The CRW's Other Complaining Letter
As long as we're at it, here's the first letter the Citizens for a Responsible ... Curriculum ... sent the school district:
They put abortion in quotes the way some of the Family Blah Blah sites like to put gay in quotes, as if it wasn't a real word. Like, maybe this group considers the word "abortion" to be a liberal euphemism for "baby-killing."
The CRW wants to criticize this video as racist, and they are really not the people to pull that off. Here you see what I mean. The main characters in the video are black. They are sensitive, intelligent young people, struggling with difficult situations, I think they are very credible characters. There is some slang, like the boy says "Word," which as an old white person I personally would never say. But look at how the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum see these very normal black teenagers:
To the CRC, ordinary black people are "ignorant, ill informed, and ill educated." I understand they like to criticize the schools, they oppose sex-ed -- I completely understand that they object to any discussion of abortion in the public schools. But they are really not the people to be calling someone else racists.
Oh hey, the popcorn's done, pull up a chair, let's see how this goes.
Dear Dr. Weast,
This letter concerns a video, “The Choices We Make”, which was just approved by the Citizens Advisory Committee for Health Education.
There are a number of serious issues raised by this video.
Among these are:
1. The video portrays sex between two teenagers and could be characterized as soft porn.
2. The video portrays “abortion” as just another form of birth control.
3. The video portrays “abortion” as essentially a trivial procedure requiring virtually no pre-abortion counseling.
4. All the black students in the video are portrayed as ignorant, ill informed, and ill educated. Black students are depicted using incorrect grammar and spelling. This is pure racial stereotyping.
5. Furthermore, this video appears to violate MCPS‘s Curriculum Outline for Health Education in which there is no provision for “abortion” to be discussed.
We trust you and your staff will want to review this video very carefully and very critically before any Montgomery County Students are exposed to it. The Montgomery County School System has already been subjected to a very large amount of criticism and ridicule over its previous choices of videos.
Thank you for your attention.
Michelle Turner
Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum
They put abortion in quotes the way some of the Family Blah Blah sites like to put gay in quotes, as if it wasn't a real word. Like, maybe this group considers the word "abortion" to be a liberal euphemism for "baby-killing."
The CRW wants to criticize this video as racist, and they are really not the people to pull that off. Here you see what I mean. The main characters in the video are black. They are sensitive, intelligent young people, struggling with difficult situations, I think they are very credible characters. There is some slang, like the boy says "Word," which as an old white person I personally would never say. But look at how the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum see these very normal black teenagers:
All the black students in the video are portrayed as ignorant, ill informed, and ill educated.
To the CRC, ordinary black people are "ignorant, ill informed, and ill educated." I understand they like to criticize the schools, they oppose sex-ed -- I completely understand that they object to any discussion of abortion in the public schools. But they are really not the people to be calling someone else racists.
Oh hey, the popcorn's done, pull up a chair, let's see how this goes.
posted by JimK at 2:13 PM
21 Comments:
my kids friends, who are pretty much all white, talk "black" slang all the time. So it's really not black slang, but teen slang.
I love this statement from Michelle Turner's letter to Dr. Weist: "The Montgomery County School System has already been subjected to a very large amount of criticism and ridicule over its previous choices of videos."
And just who is the perpetrator of this "criticism" and "ridicule" she refers to? Could it be our old friends, Citizens for Responsible Curriculum - the well known, reputiated group of malcontents who have lost battle after battle over trivial pursuits? Duh...I think so!
RT
Oops...my apologies to the Superintendent, Dr. Weast. It was a typo.
RT
This is good entertainment. Keeps our minds off the stock market.
rrjr
Andrea-not anon
I don't get the quotes around abortion either but Michelle wrote it so I expect oddities.
the quotes are condoms
“They put abortion in quotes the way some of the Family Blah Blah sites like to put gay in quotes, as if it wasn't a real word”
Just for the record (at least in my experience), it’s usually “marriage” they put in quotes, which for them, is a euphemism for love.
But since saying our love is fake would make them look like the hateful bigots they are, they resort to putting the word marriage in quotes. Same BS when they say God created marriage to be between a man and a woman -- Adam and Eve weren’t “married.” What they really mean is that God created love to be shared only between a man and a woman.
And since when does Michelle Turner or anyone from the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum have students in the Montgomery County School System?
And aren’t these the same health classes that can easily be opted out of?
Yep, the health course that might show this film is optional. Courses on human sexuality may not be attended by any MCPS student under the age of 18 unless their parent or guardian has signed a permission slip.
Emproph, they do put marriage in quotes, but the Family Blah Blah sites also put gay in quotes. They prefer the term "homosexual."
JimK
Guys, they put marriage in quotes only when discussing gay "marriage".
This is because using gay as an adjective to describe marriage contradicts the definition of marriage.
Changing definitions is an established tactic of the gay agenda and when you start using the term "gay marriage" without the qualifier of quotation marks, you've already lost the argument.
