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The
West Virginia attorney general’s office promised AFA of West
Virginia (AFAWV) that materials promoting homosexuality would be removed
from a project affecting the public school system, after the AFA affiliate
made the matter public.
The attorney general’s office introduced the venture – called
the Civil Rights Team Project – into West Virginia schools two
years ago as part of a hate crime prevention program. The project
included materials produced by radical left-wing groups like the National
Education Association (NEA), Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network,
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the Human Rights Campaign,
and the Safe Zone Coalition. The materials were given to students
in West Virginia middle schools and high schools.
The state school board, led by board member Barbara N. Fish, suspended
the Civil Rights Team Project after AFAWV informed members of the
controversial materials being distributed. An NEA publication, for
example, told students that it was developmentally appropriate to
engage in same-sex intimate relations. Other project materials trained
students to “Say the words every day – lesbian, gay, bisexual
– in a positive way – stop the invisibility;” and to
“Wear a LesBiGay positive button or T-shirt occasionally, e.g.,
‘Straight but not narrow’ or ‘I support gay and lesbian
rights’ or a pink triangle.” The project manual labeled
as discriminatory and oppressive the religious belief that homosexual
conduct is “sinful.”
“After sharing our position on the program’s promotion of
homosexuality, the attorney general’s office has agreed to pull
the project’s material,” said AFAWV Director Kevin McCoy.
“We both agree the objective is to make sure all West Virginia
school children feel safe from bullying, and we both agree the policies
to produce safe schools are best left to the state school board and
local communities.”
In a letter to McCoy, Chief Deputy Attorney General Frances Hughes
said, “[A] program that has aroused so much controversy and objection
is no longer useful and evidences deep divisions within the community
as to what materials should be provided to children.”
McCoy said the focus for anti-bullying programs should be based on
the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated.
“This principle provides character development for students by
teaching it is okay to disagree, and that violence or bullying is
never acceptable, but homosexuality does not permeate the issue,”
he said. |
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