Religion & Law

More on the Minneapolis school program

By Robert Araujo

Professor Scott FitzGibbon of Boston College Law School, an avid reader and fan of the Mirror of Justice, has offered his thoughts on Rob?s interesting postings on the GLBT proposals for the Minneapolis public schools and requested that I share them with the MOJ community:

Professor Vischer reports that he has received literature warning about the introduction of ?a controversial GLBT curriculum? into the Minneapolis public schools next year. He   asks: ?As a Catholic parent, am I supposed to object to this curriculum and if so, on what basis??  He comments: ?My children do not believe?nor would I want them to believe?that there are ?wrong? families.?

Fair enough in one way: there cannot precisely speaking be wrong families. There may be wrong actions, wrong projects, wrong intentions and dispositions to act, and wrong ways of life. Promiscuity, adultery and cohabitation with multiple partners, for example are wrong. The polyamourous households some progressives are now recommending are?if they are families at all?wrong families by a sort of analogy.  The same can be said of households headed by unmarried cohabiting couples.  If the central relationship is illicit, the household is poorly based. This conclusion would have to be applied, according to Catholic teachings, to any household headed by a sexually active same-sex couple.

Professor Vischer asks; ?There are some family structures that are more conducive to the flourishing of children (two-parent, namely), but does that reality mean that we shouldn?t teach our children to be welcoming toward single-parent or same-sex-parent families??

Regrettably the ?GLBT curricula? which are on offer sometimes go far beyond proposing a tolerant attitude.  ?King and King,? a storybook presented to second graders in Lexington Massachusetts, is unmistakably celebratory, culminating in an illustration of two men kissing at their wedding. Lessons presented to eighth graders in Brookline, Massachusetts have included presentations on the joint, same-sex, use of sex toys.

Such presentations to small children and adolescents in a state of flux and uncertainty are?let us call them what they are?shameful and wrong. 

Leave off the scare quotes, they are wrong, not ?wrong.?  Our Lady is not called the mirror of ?justice.?

Full post as published by Mirror of Justice on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).