Southern Baptists Told To Probe Public Schools For Pro-Gay Positions

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

by The Associated Press

Posted: May 14, 2005 4:00 pm ET

(Houston, Texas) A Houston lawyer who called on Southern Baptists to remove their children from public schools last year is now asking churches to investigate whether schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality.

Bruce Shortt's resolution was rejected last year, but he is proposing another to be considered at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Nashville next month.

If churches find that public schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality, the resolution calls on parents to remove their children and either home-school them or enroll them in Christian schools.

The resolution was co-written by the Rev. Voddie Baucham Jr., a popular Christian speaker and writer from the Houston suburb of Spring. He is to speak at the Southern Baptist Convention's pastors conference in Nashville next month. ''We need to raise the awareness that there is an aggressive effort to teach our children acceptance of homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle,'' Baucham said.<snip>
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/05/051405baptists.htm

and:

Houston Lawyer Bruce Shortt, who called on Southern Baptists to remove their children from "godless" public schools last year, is now asking churches to investigate whether schools are promoting acceptance of homosexuality.

Shortt's resolution was voted down last year, but he's proposing another to be considered at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting next month in Nashville.

The resolution says schools promote acceptance of gays through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe schools programs.

It says that if churches find that public schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality, parents should remove their children and either home-school them or enroll them in Christian schools.

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/1579717.html

[Sabriel]

1. I'm torn about this one

One the one hand, part of me says, fine! get their kids out of the "godless" public schools. On the other hand, a whole generation of children without exposure to diverse ideas and perspectives? Shudder....

[LizW]

10. Not to mention a whole generation with inferior education

There are several things to be concerned with about this.

I am all for a parent's right to choose private school for their children. However, I think it is fairly well proven that those who make this choice generally stop caring about the quality of public education and start organizing efforts to reduce funding for it.

My city has an excellent and well-funded public school system. Almost everyone sends their children to public school. There are only two private Christian schools nearby that offer anything close to the quality of the public schools.

But lately because of several things (including the election of an all-Republican city council and mayor and an increase in minority population), there have been calls for more private religious schools. Every week in the paper there are letters saying how we need a new Christian school.

This worries me because I have lived in a city were public education was very poor and EVERYONE who could possibly afford it sent their kids to private school. It is a downward spiral. The more kids go to private school, the less families are willing to pay in taxes to support public education. The poor kids left in public education, who need the most, get less and less.

In the south at least, if the Southern Baptists pull their kids out of public school, it will be a death blow to public education in an area that needs public education desperately.

[DemBones DemBones]

26. You're quite right. I hope that the public schools, particularly those in

areas where there are many Southern Baptists, will be very careful about what they teach. In school, children should be taught not to bully anyone and what is socially acceptable, polite behavior in school and in public, but it's not up to the public schools to teach them what is morally acceptable.

Parents have the right to teach their children that some behaviors are wrong, even if other people find those behaviors acceptable. For example, Muslims and Southern Baptists, among others, share a belief that consuming alcohol is morally wrong, not just potentially dangerous. Public schools can teach about the dangers of alcohol, among other things that are harmful to human health, but they have no business teaching children that consuming alcohol is morally right or morally wrong.

I hope that the schools will be careful in their curricula so that the Southern Baptists investigating the public schools won't find reasons to withdraw their children. It will be a great loss for our society if we allow the right wing to put our public schools out of business. There are right wingers who want this because it would help further divide the country, give them more control over their followers, and dumb down their followers, too.

Southern Baptists are not necessarily right wing (though the guy proposing this probably is) but they are generally socially conservative. Their churches have historically opposed alcohol, tobacco, and dancing as well as sex outside marriage. And, like anyone else, they've got a right to raise their children with their values, not someone else's.

[AndyTiedye]

51. These So-Called "Christians" Think Bullying is Good!

The resolution says schools promote acceptance of gays through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe schools programs.

