Well... it is a bit of a stretch to say I am lecturing you about morals. Which of us is suggesting that their own brand of morality is the only one that is acceptable for mass consumption? See my post above. Re: disease transmission, so you agree that it's fine to educate kids about the different ways in which HIV can be transmitted during gay sex? I assume this must be okay, since gay sex is one of the prime vectors for this disease. Yes? It is endlessly fascinating to me that the right wingers can say things like "teach age appropriate information about disease transmission and birth but do not celebrate or promote any lifestyles" when celebrating and promoting the Christian lifestyle is exactly, precisely what they are doing!!!
Others, huh? Others. I like that. I guess all pretense has been dropped, right? Whites and the others. That says it all right there. At least you had the balls to come out and say it. Re: my rant at AAA, you're right. It is the buildup effect, after reading hundreds of posts full of this type of rubbish.
"However, the teaching of alternative lifestyles is simply educating children that there is nothing wrong with alternative lifestyles." personally, i don't think there is anything morally wrong with homosexual behavior. but that is clearly a MORAL stance it is not the place of public schools (imo) to impart moral stances regarding homosexual behavior, even though i happen to agree that it is not immoral. and that is again the point. the public schools belong to all of us, and morality is best taught by parents. private schools are a different matter. if they want to celebrate or denigrate homosexual behavior, they are well within their authority to do so
I think there's a lot of room for argument there. It is not at all clear to me that thinking there is nothing wrong with homosexuality is a moral stance. It has more to do with values than morals, IMO. Do you believe in a universal standard for moral behaviour? If you are a moral relativist, you would argue that if there is a system of morals that celebrates the murder of children, it is nevertheless a moral system. I reject this.
"Say a student is successfully indoctrinating impressionable young people to carry out jihad in the name of religion, in hate against Americans on public school campus. He/she incites violence by the freedom of bad speech. Others give another viewpoint by freedom of good speech. But bad speech wins out and many people die over and over as more and more impressionables carry out jihad" the case law regarding incitement to riot is pretty clear, as is the case law regarding threats. neither are constitutionally protected, according to the SCOTUS and i agree. you can play sophist all you want. the point is that OPINIONS are protected. secondly, venue DOES matter. it is clearly within free speech rights to be protesting (insert topic here) in a public commons at 3pm in the afternoon. dorm rooms are PRIVATE LIVING QUARTERS. if you are too silly to understand why interrupting classes during classtime is not a first amendment invocation, then again i suggest some constitutional law study. you are restricting TIME/PLACE because you can't (as a teacher) run a classroom , which necessarily has a narrow and specific goal outlined in a syllabus, if you do not have control over what kids are allowed to, and what extent, they are allowed to speak. classrooms are narrow fiefdoms, much like a courtroom. they are involved in a business of teaching. somebody monopolizing the class can be removed by a teacher. one student spewing can remove the ability of the class to function. that student is free to express his views OUTSIDE the classroom, where any individual can exercise the choice of walking away, or confronting his speech with THEIR speech without taking away everybody else's classroom time.
