The Sincerest Form of Flattery
This morning the President of CRC sent an email out to a bunch of groups, and the message was very ... interesting. They are obviously thinking hard about crafting their message, making bigotry palatable to people, and I think they have got the idea that this "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" stuff that we say over here at TeachTheFacts.org just might be something that people like.
Here's how she started her note:
It then told people to go to their web site, attend their meeting, etc.
Let me remind them what their boy Peter Sprigg said this year. Sprigg, you recall, spoke at the CRC town hall meeting last spring, has represented CRC on news shows, and is PFOX's nominee for the MCPS citizens advisory committee. Earlier this year, Sprigg talked about a web page that featured SpongeBob SquarePants in these words:
So it's a little surprising that they'd be using those very words.
Look, let's not beat around the bush. When the CRC says they stand for tolerance, they mean "tolerance for intolerance." They tell you again and again how "hateful" we are (one of their members told this to the school board just today, in public comments), because we oppose their effort to marginalize gay people. They criticize our perspective because we "normalize" gay people, that is, we expect them to be treated like normal people. In a sex-ed class, the state has mandated that sexual variation will be discussed, and TeachTheFacts.org insists that the curriculum can teach about gay folks without calling them "sodomites" and "deviants," words we have heard CRC members use.
I guess we are intolerant. We do not tolerate the radicals' attempt to "abnormalize" sexual minorities. America has come a long way, and we have learned some important lessons. A hundred years ago, women were not permitted to vote. Fifty years ago, black Americans were discriminated against in every way. Today, some people think it is OK to treat gay and transgender people as if there was something wrong with them.
Well, get over it.
We're glad that CRC realizes that our message of tolerance and inclusiveness is what the people of Montgomery County want. We could worry about them trying to distort it to make it fit their sad mission, but .. there's not much to worry about.
People are smart enough to understand when somebody says "we represent scientific facts and tolerance" and then says the opposite out of the other side of their mouth. For instance. PFLAG -- the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, is a group that brings together family members to understand their gay loved ones. This can be a very difficult situation, as you can imagine, when you realize that the child you love is becoming something you don't understand. And PFLAG exists to help families overcome the difficulty. Listen to how a Steina Walter, member of the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, described that group just today at the school board meeting:
She is describing a group that is as caring and supportive as you can imagine. But they do believe that people should love their family members, even gay and transgender family members. And so ... does this sound "scientifically fact-based and tolerant" to you?
People know the difference.
It's flattering that they would steal our lines. People in this county really do want tolerance, inclusiveness, and yes, diversity.
Here's how she started her note:
Subject: Sex Ed- A medically accurate and all viewpoint inclusive curriculum as required by Federal and State Law
If you are interested in demonstrating your support for a MCPS health education curriculum that is scientifically fact-based and promotes tolerance for all people, there are several things you can do.
It then told people to go to their web site, attend their meeting, etc.
Let me remind them what their boy Peter Sprigg said this year. Sprigg, you recall, spoke at the CRC town hall meeting last spring, has represented CRC on news shows, and is PFOX's nominee for the MCPS citizens advisory committee. Earlier this year, Sprigg talked about a web page that featured SpongeBob SquarePants in these words:
"Much of what they have is coded language that is regularly used by the pro homosexual movement such as 'tolerance' and 'diversity.'" Evangelicals Warn Parents of Pro-Gay SpongeBob Video
So it's a little surprising that they'd be using those very words.
Look, let's not beat around the bush. When the CRC says they stand for tolerance, they mean "tolerance for intolerance." They tell you again and again how "hateful" we are (one of their members told this to the school board just today, in public comments), because we oppose their effort to marginalize gay people. They criticize our perspective because we "normalize" gay people, that is, we expect them to be treated like normal people. In a sex-ed class, the state has mandated that sexual variation will be discussed, and TeachTheFacts.org insists that the curriculum can teach about gay folks without calling them "sodomites" and "deviants," words we have heard CRC members use.
I guess we are intolerant. We do not tolerate the radicals' attempt to "abnormalize" sexual minorities. America has come a long way, and we have learned some important lessons. A hundred years ago, women were not permitted to vote. Fifty years ago, black Americans were discriminated against in every way. Today, some people think it is OK to treat gay and transgender people as if there was something wrong with them.
Well, get over it.
We're glad that CRC realizes that our message of tolerance and inclusiveness is what the people of Montgomery County want. We could worry about them trying to distort it to make it fit their sad mission, but .. there's not much to worry about.