They are ASSuming that anybody who is getting bullied is gay,
and they're teaching their little darlings to beat up anyone
who they think is gay (which works out to pretty much anyone
who is smaller than they are).

Most kids who get bullied in school aren't gay, though the bullies
often called us that (and any other insulting name they could think of).

The real reason for this is to impose a much greater level of conformity. That is what bullies do. They go after anyone
who is different in any way.

And the bullies all grow up to become Republicans.

[megatherium]

65. I was bullied as a kid. And I am gay.

Strangely enough, if you read the bullshit of Dr. Dobson, which is de rigeur among evangelicals, he identifies bullying as a possible cause of homosexuality. Boys who are bullied, according to this logic, are alienated from their peers and their normal heterosexual sexuality fails to develop properly. (I think underlying this theory is the belief that homosexuality is connected to masculinity.)

The problem with bullies is that contrary to the myth that bullies are the unpopular kids, who take out their frustration on vulnerable targets, the truth is that the bullies actually tend to be popular. With this in mind, it is easy to believe that they do turn out to be Republicans when they grow up. At any rate, I've always been angry that no one seems to care about the bullying problem in schools. I've always suspected that most adults didn't experience the real pain of this behavior as children, so they assume it's no big deal or that it's part of growing up. The truth is that it is a major component of this culture's oppression of people who are different, particularly gay people.

[AndyTiedye]

71. I'm Not, But They Thought I Was

Strangely enough, if you read the bullshit of Dr. Dobson, which is de rigeur among evangelicals, he identifies bullying as a possible cause of homosexuality. Boys who are bullied, according to this logic, are alienated from their peers and their normal heterosexual sexuality fails to develop properly.

Cart before the horse as usual.

They obviously don't want to deal with the concept that God made
gay people gay.

(I think underlying this theory is the belief that homosexuality is connected to masculinity.)

Must be why ya see more really buffed-out guys in the Castro
than anywhere else in the city, oh, but that's not the kind of
connection they have in mind, is it?

There continues to be a widely-held belief that homosexuality
can be "prevented" by forcing boys to act as "masculine" as possible.
That is why there is so much pressure on boys to conform to male
stereotypes, and so much shit dumped on those who don't.


The problem with bullies is that contrary to the myth that bullies are the unpopular kids, who take out their frustration on vulnerable targets, the truth is that the bullies actually tend to be popular.
With this in mind, it is easy to believe that they do turn out to be Republicans when they grow up.

I think this is very significant.

At any rate, I've always been angry that no one seems to care about the bullying problem in schools.

The RW sees bullying as another way of enforcing greater conformity,
so they have no intention of doing anything about it.

I've always suspected that most adults didn't experience the real pain of this behavior as children, so they assume it's no big deal

Most adults in positions of authority these days have fond
memories of being the "top dog" as a kid. No, they did not experience
the pain, they dished it out. They were the bullies as kids,
they identify with them now, and their own kids often the
worst bullies (because they know daddy will get them out of trouble).

or that it's part of growing up.

It doesn't have to be.

The truth is that it is a major component of this culture's oppression of people who are different, particularly gay people.

That is the real agenda here. No question about it.

[megatherium]

79. Yes, Dobson talks about helping boys become masculine.

The Christian anti-gay crowd takes it as gospel that homosexuality is not biological but is instead psychological. They believe the old Freudian theories for the cause of homosexuality; if you look at the NARTH web site (a secular anti-gay web site run by psychologists, allegedly secular), they claim that the psychological theories have more explanatory power than the newer biological theories. (It's tough for them to argue around the research that homosexuality has a strong genetic component, such as studies of identitical twins, but this doesn't faze them.)

[markus]

35. Hey, somebody has to make my kid's fries 20 years from now

I think, the fewer freepers in public institutions, the easier it will be to isolate them from civilized socieity.

[Wapsie B]

2. How much you wanna bet

this nut ends up being some sort of friggin pervert or worse?

