Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Lying to the School Board

I was musing about Michelle Turner's comments to the school board yesterday. Ms. Turner, you know, is the president of the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, the suers who got a 10-day restraining order against last year's progressive new sex-ed curriculum.

We know they've been saying they want to sue again, and so when we saw her name on the speakers' list at the board meeting we figured she was going to sternly warn the board about their intentions. She didn't do that. Instead she ... rambled. And lied.

Recall that this week she sent out a note, which I wrote about below, where she claimed that CRC was on the side of "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" and even "scientific fact-based" education. I teased her about using that old trick, and laughed it off.

OK, that was Tuesday morning early, six-ish, when she sent out that note, which said:
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...

and told you to check out their web site and go to their meeting and stuff.

By 10:30 that same Tuesday morning, she was telling the school board this:
"Tolerance" is the same excuse being used here in MCPS for developing a curriculum that promotes homosexuality as "mainstream", as Mrs. Cox asserted here several months ago.

Oooch!

I thought they liked tolerance.

I guess she changed her mind through the course of the morning sometime.

That was bad, but check this out.

Her talk started like this (I have her printed copy in front of me);
A recent Time Magazine article on homosexuality and teens has raised some disturbing questions with regard to an organization known as GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network).

The article "Coming Out at 10" reports "homosexual activists are recruiting kids into homosexual sex and a gay' identity, using 'tolerance' as a ruse. The average age of kids 'coming out is 10 for boys and 12 for girls, according to the chair of Cornell University's human-development program."

Now, listen, sometimes this stuff actually makes me angry. Compare these two statements, quoting the professor from Cornell.

First, Ms. Turner:
The average age of kids 'coming out is 10 for boys and 12 for girls, according to the ... [Cornell professor]

Now, here's what Time magazine said:
In the 1960s, gay men recalled first desiring other males at an average age of 14; it was 17 for lesbians. By the '90s, the average had dropped to 10 for gays and 12 for lesbians, according to ... [the Cornell professor]

Listen, those are not the same thing. "Coming out" means declaring to the world that you are gay. An adult remembering the first time he felt attracted to another man is an entirely different thing.

She wants you to think someone is encouraging gay kids to express their homosexuality at a younger age. The professor is saying that they seem to be experiencing same-sex desire at a younger age. Nothing about "coming out." Kids are growing up younger, he's saying. Do you doubt it?

How do they do this? This is Flat Out Lying. And they claim to be the moral ones! It is outrageous.

But look at how she began her quote. She told you about a Time article. Then she said, "The article, 'Coming Out at 10' reports ..." blah blah blah.

Now, the article which she is clearly quoting is not called "Coming Out at 10." A search for that phrase on Google finds nothing at Time at all.

OK, that could be a ... typo. Yeah, that's the ticket. The article she is misquoting from is called "The Battle Over Gay Teens."

The stuff in quotes about "homosexual activists are recruiting kids" -- you thought that was in the article, didn't you?

Ha. You're a sucker.

The Time article doesn't say anything about homosexual activists recruiting kids, no matter how much she wants you to think so. She puts it in quotation marks so you'll be sure to think she's quoting the Time article that she says "reports" these facts. She's not. They didn't say these things.

Check it out. Look at the Time article HERE.

That line came from an article by a friend of the CRC, Robert Knight. His article can be found at the Concerned Women for America web site, and starts:
A TIME magazine cover story and a recent pro-homosexual school event should leave no doubt that homosexual activists are recruiting kids into homosexual sex and a “gay” identity, using “tolerance” as a ruse. Time Magazine, School Event Expose Massive Cultural Campaign to Promote Homosexuality to Kids

So she not only lies, she plagiarizes. She stole his sentence for her speech, without attribution.

And none of it was in the Time article.

Well, we know they lie. Their "moral values" allow them to state anything they wish was true as a fact, and to claim other people's words as their own. That's old news.

But, reader, I'd like you to see what they, and I mean "they" -- Robert Knight spoke at their town hall meeting, the Concerned Women for America sent people to their meeting, this is an orchestrated effort -- I want you to notice how they really feel about tolerance.

As Peter Sprigg, another friend of theirs who spoke for them and represents them sometimes, said, on the subject of the moral threat of SpongeBob SquarePants:
"Much of what they have is coded language that is regularly used by the pro-homosexual movement such as 'tolerance' and 'diversity.'" The Baptist Standard

Let them describe themselves as tolerant. We'll keep pointing these things out.

She lied about the professsor saying that boys are coming out at 10; she lied about what the Time article said; and she lied about the CRC appreciating tolerance.

9 Comments:

Blogger Kay2898 said...

Well I have said it before and let's all say it again...Michelle talking in public is her own worst enemy. Throw in there her printed text well what can one say?

A lie is a lie is a lie is a lie.

Just like that we are not suing anyone garbage.....she told earlier this year.

November 09, 2005 8:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When they talk about how you used "tolerance", she referring to how gay activists have twisted the meaning of yet another word. (remember when Easter Parades used to be gay.)

Tolerance once meant allowing or indulging someone who believes something that conflicts with your belief. This is the sense in which CRC means they want tolerance. If someone says they were once gay but have changed, they should be allowed to say so. If someone believes that homosexuality is immoral or irrational, they should be free to say so. If someone thinks gay people are just as happy as anyone else, they should be free to say so. That would be tolerance.

The gay advocacy movement has pushed for affirmation and called it "tolerance". They want the schools to teach their side of the story. If a kid wants to say he believes homosexuality is wrong, he should keep it to himself. Our society already tolerates homosexuality. We don't need to endorse it to be "tolerant".

November 09, 2005 10:01 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Nice try, Anon. First of all, nobody objects if a person says he was once gay and has changed. Nobody objects to that.

