Tolerance ... Agenda -- What?

The New York Times this weekend:

HELENA, Mont. — Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance, explaining that some children have “two moms” or will grow up to love members of the same sex.

But such efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized suicides by gay teenagers, are provoking new culture wars in some communities.

Many educators and rights advocates say that official prohibitions of slurs and taunts are most effective when combined with frank discussions, from kindergarten on, about diverse families and sexuality.

Angry parents and religious critics, while agreeing that schoolyard harassment should be stopped, charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden “homosexual agenda,” implicitly endorsing, for example, same-sex marriage. In Efforts to End Bullying, Some See Agenda

Q: who is hiding the homosexual agenda? Whoever is behind it, they are very good at making their insidious agenda look exactly like decency and common sense.

Sexual orientation is the least important and least interesting thing in the world. Exception: if you are dating someone, you will eventually want to know if that person finds you attractive in a romantic or sexual way. Otherwise, what? I simply cannot understand why some people have decided that this one dimension of human personality shall be the feature that distinguishes good people from evil. But in fact we have people right here in our little suburban county who spend their days thinking up bad things to say about gay people, and writing articles about how bad gay people are, going on TV to complain about them. I don't mean for a hobby, either, our county's school district actually has a guy advising them on issues in the development of the health curriculum who makes his living saying and writing negative things about gay people. He thinks gay people should be put in jail. He thinks SpongeBob SquarePants went too far when he encouraged viewers to be tolerant of others.

And I have another question: why is "two moms" in quotes in this NYT article?

It is strange in a tiring, sad way to see how the Times pits "educators and rights advocates" against "angry parents and religious critics." What about the great majority of parents who are not angry, who welcome a more thorough, objective, and fair education for their children? What about the many religious leaders who are not critics but promote a spiritual lesson of love and acceptance?

Last month, the federal Department of Education told schools they were obligated, under civil rights laws, to try to prevent harassment, including that based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But the agency did not address the controversy over more explicit classroom materials in grade schools.

Some districts, especially in larger cities, have adopted tolerance lessons with minimal dissent. But in suburban districts in California, Illinois and Minnesota, as well as here in Helena, the programs have unleashed fierce opposition.

“Of course we’re all against bullying,” Mr. DeMato, one of numerous pastors who opposed the plan, said in an interview. “But the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong, and Christians don’t want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values.”

There is a big distinction which these people try to fudge over with careful wordplay. If you are a Christian and you interpret the Bible in a particular way (and it does not "say very clearly that homosexuality is wrong"), and you find that your sexual orientation is toward members of your own sex, you may choose, out of deference to your religious authority, to suppress your natural inclinations and pretend you are heterosexual. It sounds to me like a recipe for disaster, but as an individual you certainly have the right to make that choice, to deny yourself real love so that you can keep the prohibitions of your religion.

But religious people must understand that not everyone believes as they do. The appreciation of differences is a fundamental requirement for a democratic civil society, if there is to be decency and peace in the community. The Christian who believes that homosexuality is sinful has every right to deny and distort his or her own emotions out of a sense of duty, but they have no right to judge a person who decides differently for themselves. This observation should be especially true for Christians -- Jesus himself taught to "Judge not, lest ye be judged."