[leesa]

3. "Investigate whether they are teaching acceptance" These people are

antiChristians...the exact opposite of what Jesus taught has become their perverted doctrine.

[PSPS]

4. It's getting a lot easier to spot the closet cases, isn't it?

I wonder what Bruce Shortt's and Voddie Baucham's screen names are on gay.com?

[noamnety]

5. Pro-tolerance is not pro-gay

I wish the AP wouldn't use the words interchangeably.

Promoting freedom of choice is not the same as advocating one choice over the other.

[atreides1]

6. Popularity is the problem.

This popularity thing is where the problem lies, it should not be the bringer of God's word that should be popular, but God's word alone.

Reading my Bible, I don't see where any of God's prophets were popular, to include his son Jesus Christ.

Most were shunned by the majority of the people that they preached to, and while at least Samuel and Elisha were considered successful,
most of the others had mixed results at best.

But none were very popular.

[havocmom]

7. Yeah, poorly behaving people rarely like to have someone point out

the errors of their ways. That's one reason bush* is popular with a solid 30% despite the horrors going on in this junta. He is such a fuck up that some folks love him for not raising the bar. See, any lazy, dim, shiftless, dishonest, anti social, stammering dip-shit can rise to great heights. They don't look any further than the fact that he makes them feel OK. They don't see the evil being done behind him.

[agates]

8. These people are insane

They expect the schools to teach INtolerance. And they call themselves Christian. How can at least a few of them not see the disconnect here????

[drduffy]

21. good question

at least a few should....but the vast majority are on the downsloap of the bell-shaped curve.

[Bill McBlueState]

39. I don't see a disconnect

Christianity has been one of the great forces for intolerance for the past millenium. There's no disconnect here.

[Name removed]

55. Deleted message

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[donco6]

74. We don't

We don't distribute condoms.
We don't have sex ed.
We don't distribute surveys that ask sex questions.
It's like it doesn't exist.

And we have kids dropping out all over because they're pregnant.

Yeah, that's good.

[mainer]

9. A whole generation taught in Christian Madrassahs?

How is this any different from what's happening in Saudi Arabia?

[DBoon]

13. There is one difference....

Saudi Arabia does not have a whole arsenal of nuclear weapons.

[jus_the_facts]

23. they own huge chunks of the US so technically they sorta do.....

:nuke:

[DBoon]

11. Anti-bullying ????

So beating the crap out of weak unpopular kids is a "christian" virtue?

Fuck you! And I mean it!

[drduffy]

22. I was bullied

from 4th through 7th grade...until I got mean enough to cause them as much damage as they caused me.
Now I'm a psychologist who works with the schools to stop bullies (who do have psych problems). This christian asshole needs to be bullied a bit himself. See if HE likes it. See if HE thinks bullies personify christ-like behavior. Stupied fuckhead and I MEAN THAT TOO.

[alfredo]

12. OK folks, this could be a good issue if we frame it correctly.

They are backing the persecution of children for something they have no control over.
there should be a good way to frame this.

Put your heads together on this.

[dmr]

28. Yea, I was going to say the same thing

Don't forget Fred Phelps and his mob bent out of shape over a 12 year old girl winning an essay when she wrote about Ellen DeGeneres. They're all set to protest outside the girl's school if the sheriff approves their permit.

If they persecute then I guess that's why they're against teaching kids not to bully.

They must not have gotten the memo that we're all God's children.

[alfredo]

30. I do remember some Christian right group that fought

anti bully rules in a school district.

[AndyTiedye]

77. Do You Have Any Details?

This sort of thing, and the people behind it, need to be exposed.

[MelissaB]

34. They believe people choose to be gay,

so they think they do have control over it.

[Neshanic]

14. They need internal church listing of divorces and cheating.

Along with "living in sin" couples. All Baptist church official need to start at their offices and work down. The gays are too easy.

Everyone knows about who's divorced and who is cheating on who and having pre-marital sex. Go for what you know now. The gays are too important to squander in a non-election year.