I don't know why abortion was shown with quotation marks, btw.
I didn't watch the video so I don't know if the allegations of steroetyping is valid but presenting abortion as just another option without explaining the implications is a criminal attempt to make our children ignorant.
How do teachers discuss abortion if the subject is not in the curriculum outline?
Can't do it.
Are you saying teachers can talk about any subject?
“Changing definitions is an established tactic of the gay agenda and when you start using the term "gay marriage" without the qualifier of quotation marks, you've already lost the argument.”
Changing definitions is an established tactic of the Christian agenda and when you start using the term "Christian" without the qualifier of quotation marks, you've already lost the argument.
Hey, that does work.
Anon claimed:
“Changing definitions is an established tactic of the gay agenda and when you start using the term "gay marriage" without the qualifier of quotation marks, you've already lost the argument.”
And back on 23 Feb Anon said:
“Queer people", as you say, have the same right to marry an unrelated opposite gender individual as anyone else.
This is the definition of marriage.
Straight people don't have the right to redefine marriage to suit their purposes either.
Gays and straights are equal in this legal regard and there is no need to alter the meaning of our language to cater to anybody's desire to re-engineer society (sic).”
These etymological arguments against gay marriage have to be among the lamest, most pathetic attempt to deny two devoted people legal recognition ever conceived. I find them especially dubious, hypocritical, and ironic coming from Anonymous bloggers here who have been associated with the attempt to redefine “inactive voters” as “dead people.”:
From: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=74897
“Inactive voters are those who have failed to vote in two elections and have not responded to two letters from the government. Most are either dead or have moved out of state.”
(Did you notice the big CRG banner at the top of the page? What it doesn’t tell you in the article was that the CRG wanted to keep all the signatures of the “dead people” they had collected to count toward their total.)
Definitions of words change all the time and new ones are invented. A while ago “cool” was no longer “cool” and “bad” became “good” and “groovy” all but disappeared because it as so bad it could never be cool. Pretty bogus dude. And 15 years ago, how many people thought they would be “blogging” on a regular basis? Can you do that in public? Oh, and by the way, when you’re out in public these days, with the economic downturn, wearing a lot of “bling” is just gauche. Word.
Of course the guy you have to give the most credit for redefining marriage to is King Henry VII. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Henry_VIII) Not content with the Pope’s rigid rules and regulations regarding marriage, he started his own church, got several of his weddings annulled through VERY questionable tactics, and killed off a few of his other wives that got in his way – or just didn’t bother to provide him with a male heir. I can’t say it’s a particularly valid or auspicious way to start a religion, but hey, if you’re king, you can get away with it. Especially if you pass a law that will charge people with treason if you don’t swear allegiance to the new Head of the Church and the validity of His marriage. The penalty for treason of course is death.
Often occurring with and compounding the specious etymological argument are the “religious” objections. Many of these arguments point to Leviticus and other portions of the Bible to argue that it’s an “abomination” or otherwise just plain wrong. This might make a reasonable argument if the same logic was applied to other “abominations” and “sins” and those people were denied marriages as well. But, hypocritically, it’s never applied that way.
Arguably the biggest sin one could commit is murder, but as far as I know there has been no church raising money to deny these sinners the right to marry. In fact, numerous death row inmates have gotten married WHILE IN PRISON.
(http://www.prisonerlife.com/deathrow/deathrow16.cfm)
“According to Death Penalty News, a newsletter published by death penalty foes, 10 women have wed men on Florida's death row alone since 1997.”
These days it’s not even that uncommon for adulterers to marry their mistresses – usually, but not always after divorcing their wife. Where is the multi-million dollar TV ad campaign to stop this blatant sacrilege?
And who’s going to bother to stop a thief from getting married? Heck, you could break every single one of the 10 commandants, and people still wouldn’t try to stop you from getting married, as long as it was to a person of the opposite sex. You could go against many of the “no-nos” of Leviticus – make molten idols on the Sabbath, have a dozen tattoos, eat unclean meats and drink blood, and even marry a prostitute, so long as the prostitute is of the opposite sex.
If you happen to be one of two same-sex ministers that met at prayer conference, became friends, and later fell in love, then wanted to officially devote their lives together for as long as they both shall live, too bad. You don’t deserve the same rights as the convicted shellfish eating, pork loving, incestuous father that lies and uses the Lord’s name in vain.
Gee, when you look at it that way, there really is no logic to anti-gay marriage argument. Perhaps the “definition” argument is the only one remaining thread that isn’t filled with such glaring hypocrisy as to be entirely and utterly indefensible.
Of course I would like to know when the anti-gay marriage crowd is going to turn their focus and money on those people who are marrying their pets.
From http://www.marryyourpet.com/ :
“So you've found your partner for life, only thing is - he's an animal. Not just that he leaves hair in the bath and has abominable table manners, but that really he's an animal, i.e. with feathers, scales or whatnot.
