This week, twelve New Jersey schools have launched a pilot program to try out a new LGBT curriculum for a whole host of different academic subjects. The curriculum will be mandatory across the state beginning in the 2020-2021 school year, with no parental opt-out provision. Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) signed a bill mandating this kind of curriculum, making New Jersey the second state after California (2011) to do so. Illinois followed later last year.
“We want students to see themselves in the stories that are told,” Ashley Chiappano, a manager at the LGBT activist group Garden State Equality, told USA Today. “We want to make sure they are getting accurate, appropriate and historically relevant information about the community and the strides that have been made.”
This justification may sound nice, but the true goal is to fit what amounts to LGBT propaganda into a broad array of lessons at the elementary school, middle school, and high school levels.
“The pilot sites to be announced by the state Tuesday – including schools in Hackensack, Morristown, Newark and Asbury Park – are intended to be proving grounds for new lessons in history, economics and even grammar designed to improve awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender contributions and issues,” USA Today reported.
“History, economics, and even grammar” is actually an understatement when it comes to the breadth of these lessons. According to the pilot program proposal, the lessons are geared toward students in grades 5/6, 8, 10, and 12. At each age bracket, students will have 2 math lessons, 2 English-language arts lessons, 2 social studies lessons, 2 science lessons, 2 visual and performing arts lessons, and 2 World Language lessons.
“The intent of the law is for material to be weaved across subjects rather than taught as a stand-alone history lesson, said advocates and legislators who supported it,” the magazine reported. In other words, not only will parents not be given the option to opt their kids out of the program, but children will not necessarily be aware of the LGBT lessons when they are taught.
Naturally, some lessons may be fitting. Among the topics mentioned in the USA Today article are gay victims of the Holocaust, who were forced to wear pink triangles. Other lessons focus on those victimized by “conversion therapy.” While many were indeed abused in the name of programs aimed at changing their sexual orientation, this history is often weaponized against those who practice mainstream forms of talk therapy examining trauma behind unwanted same-sex attraction. Indeed, a liberal activist group shut down a conservative crowd-funding website by weaponizing New Jersey law with this argument.
Other lessons would twist grammar in order to push incorrect pronouns reflecting nebulous gender identity rather than biological sex.
Neither the proposal nor the USA Today article ventured to explain how LGBT lessons would smuggle their way into math and science. Some feminists have suggested that the very principles of objective truth and the scientific method are sexist. Perhaps these new lessons would claim such things are “homophobic.”
While it is important to acknowledge the Nazis’ oppression against gay people, many LGBT activists have sought to redefine history in pursuit of their agenda. Some have claimed that the Bible figures of King David and Jonathan were homosexual or bisexual, while others have insisted that the Bible figures Deborah, King David, and the Apostle Paul were “transgender” or “gender non-conforming.” While many historical figures did engage in homosexual activity — the ancient Greeks were notorious for pederasty — the concepts of “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” and “transgender” as identities are extremely modern, and it would do violence to history to apply them anachronistically to figures who never considered themselves that way.
LGBT propaganda has often been cloaked in the language of “anti-bullying” lessons. This suggests that those who disagree with LGBT pride are bigoted and offensive. Many conservatives respect and honor LGBT people, even if they disagree with their lifestyles, however.
“We’re all human and need to respect each other, but there’s a religious view that sexuality doesn’t define us,” Shawn Hyland, director of advocacy for the Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey, told USA Today. He warned that the lessons would “normalize or promote certain desires and attractions that violate one’s religious and moral beliefs.”
The Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey has collected more than 3,500 signatures on a petition denouncing the law as a violation of religious liberty that “forces sexual ideology” onto unsuspecting children. The petition asks the state to give parents the choice to opt their children out of LGBT lessons.
“This law violates the fundamental and constitutional rights of parents to direct the moral and educational upbringing of their children,” the petition says. “It was written with no protections for families – families cannot opt their child out of the content for any reason, not even if they have religious or moral objections!”
Lawmakers argued against an opt-out provision because the lessons are intended to be integrated into the curriculum — a convenient excuse to make them mandatory.
The pilot program has launched at nine public schools and three charter schools.
It seems the LGBT activists behind this curriculum are unfamiliar with the growing revolt against transgenderism among lesbians and gay people.
Americans should treat one another with respect, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or religious belief. That does not mean foisting a controversial ideology on impressionable children and trampling on their parents’ religious liberty, however.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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