[AuntiBush]

20. They're too full of themselves, and that ole hypocracy crap

Self-Rightousness is partly what they're all about.

Oh, and it's all about the "me" thing. Me as in them.

[DeepModem Mom]

15. kick

[Coastie for Truth]

16. Thank God I am Not a Christian

"is now asking churches to investigate whether schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality."

"''We need to raise the awareness that there is an aggressive effort to teach our children acceptance of homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle,'' Baucham said"

"It says that if churches find that public schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality, parents should remove their children and either home-school them or enroll them in Christian schools."

Thank God I am not a Christian.

I believe in the Parenthood of God and the Siblinghood of Humankind - and follow MLK Jr., Jim Wallis, Msgr Charles Owens Rice, and Michael Lerner.

[Jo March]

49. These people aren't Christians, Coastie for Truth

Please do not refer to these people as Christians. They are not following the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Call them Fristians, Pharisees, hypocrites, etc. Just do not call them Christians.

Jesus would not condone or accept this behavior.

[Ilsa]

17. The ultra-religious are really into "probing," aren't they?

Maybe they should probe their ranks for hypocrisy first.

[Solly Mack]

18. Damn but they need a new hobby

The idiots the right wing fundies are raising today will be the adult idiots our children will have to deal with tomorrow.

Doesn't that just piss you off?

[AuntiBush]

19. They receive Federal $$ Private School Vouchers while Public Schools

faulter.

"If you don't drink from the Kool-Aid you're an ungodly Democrat."

Pat Buchanan is trying to change History 101 in just about every state in the US.
http://www.renewamerica.us/analyses/050421voigt.htm

With his One Nation Under God
http://www.renewamerica.us/commandments /

And here http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/13/9351... where they're pushing that each and every one of us that are not with them, are "commies."

GOP Can't Win without Conversative Christians:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/13/9351...

Sick stuff. Sick.

[BadNews]

57. How many states have private school vouchers in place? n/t

[sakabatou]

24. Yes! Let's not teach kids about loving their peers for who they are!

Let's teach to hate their peers because fo what they are! :sarcasm:

[MasonJar]

25. Who would Jesus expel? He would expel the sanctimonious

Southern Baptists...the new Pharasees.

[Barkley]

46. Where were these people when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke?

If people want to home-school their kids, that's great. It leaves more public resources available for the rest of us.

[cap]

27. just like when the kids where withdrawn from school

so that they wouldnt have to mingle with blacks.

Same s--- different a--holes.

[DanCa]

29. They are Fristians not Christians

First we had to deal with that freak chan chandler now this. It looks like inbreeding is alive and well in Fristianity. The way these people use my god to justify there homophobia makes my skin crawl.

[damntexdem]

31. Hey, Bruce, better worry about promoting tolerance in general

Once those kids become tolerant on one score, they may develop the habit more generally. Then, you know what happens? They may become religiously tolerant, so stop listening to bigots like you.

[cyr330]

32. I hope they do

Let them take their brats out of the public schools; it will only be their loss. And this would only mean that they would leave the public schools alone as they wouldn't have any stake in them with no children there.

[Jo March]

50. For each child that leaves, the state and federal $$$ goes with them

I used to do accounting for charter schools. Schools get funding based on how many children are enrolled in school - money for books, school lunches, etc.

Having them jerk their children out is not the answer.

[MelissaB]

33. I'll supply the third nomination because I teach

in the deeep South and this pisses me off. It's freaking hard enough to teach tolerence ON A DAILY BASIS without this shit. Fuck these stupid assholes!
:rant:

I'm sure I'll be embarrased about my potty mouth later. :blush:

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Question about the schools where you teach

Did very many white kids leave the public school systems in the south when they were integrated?

