King and King:
Would
the School Board have treated Dave Parker like they did if he had been a
Muslim?
“What the heck is my child being taught at school?”
Why shouldn’t every five-year-old be informed about gay marriages? They are as common as chiggers on a chipmunk and almost as irritating. The kids need to be prepared for what’s in store for them in this life and one of those things is gay marriage. Who in their right mind would want Alfalfa and Darla to grow up like Potsy and Ralph Malph? Certainly not Paul Ash, Superintendent of Schools in Lexington, Massachusetts. The kids have a right to know such things and if they don’t learn about them on The View or from Rosie O’Donnell who’s going to tell them? Pat Robertson? No, but Paul Ash and Estabrook Elementary School will see to it that they are appropriately informed.
They teach diversity at Estabrook according to the Gospel of Adam and Steve as Jerry Falwell would have said. While Potsy and Ralph Malph check The King and I out of the high school library, Junior takes King and King or Who’s in a Family home from the tot library to show mom and dad. “That’s nice, junior. Now wash your hands and face, we’re going to McDonalds.”
Who’s in the Family is about families—all kinds of families, gay families, straight families, single-parent families, mixed-race families, families with aunts and uncles serving as parents, all kinds of families, no Romulus and Remus, no cyborgs, but all kinds of families. King and King is a 29-page story book about a prince who doesn’t like girls—sorry, Darla—who marries another prince and lives happily ever after with his soul mate as King and King without having to worry about a hysterectomy.
King and King is very popular in educational circles in England. It’s part of a package that includes a DVD entitled That’s a Family. Sound familiar? Promoting the gay agenda is mandatory in England. Schools are using King and King and That’s a Family not because of any particular literary brilliance connected with the book or the DVD or because they want to but to remain in compliance with the gay rights laws that were passed last April. The laws were intended to prevent homophobic bullying. It’s too early to tell whether or not they have achieved that end but they have done a good job of bullying teachers into promoting the gay agenda.
It was two years ago that Dave Parker’s five-year-old son came home from Estabrook toting a copy of Who’s in a Family. Dave took a look at the book. It was a nice title but it was misleading. It wasn’t about Archie and Edith and Gloria and the Meathead—it was about Robin, her dad Clifford, and her dad’s partner Henry. There was also a cat. It could have been a transgendered cat—the book didn’t say.
Dave was disturbed. This was not the kind of religion he practiced. He blamed it on the same-sex marriage law. There were people who thought the legislation gave them the right to teach that kind of stuff to the youngest children. He took his concerns to the Lexington School Commission and was ignored. Negotiations with ‘higher authorities’ followed. Dave wanted his son to be excused from such classes in the future. He was told no one had the authority to do so. Dave persisted, was arrested for trespassing and spent a night in jail. He filed a lawsuit.
The 1st Court of Appeals concluded no burden was imposed on the free exercise of a parent’s religion to have his or her children taught ideas in a public school that did not coincide with the religious beliefs of the parent. Paul Ash was ecstatic. “We are not required to inform parents in advance of teaching units that include same gender parents or required to release students when such topics are discussed,” he said. The parent can review the material but has no right to withdraw the child from the class. The same as when Junior is told his grandfather stole Texas from Mexico and the rest of America from Chingachgook.
Parker has not given up and the case is on its way to the Supreme Court. Say, isn’t that where Clarence Thomas works? And Antonin Scalia? Yes, it is.
Parker is lucky he doesn’t live in England where the educational bureaucracy has been even more successful in pushing the gay agenda than it has been in Massachusetts. Oh, there have been complaints in England but how far are they likely to get? Last week in Bristol King and King and That’s a Family came under fire from a group of irate parents. A spokesman for the parents said, “Homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in…many other religions but the main issue is that they didn’t bother to consult with the parents…Homosexuality is not a priority to parents but educational achievement is…This just makes parents think “what the heck is my child being taught at school?”
That is what Dave Parker wanted to know. What the heck were they teaching Junior?
Well, the authorities would soon put this guy in his place, wouldn’t they? He’d be lucky if they didn’t keep him in Old Bailey for a month. Well, the truth is, they didn’t. They treated him with the greatest of deference. He was not any ordinary protestor. He wasn’t some born-again Christian running off at the mouth. No sir, this fellow had credentials. He was Farooq Siddique of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Center.
The schools under scrutiny were Easton Primary School and the Bannerman Road Community School both located in Bristol. And Farooq had more visible support than Parker—far more. Forty protestors showed up at Easton and fifty at Bannerman; a veritable host. The parents were angry because they had not been consulted about the materials used in the class.
“They don’t do sex education until Year Six,” said Siddique, “and at least there you have got the option of withdrawing the children.” Dave Parker does not.
The Bristol City Council proved more accommodating than Paul Ash and the Lexington School Commission. It was the Council’s legal duty under the educational provisions of the April 2007 gay protection law to report and deal with homophobic harassment. Maybe they had gone a bit too far. The materials used by Easton and Bannerman had been supplied by a 28-month government research project known as No Outsiders. Fourteen elementary schools were involved in the program. In addition to King and King, No Outsiders offers And Tango Makes Three, a tale of a baby penguin with two homosexual fathers, and Spacegirl Pukes, a picture book about two mothers who send their daughters on a space trip. Government researchers insist No Outsiders is on the cutting edge of the educational revolution.
The Bristol City Council compromised. The books have been ‘temporarily withdrawn’ until the topic can be addressed in a more inclusive manner.
Those Brits sure know how to negotiate—from King John to Neville Chamberlain, a retreat here, a strategic withdrawal there but they put up more of a fight for King and King than they would have for the Cross or the Union Jack and the removal was only ‘temporary.’ How would Paul ‘Dirty Harry’ Ash have responded?
Say, what if Dave Parker showed up at the next Lexington School Commission meeting accompanied by Ibrahim Hooper and Ahmed Bedier? Wouldn’t that crunch some vertebrae! The Liberal stuffed shirts on that Commission would never have treated a Muslim like they treated Dave Parker.
What a sad state of affairs.