People are smart enough to understand when somebody says "we represent scientific facts and tolerance" and then says the opposite out of the other side of their mouth. For instance. PFLAG -- the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, is a group that brings together family members to understand their gay loved ones. This can be a very difficult situation, as you can imagine, when you realize that the child you love is becoming something you don't understand. And PFLAG exists to help families overcome the difficulty. Listen to how a Steina Walter, member of the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, described that group just today at the school board meeting:
PFLAG -- promote high-risk sexual activity and condones medical mutilation of mentally ill, transgendered people.
She is describing a group that is as caring and supportive as you can imagine. But they do believe that people should love their family members, even gay and transgender family members. And so ... does this sound "scientifically fact-based and tolerant" to you?
People know the difference.
It's flattering that they would steal our lines. People in this county really do want tolerance, inclusiveness, and yes, diversity.
posted by JimK at 3:41 PM
13 Comments:
When are we going to get a glimpse of those scientifically-based facts about homosexuality you want to teach?
Go to the top of this page. Click on RESOURCES.
On the RESOURCES page find the first heading, "Cancelled Curricula." Under that first heading, click on "The 8th Grade Curriculum" and then on "The 10th Grade Curriculum." Those are the facts we want MCPS to teach our children.
Christine
Oh, Anon (still too scared to come out of your closet?) --
A few weeks ago I had published in this blog some pretty basic science on gender identity. And, guess what? Not a peep from you or anyone else. Not a single comment relating to what I wrote.
So we write, we publish links, give resources, and the best you can do is keep asking the same question over and over again? Now, I know you've read the answers, and have spoken grammatically and coherently, if prejudicially, so you don't have an aphasia. You've raised the question, received the answers, and ignored them. In my son's school they have a name for that problem -- learning disability.
Jim K said:
We do not tolerate the radicals' attempt to "abnormalize" sexual minorities.
******************
Well here is what CRC promotes on their own website. Says it all for CRC for their bigotry and hate and all out promotion of such.
From CRC website:
Red Flags to Watch For: Tactics Being Used to Promote Homosexuality at School ...and Silence Objections
or
Talking Points for Overcoming Prejudice in Favor of Homosexuality
You want the science? OK.
1. Click on the Resources page and go to the link on the left side entitled "Our September 2005 Forum."
2. Click on that link and then scroll down to “Dr. Paul Wertsch’s Forum Slideshow.” Dr. Wertsch is Chair of the American Medical Association’s Advisory Committee on GLBT Issues, and thus was chosen by the AMA to be its point person on GLBT issues. He went over much of the science in his presentation.
3. Then scroll further, down to "Professional organizations' papers."
This file contains over 40 pages of documents on sexual orientation issued by mainstream medical and mental health associations on sexual orientation:
The American Medical Association
The American Academy of Pediatrics
The American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychological Association, and
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Of course, this is a free country and, Anon, you are free to ignore the scientific and clinical conclusions of, for example, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. I would suggest that those who care about the health and well-being of our children should not just assume that all of these experts are wrong.
Enjoy reading!
What I don't understand is how Ms. Turner can talk about "medically accurate" anything? Who is her source- her CRC dr,Ruth Jacobs? Or is this newspeak a la 1984? "Medically inaccurate" is accurate if she says so.
In the gushing Wash Post article on Ms. Turner- she admitted that there are people born gay- but that is extremely rare- and what a surprise - her cousin, who is gay, is one of those rare people. I wonder where Ms. Turner got her medical knowledge on that one?
I can't wait to know what "experts" are speaking this time. I bet even CRC doesn't trot out Tres Kern with his freaky slides and video this time- but we can only hope.
Andrea said:
What I don't understand is how Ms. Turner can talk about "medically accurate" anything? Who is her source- her CRC dr,Ruth Jacobs?
***********
Or her(Jacob's) visual of the book "And the Band Played On" today sitting on camera while she gave PC at BOE today.
Weird...
Thanks to silly goose, dana and david for responding to this lingering request of mine.
Looks like you coordinated the response so I'll assume the facts goose mentions are the ones you're all saying are proved by the resources you've cited. I'll try to look at the presentation that David said summarizes developments. (by the way, does anyone know if a text version is available- it's hard to pick apart a PDF.)
Just to whet your appetite, the first "fact" mentioned in the rejected eighth grade curriculum is the opinion of psychological associations that homosexuality is not a mental disease. Unless, based on evidence their opinion is no more important than anyone else's but there is also a question about whether the associations really reflect the opinions of practitioners or are their positions the result of political maneuvering. It's well known that the APA removed homosexuality from it's list of mental diseases in 1973. This apparently wasn't the view of their membership, though. Here's the result of a survey of their membership, taken five years later, as reported by Time magazine in February 1978:
"In a much debated vote by its membership four years ago, the American Psychiatric Association decided that homosexuality should not be defined as a disorder. For many psychiatrists, that poll has hardly disposed of the issue—as a new survey by Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality shows. The journal sent questionnaires to 10,000 members of the A.P.A.. Of those answering, 69% said they believed "homosexuality is usually a pathological adaptation, as opposed to a normal variation," 18% disagreed and 13% were uncertain. Similarly, sizable majorities said that homosexuals are generally less happy than heterosexuals (73%) and less capable of mature, loving relationships (60%). A total of 70% said homosexuals' problems have more to do with their own inner conflicts than with stigmatization by society at large."