[MelissaB]

38. I really don't know for sure, but I don't think so.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Well I have always heard

there was a great migration to privately run religious schools in the south once integrated schools became a reality. And when I have traveled in the south, I have noticed there seems to be a lot more private schools than here in the midwest where I live.

[crowcalling]

80. you are right..

Here in the midsouth you are probably a Democrat if you have your kid in public school, otherwise, you have your child in a private religious organization which also btw seems to be a sign of affluence or social position. Also it's okay to home school based on religion(racism, bigotry)

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

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[jayctravis]

37. The Baptists are going to probe??

[bunkerbuster1]

67. This is news?

[AndyTiedye]

82. Are They Going To Use...

...the Anal Probe?

[young_at_heart]

40. It's The Twilight Zone

The America I've lived in for 65 years has disappeared!

[Maraya1969]

41. Weren't Bruce Shortt and Voddie Bacham lovers once?

I SWEAR I saw the two of them at some gay bars in Houston.


Anyone else remember them?

[warrens]

43. nah, they were the ones gang-banging that mule

Being southern and all that.

[Bridget Burke]

45. Dancing on the bar at Mary's?

Hmmm. Voddie Baucham calls himself "Reformed Baptist"--he's actually the wrong color to be Southern Baptist. According to his biography, he dropped out of Rice to attend Houston Baptist University in his Senior Year. Check out his links:

www.voddiebaucham.org/

These are the Christian Homeschoolers who want to destroy Public Schools. (Yes, I know other folks homeschool.)

[matcom]

44. when is the rumble

i want to kick me some fundie ass

lets meet them out in the streets

[BreweryYardRat]

48. Oh hell yes...

I'm a heterosexual and I can't stand the fuckin' fundies. They stand for everything wrong with humanity. A studded mace to the face should do the job on them nicely.

Massive cranial trauma, anyone? :evilgrin:

[Lilith Velkor]

52. Seriously

We need to bring it :grr:

[Name removed]

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[SheepyMcSheepster]

47. Southern Baptist Told to Probe Society for Poor and Help Them.

that's a headline i would like to see.
too bad many of have seem to forgotten what jesus had to say.

[Orsino]

53. What can we do, as concerned citizens...

...to get more hate into public schools? There haven't been nearly enough incidents of bullying or ostracization.

Do it to...uh, do it for the children.

[geniph]

54. Maybe if they pull their rotten brats out,

the incidents of bullying will decrease - since it's these kind of intolerant assholes that raise bullies to pick on anyone who is at all outside the cultural norm.

Fuckers. Pharisees.

Would Christ have opposed diversity training? Would Christ have been for bullying? Would Christ have opposed safe schools?

These people are not Christians.

[Name removed]

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[geniph]

62. One who follows the Gospels of Christ

As Kurt Vonnegut said, you'll find far more of the pseudo-Christian types who want to put up the Ten Commandments than the Beatitudes.

[Occulus]

63. Okay, I'll spell it out for ya.

Try being one of the people these "Christians" are talking about. Just try to imagine it- you don't actually have to go out and be gay for a day.

Try going through school, from third grade until high school graduation, being called a "fag" almost every day- along with the knowledge that 'nobody likes fags'. Try being, say, a male musician, or gymnast. Hell- try reading books all the time in gradeschool, and you'll get called a fag for doing so.

Try being a sensitive guy- you don't even have to be gay for that.

Now imagine being called a term you know is derogatory every day of your life, even at home with your own family.

And now imagine it all comes from people who believe in one specific religion.

Imagine being surrounded by people, day in, and day out, being called names like 'sinful' and 'hellbound'. Imagine, if you will, a world in which you cannot ever be happy just being you. Imagine seeing everything you had ever worked for and dremed of for yourself getting stripped away by a couple of assholes you always loved, as happened to me. Imagine these people, for whom you stayed out of trouble, got great grades, music honors, perhaps, or athletic honors... imagine those people promising you over and over again as you grew up that you could "do anything you wanted to if you put your mind to it', imagine them tellng you they would "always support you in whatever you wanted to do".