But forget his facial hair. So what if he has an overabundance of legs, or must hibernate each winter? All that matters is that you adore him.
So go on, if you really love him and you're in this for life, isn't it time you married your pet?”
Peace,
Cynthia
Oops, that was supposed to be King Henry VIII, not VII! Sorry for the typo folks... don't cut my head off!
Cynthia
nice rant, Cynthia
facts are facts, however
two guys together isn't a marriage
“nice rant, Cynthia”
Thank Anon! I’m glad you liked it. I know you’re not one to compliment the LGB or T folks around here often, so it really makes me feel special when you do. :D
“facts are facts, however”
Indeed. Finally, after over 21 years together, George Takei and Brad Altman tied the knot last September 14th. You can see some of their wedding photos here: http://www.georgetakei.com/WEDDING.asp
“two guys together isn't a marriage”
You are of course free to define marriage in you own mind however you like. I doubt that George and Brad put much weight into your opinion though. Sorry.
Have a nice day,
Cynthia
In the early days of the Roman Republic, marriage was a ceremony in which a woman passed from the hand of her father to the hand of her husband in a ceremony called Confarreatio, in which her husband gained total control of her property, her body, her children and her life, even to the point of being able to mutilate or kill her simply because he chose to. She had no rights to end that relationship or separate from her husband.
Later, plebeians developed a type of marriage called Usus, which was not at first recognized by Patricians, essentially a common-law marriage. Eventually, the Roman state recognized the rite of the Jus Conubii, allowing intermarriage between Patricians and Plebeians.
Because women and their families were reluctant to follow the strictures of Confarreatio, the type of marriage called Coemptio grew popular; it was a type of fictitious sale of a woman, with property but not bodily rights given to the husband. Both of these types of marriage became unpopular, though the emperor Augustus tried to encourage Confarreatio with tax breaks and release from strictures to the mothers of 3 or more children.
Note, in this discussion, the use of the words "later", "developed", "grew", etc.
Modern heterosexual Americans thoughts on marriage grew out of the attitudes to marriage exemplified by the history of that relationship in Rome. They most certainly do not come from the Old Testament descriptions of marriage (nor those from the Book of Mormon); go read those books and see what they say about marriage.
The business about marriage being a static institution that has been the same across millennia and cultures is simply unmitigated crap. Anonymous', PFOX', FOF's, CRC's, MassResistance's, et. al.'s objections to gay marriage are very simply based on not liking queer people. All the arguments are just smoke and mirrors. The emperor has no clothes.
Thanks for the history lesson Robert!
Happy Sunday,
Cynthia
Thanks to both of you, Robert and Cynthia, and to all the commenters, pro and con, at Vigilance. This is an interesting little community we have here.
Andrfea-not anon
I see the "conscience" act is being rescinded.
That's right Andrea, the conscience policy is being rescinded and wouldn't you know it, already a Townhall Columnist Compares Obama to Hitler because of it.
I'm sure this has happened before, but after a great couple of days at CPAC, I thought this kind of thing was relegated to the fringes. I mean, our own Matt Lewis writes at Townhall. What is this doing there?
"This week President Obama exercised for the first time a policy decision that shares a trait held in common with Adolf Hitler. "
Before he gets to this, he accuses Obama of being a socialist (guess he never read Adam Smith), and shows off a pretty strong homophobic streak:
"Case and point (sic)... Rachel Maddow.
She is MSNBC's less funny and perhaps more butch version of Keith Olbermann."
So, to what policy is he referring? Is it the wingnut civilian army conspiracy theory? No, this guy is comparing Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler because...he wants doctors and pharmacists to do their jobs. He wants them to act, medically, in the best interests of their patients. From our own Mark Impomeni:
"President Barack Obama will rescind a Bush Administration rule that granted protection to doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care workers who refuse to perform or assist in abortions, sterilizations, and other contraceptive procedures on moral grounds."
Look,I get that there are reasonable objections to abortion, and even to contraception. That's fine, then you need to get a job that won't conflict with those beliefs. I don't want my sister dying on some operating table because Jesus told her doctor to let her die.
I don't want a raped child to be forced to carry her rapist's spawn because the ER doc thinks she should. I don't want any young woman to have to face judgment from some med school dropout who doesn't want to sell her the pill. If you can't handle counting pills, try flipping burgers or something.
This wouldn't fly in any other situation. Notice how there's no objection to Viagra in there. No, it's OK to disregard women's rights, though.
Would you partner with a cop who reserved the right not to shoot anyone? How about a fireman who only wanted to put out certain fires? I didn't think so.
Like it or not, doctors and other medical professionals have a duty to their patients that must outweigh their personal beliefs.
As for comparisons to Hitler, he's in good company, which means the GOP is in great shape to continue alienating moderates and independents.
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