"You confuse teaching that there are alternative lifestyles, and that there is nothing wrong with them.....as the promoting of alternative lifestyles over traditional lifestyles" teaching that there ARE alternative lifestyles is not the issue. teaching that there is NOTHING wrong with them - is. (in a public school). that is a moral stance. that is best left to the parents to discuss with the children. the children will ultimately make up their own minds, but it is the place of parents to promote their brand of morality (even if i disagree with it). in loco parentis only goes so far if i can draw an analogy (it's epistemological more than moral, but you get the point) a public school having a class on relgious history (in general) or the history of the bible, or the bible as literature, etc. is ok. the supreme courts have upheld those - generally speakign - because they are not promoting A religion. you can teach about how christianity has evolved, or judeochristian theology, or the bible as literature WITHOUT promoting the underlying belief structure. in fact, you cannot TEACH history in any meaningful way without mentioning the impact of religion. the civil rights movement, martin luther, the catholic church, the abolition movement, the temperance movement (prohibition), etc. etc. etc all are tied in with religion and the beliefs of those who were on various sides. heck, you can't look at John Kennedy's inaugural address without getting deluged with references to God. he mentioned God FAR more than Bush did in his inaugural, for example. you can't teach Shakespeare without biblical reference, since there are well over a thousand references to bible and bible imagery IN shakespeare you can't teach classical literature without reference to religion. certainly not Faust, Paradise Lost, or Greek Mythology. that's groovy a teacher (in a public school) cannot say Christians or Jews or whatever are RIGHT, either morally or in their belief system. that would be promoting a moral viewpoint, and an obviously arguable moral point of faith. that is an issue left to PARENTS similarly, teaching that there are alternative lifestyles, and their impact on history, etc. is fine teaching the MORAL STANCE that they are nothign wrong with them is taking a moral stance on an issue that is clearly exceptionally controversial and best left to parents (whther i disagree with them or not)
One of the biggest problems with the liberal "intellectuals" and their fight against injustice against minorities is that their implementation preaches lowering expectations to the lowest common denominator. It does not take into account the differences in culture that creates inequalities to begin with. People may be created equal but not all cultures are equal in all areas. Like it or not there, are differences. For example, in general the Asian cultures teach the values of education and hard work in the classroom/intellectual pursuits. Hence they tend to do better than most other cultures in school settings. The hispanic cultures teach hard work with ones hands and hence in general have a better apptitude for manual labor. White folks in general have a culture that teaches you to go out and make something for yourself. Black culture as it stands today teaches their children shit. Spend some time in multicultural areas and after a few years you will see these same patterns. The PC police will not want to admit it and will even avoid it but it is a fact of life. Until the liberal, feel good, pussification of America crowd pulls their head from the asses (or get pushed from power by those with more common sense and the desire to compete by raising the bar and rewarding winners) we will keep teaching to the lowest common denominator and reward/celebrate mediocrity. Unfortunately for our children the celebration of mediocrity will do nothing but put them further and further behind the rest of the world. Look at our public education system now. The curriculum has been so dumbed down to make sure everyone can pass without having to feel the "pain and emotional trauma of failure" that we are graduating kids from high school that cannot even read or balance a check because their reading and math skills are so low. The only thing a state/government can do is provide equal opportunity. What a person does with that opportunity is entirely up to them.
By educating children that there are alternative lifestyles, without passing any judgment is what I am talking about. The judgment of good or bad comes from the right, not really from the left or from educators...... Explaining to children that some people opt for a different lifestyle, and teaching them that is it not right to judge people is simple enough. The homophobes freak out on this and think they educators are pushing alternative lifestyles, when in fact it is simply educating the children to the reality of diversity, and the dangers to personal freedom when diversity is not accepted.
So basically the liberal viewpoint is morally superior. The values taught by every major religion for thousands of years are just discriminatory bigoted nonsense. This debate illustrates the basic intolerance of liberals. They demand tolerance for everything they approve of, but are totally intolerant of opposing viewpoints. They demand the right to indoctrinate other people's children in their agenda, and if those people object, they are bigots and morons. We can debate the constitutionality of religion in the schools, but one thing seems clear to me. If the schools cannot promote religion, neither can they attack it. And that's exactly what they are doing when they teach that alternative lifestyles are morally equivalent.
"We can debate the constitutionality of religion in the schools, but one thing seems clear to me. If the schools cannot promote religion, neither can they attack it. And that's exactly what they are doing when they teach that alternative lifestyles are morally equivalent." Since schools are not supposed to teach morality, especially religious morality, then all lifestyles should be presented as morally equivalent. You want kinds indoctrinated with your religion? Send them to private schools.... It is about time we started taxing the shit out of churches who use their position for political purposes....