Anon writes:
"This apparently wasn't the view of their membership, though. Here's the result of a survey of their membership, taken five years later, as reported by Time magazine in February 1978."
It is not surprising that Anon would have to reach back more than a quarter of a century to find such views among psychiatrists.
Anon, could you provide a link to this 1978 article?
One more thing, Anon.
I am fully and deeply aware of what was written during the 70's on sexual variations and gender identity. I read it all, and most of it was vile, hateful stuff, based on zero evidence. I thought it was a reflection on me, but being as ignorant as I was then, and feeling so ashamed, I was not able to realize it was really about them. And it came from both the left and right. 1979-80 was probably the low point of the internal politicization of the medical community and its attitudes to issues of sexual variance.
Since then, things have greatly improved. We even have seen real research. But it doesn't surprise me that you would reach back to those days (which I assume you hate for so many other reasons, such as narcissism, the anti-war movement, etc.)to support your position.
David
Time makes it's archives available online for free. I found it by doing a search for American Psychological Association with a range from 1972 to 1979 looking for some background on the decision to declassify. I seem to remember them reversing the decision during the 80s but I must say, I haven't been able to find anything on it.
"I am fully and deeply aware of what was written during the 70's on sexual variations and gender identity. I read it all, and most of it was vile, hateful stuff, based on zero evidence. I thought it was a reflection on me, but being as ignorant as I was then, and feeling so ashamed, I was not able to realize it was really about them. And it came from both the left and right. 1979-80 was probably the low point of the internal politicization of the medical community and its attitudes to issues of sexual variance.
Since then, things have greatly improved. We even have seen real research. But it doesn't surprise me that you would reach back to those days (which I assume you hate for so many other reasons, such as narcissism, the anti-war movement, etc.)to support your position."
Dana,
You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's a fact because that's the opinion of professionals now but turn around and say the opinion of professionals then was not based on anything. I'm sure the professionals backed then had worked with gays and had some basis for an opinion. Sounds like they usually come down for the current zeitgist, though.
I went back to that time because that's when the decision was made that you've been hanging your hat on.
What do you mean I can't have it "both ways"? The opinions changed. The point we have been trying to make is that there are opinions, which are certainly open to change, and then there is science, which is only open to falsification. Facts are facts; opinions are opinions.
Now, certainly one's opinions will lead one to a particular bias, choice of experiment, the particular null hypothesis used, etc. But true science is not a matter of opinion.
Newton was correct in most of his conclusions, but not all. Einstein superseded Newton, but did not make him irrelevant. Darwin superseded all of theoretical biology, but he didn't get it all right, because he didn't have the tools. He didn't even know of Mendel's work at the time. Now that we know exponentially more, we have filled in so many holes, and created so many more. The glory of science.
As for sexual variations, there was good scientific research done in the 20's and 30's which was destroyed by the Nazis. That left a vacuum, filled by the Freudians and the religiously inclined bigots. They controlled psychiatry until the 70's, and things have improved since psychiatry began to be put on a scientific footing. Even the Right's poster boy, Paul McHugh, has been a vociferously outspoken champion of this development, recognizing that little true progress could be made until neuroscience matured. Otherwise psychiatry was ultimately just opinion.
Back in the 1960's for instance, trans women were considered mentally ill. The male psychiatrists simply couldn't comprehend how a man could feel like a woman. To them, the desire for a vagina in lieu of a penis was completely imcomnprehensible. As it is, today, to most men. But they knew nothing about intersex conditions, and nothing about brain sex, so they couldn't even imagine that one could have a female brain, know oneself to be female, even with a penis. So they shocked trans women, and even lobotomized them. Lovely.
We do much better today. Once you understand the underlying science, you can realize that there are women with penises and men with vaginas. Everything falls into place. It's all rational and logical. The alternative, that people like me are psychotic, is belied by our very existence, with many of us much more successful than the shrinks who thought we were crazy.
That you and your colleagues know nothing about sexual development doesn't surprise me. Few people do. That you go public with your ignorance, and make no effort to learn, saddens me, and says more about the state of American education than any compilation of SAT scores ever could.
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