It gets a little tougher, and I appreciate your careful wording, when people make judgments about other people. If someone says homosexuality is "irrational," then they must be assuming it is a choice, because rationality doesn't apply to biological impereatives -- you wouldn't say it's "irrational" to have two arms, when four would be twice as useful. But it's not a choice. Everybody knows that. You don't choose to be straight, you don't choose to be gay.

Saying it's immoral, too, carries an assumption. How can something that is not a choice be immoral? Ah, you'll say, the behavior itself is immoral, by which you mean having sex with a person of your own gender. The problem is that these are people you are talking about, very often people who love one another deeply. You can denigrate with stereotypes and insults, but if we are going to seriously analyze the morality of the situation, it is not the lover, but him who criticizes the lover, who will be seen to be immoral.

You can criticize a heartless sexual behavior for being cheap or tawdry, and most of us will join in criticizing promiscuous sexual behavior, for the same reasons and others. There's nothing you can say about gay sex that's any different from any other sex.

All we're talking about at this site is for the schools to teach the fact that some people are gay, and to give some information about what that's like. If you want to criticize the lovers for the fact of their love, you will have to do that in your own home.

Besides that, you can see that it is actually the concept of tolerance that Michelle and her colleagues hate, the concept of letting the lovers love one another is repulsive to them. The name for that is intolerance.

Jim

November 09, 2005 10:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jim

You are so mixed up. You sit there and argue about whether these ideas are right and wrong- it's not the point. Intolerance is trying to impose your beliefs on someone else. That's what you want to do. CRC is not suggesting imposing their beliefs on anyone.

"the concept of letting the lovers love one another is repulsive to them. The name for that is intolerance."

You're wrong. Being repulsed by something is not intolerant. Intolerance is when you want to impose your concept of repulsiveness on someone else.

November 09, 2005 10:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"because rationality doesn't apply to biological impereatives -- "

Oh, and there aren't any biological imperatives to sexual orientation (at least, gender sexual orientation.)

November 09, 2005 10:44 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Being repulsed by something is not intolerant

The feeling of repulsion, is that intolerance? Feeling sick whenever you see someone else being happy in a way you don't understand? OK, I'll go with you on that. Telling other people that it's repulsive -- intolerant? Trying to stop people from loving one another because you don't understand it -- is there a question? No, that defines intolerance.

And is that not the goal of the ex-gay ministry? Absolutely, the whole point is to get people to refrain from falling in love with those they are naturally attracted to.

JimK

November 09, 2005 10:57 PM  
Blogger andrea said...

Oh, Anon- you confuse free speech with tolerance. Of course, someone can say almost anything they want here- this is the US- not Saudi Arabia. CRC can say being gay is choice, they can say all of the nasty lies they want about gay people, that is free speech. BUT we do not have to accept what they say as truth or as anything more than open bigotry- and we are equally free to call them on it. Let me explain one more time-since it has never sunk in to you or your cronies- we do not tolerate bigotry and hatred. Why would we accept this hate anymore than we accept racism ?

November 09, 2005 11:22 PM  
Blogger andrea said...

As usual,Michelle can't get her facts right. The flyer for her new hatefest says the CAC has 3 groups represented that think homosexuality is natural and mainstream. Actually, I am pretty sure all the groups represented except for Sprigg's crew think being gay is natural and mainstream. Too bad for CRC/PFOX, we just don't have a whole lot of hater groups here in MC(we have enough but guess they didn't want a seat on the CAC). Of course, the flyer contradicts the "kinder, gentler" and clearly dishonest first few sentences of what Turner sent out to PTSA lists about this meeting. Turner's reputation proceeds here so I am sure no one was fooled by her announcement- too bad she didn't have the honesty to post a link to her flyer.

November 10, 2005 8:01 AM  
Blogger Christine said...

Earlier this week at the MCPS Board of Education meeting where the CRC's President made a Public Comment containing the misrepresentations documented in this blog, one of Teachthefacts.org's co-founders also made a Public Comment. Maryam Balbed delivered a long overdue statement of publicly documented factual events that occurred in the early days of this battle and the suer's lies about them. I offer Ms. Balbed's words to you all here:

"You will know them by their fruits." -- Matthew 7:16


On November 17, 2004, Michelle Turner posted a message to Einstein High School's listserve inviting parents to a meeting to discuss how to either alter or remove the new sex ed curriculum.



In response, I posted a message that reads: "...I'm curious...are you involved with the people who created this web site?



recallmontgomeryschoolboard.com



This site seems very hateful to me, and it would say a lot to me about your efforts if you are involved with this."



Mrs. Turner responded with the following: "No, I did not participate in the creating of the website nor do I know it's creator."



Immediately after that, another Einstein parent who had just visited that web site, posted a message stating that Mrs. Turner's address was prominently displayed there as the location of their upcoming meeting.



This individual who holds the highest office within the CRC--a group that presumes to be the moral arbiters of MCPS, wasn't being straightforward with the Einstein community.



In December 2005, I did a Google search on Michelle Turner using her email address as the search term. To my surprise, what the Recall group believed to be a private message board, wasn't private at all. The search brought up a link that took me right inside their message board without requiring a username or password.



I read a message posted on December 16, 2004 by CRC's John Garza, discussing the possibility of bringing a lawsuit against MCPS.



And yet, on January 13, after being asked about CRC's plans to sue MCPS Michelle Turner responded, in screaming caps, "I repeat-THERE IS NO CRC LEGAL ACTION TAKING PLACE AGAINST ANYBODY!!!"



From the beginning, the CRC has never been honest with this community--about its intentions or its tactics. People who preach morality need to model it.



God loves all of our children equally, regardless of religion or orientation. We as community need to embrace that truth in order to model real morality.


Maryam Balbed




Christine

November 11, 2005 3:29 PM  

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