsuit claiming that not enough overt promotion of homosexuality was occurring in the Anoka-Hennepin schools. The district’s “neutrality” policy regarding discussions of sexual orientation actually created a climate of “hostility,” the plaintiff students and their legal counsel contended.
So an army of radical lawyers descended on the district and the school board caved: A consent decree awarded each of the student plaintiffs over $40,000, and the school district committed to a five-year sweeping plan of “diversity” and school-wide re-education, hiring new staff and making sure that no traditional moral values on sexuality will be communicated. “Compliance and progress will be monitored by the federal government,” reported the sympathetic media.
The DOJ also intervened in two California cases related to gender-confused students. Not only are such students no longer to be considered disordered, but they are now empowered to call on Washington if teachers and students don’t bow to their demands to use the restrooms and showers of the opposite sex. As a result, some schools are now seeing boys join girls’ softball teams and girls elected homecoming kings.
But such totalitarian intimidation of students and teachers – disguised as “anti-bullying” – is not confined to Democrats. In New Jersey, following the suicide of a college student, homosexual activists jumped on the opportunity to enact a revised state “anti-bullying” bill for schools loaded with propaganda supporting sexual deviance. The bill included prohibitions against bullying related to the specific categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” ensuring that re-education programs would soon be launched in the state’s schools.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed the bill without a whimper of protest. After all, no politician wants the fiercely aggressive “gay” lobby after him. If you question these sweeping homosexual indoctrination measures, you “want gay kids to kill themselves!”
Couldn’t Christie at least have held out for the preservation of religious liberty in schools? Couldn’t he have noted that homosexual sex causes around 30,000 new cases of HIV each year among males in the U.S., and that a bit of caution might be advised in embracing it as a worthy “identity” among adolescents? Couldn’t he have noted there’s no evidence anyone is biologically determined to be homosexual?
Yet not a murmur was heard from the New Jersey governor. And less than a year later, Christie was willing to pile on during a national smear campaign against an African-American teacher whose religious liberty was grossly violated. The issue? You guessed it: Viki Knox expressed the wrong opinion about the “gay” agenda being promoted to her students.
This 20-year veteran teacher was drummed out of her position in Union, N.J., after commenting about homosexuality on Facebook: “Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us?,” she wrote, adding that homosexuality was “perverted” and a “sin” which “breeds like cancer.”
The outrage of Garden State Equality and other LGBT activist groups became headlines in the New York Times, on MSNBC, in New Jersey media and even elicited comments by Christie, who questioned the kind of example she was setting, found her Facebook remarks “disturbing” and said, “I would like to see an examination of how that teacher conducts herself in the classroom.” The homosexual lobby asked for the scalp of this popular Christian teacher and got it. Viki Knox was put on administrative leave from her job.
Christie did not stand up for her religious rights, her privacy rights, or the good sense she exhibited to question the promotion of sodomy to impressionable youth. On the contrary, when later presented with a bill to ban counseling of kids who have unwanted same-sex attractions, Christie at first waffled, then quickly caved in and signed the bill, despite the false testimony given at hearings. A spokesman for his office said Christie believes people are homosexual from birth.
As a direct result of such brutal bullying tactics, there are ever fewer teachers like Knox and far more, unfortunately, who march in lockstep to the fascist tone set by the politicians.
For example, teacher Jay McDowell wore a T-shirt to his high school class in Howell, Mich., in 2010 supporting “Spirit Day,” another effort ostensibly opposing bullying, but sponsored by homosexual advocates. As the class convened, a heated discussion ensued when one student showed up with a belt displaying a Confederate flag.
When teacher Jay ordered her to take it off, fellow student Daniel Glowacki came to her defense on the basis of free speech and cited the pro-homosexual T-shirt McDowell was wearing, which prompted an exchange about homosexuality. Glowacki expressed his disapproval of homosexuality based on his religious faith, when the teacher asked. McDowell erupted in anger, called Daniel’s opinion “bullying,” and kicked him out of his class.
The teacher, who later received a token reprimand, began doing damage control combined with media activism. Not long afterward, the school held an assembly condemning a supposed school-wide climate of “hate,” and Ellen DeGeneres broadcast a TV program about the incident.
Imagine the feelings of this 16-year-old kid who did nothing more than express an opinion when asked.
But Daniel and his family fought back. They sued and a federal district court in 2013 ruled that Daniel’s constitutional rights had been violated, and that the teacher was not allowed to silence a student’s beliefs just because he did not agree with them.
Daniel’s victory is rare. The LGBT strong-arm tactics against basic morality and religious freedom have resulted in the passage of a radical pro-“gay” anti-bullying bill in Minnesota as well as a new California law on transgender rights for public schools. The bill is opposed by a coalition called Privacy for All Students, which gathered 600,000 signatures – more than enough to put the issue on the California ballot. But approval is being held up, as California’s bureaucracy plays politics with signature validation.
And then there’s a federal bill, once thought to have no chance – the “Safe Schools Improvement Act,” which would federally mandate pro-homosexual indoctrination in all schools using the ever-handy bullying issue as the rationale.
Does it have support for passage? Very likely, unless parents and politicians begin to understand that these efforts are not about preventing student bullying, but about bullying, frightening and intimidating – with the full force and fury of government – any and all who dare hold to a traditional moral worldview and express it publicly.
Then, all America’s children will hear will be one viewpoint only, that of perversion, confusion and corruption held up as righteousness and freedom.
Linda Harvey is president of Mission America (online at MissionAmerica.com) and hosts a talk show on Salem affiliate WRFD in Columbus, Ohio.