Now imagine, in the space of a year, those same people kicking you out into the rain, not allowing you to take your car or most of your clothes. Imagine these same people cutting off your educational funding and foprcing you out of school, after trying to prove to people with the same mindset that you were just as good as they were, and for the most part, succeeding... only to have your own family tear it all down and leaving you with you face permenantly shoved into the dirt.

Imagine, if you will, a world- a life- in which you cannot ever show affection to the person you love in public, a world where you may not even be allowed to live with that person, or be at their deathbeds.

THAT is what Christianty buys homosexuals. A lifetime of fear, intimidation, personal and social roadblocks, and in many cases including my own, permenant emotional scarring that leaves you feeling forever like a small and frightened child.

Is it ANY wonder at ALL that I and many people like me want "Christians" of ALL stripes as bloody fucking far away from us as possible?

Christians have really ruined my life, and I'm almost to the point of violence over it. I certainly have no qualms in disrupting your services, bceause you've destroyed my life, my hopes, my future.

Hope I've made things clear. If you're Christian, and you don't believe the things I've listed are right or Godly, then I submit it is YOU who must work for change. I cannot; your religion will not listen to me.

I would submit Christians who support gays have decades of work ahead of them before I and many like me will even consider trusting you with our spiritual health. As things stand right now, your religion is poison to us.

It doesn't affect my faith in God at all; it only makes me think ever more and more strongly that the Bible is only a book, and nothing more. I'm really starting to believe Christianity has it ALL wrong, thanks to its believers who have sullied the gift of life God gave us all.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[geniph]

73. kgfnally...

...all I can say is, I'm sorry. Fuckers.

:hug:

[Occulus]

75. It's just impossible for me to excuse it all any more.

I'll assume from the deleted messages that two took exception to what I had to say. Well, tough... I've had it.

Thanks for the hug. :) :hug:

[Crowdance]

78. No, kgfnally, it was only one badman

The second deleted post was someone calling out that lunatic (which, we all know, is against the rules). I was watching this thread, and was fascinated by the awful statements in that post. I wouldn't want you thinking the world has quite that many hateful people in it. Your post was very moving, and made your point very well. I guess you pushed a button.

[KamaAina]

60. "Probe"?! Heh-heh, heh-heh, they said "probe"!

heh-heh-heh-heh-heh </beavis-butthead>

[KamaAina]

61. Schools "promote acceptance of gays... through anti-bullying programs"?!

or, in other words, if you don't beat up a faggot when you see one, you're "godless"?! :grr: :banghead: :nuke:

Aloha! My name is KamaAina, and (by that definition) I'm godless, and proud of it!

Have a nice day!

[NoPasaran]

68. "Probe", huh?

Paging Doctor Freud. Paging Doctor Freud.

[Chovexani]

69. Heh

Maybe if Southern Baptists would get themselves probed they wouldn't be so damn uptight about how other people get probed...

[secedeeconomically]

70. I think its great. Weed out the regressive from the progressive

[designforce]

72. Let's look for those teaching the acceptance of christians

I think I will bring this up at my next school board meeting.

"I move that we form a committee to investigate if any teacher or official is teaching the acceptance of so called 'christian' values or beliefs. You may ask why I am asking this, well it is because of their completely unacceptable lifestyle, after all, don't they believe in war, death, and aren't the teachings of the one they follow, this 'jesus christ' guy just a communist? I am looking for a second."

How do you think this would go over?

TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY!

[progressivebydesign]

76. Please, you religious wingnuts, REMOVE your kids from our schools..

..nothing would make me happier than to not have to deal with you and your crazy-ass children. Perhaps the little darlings would be happier amongst other pure people... cuz heaven knows that christians are never gay. (so, since there are openly gay kids at my daughter's middle school, how can these supposed christians fight against pro-gay things at the school?) I though Jesus loved ALL the little children!???

[trogdor]

81. Good riddance.