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High school assigns lit class obscene gay literature
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A whistle-blower told me yesterday that a high school in Deerfield, Illinois, had assigned Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes to students as required reading. Today, Concerned Women for America is reporting the developments:
Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois, had assigned the pornographic book “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” to students as required reading. When a group of outraged parents found out, they filed a formal complaint. Now the book has been changed to an “optional title,” meaning kids may still select the book for peer study under the direction of a teacher.
The book is replete with profanity, overt racism through multiple uses of the N-word, an explicit description of a sex act involving Mother Theresa and some of the most graphic, vile and vivid depictions of homosexual anal sodomy every put in print.
The latter statement is not a case of straight-laced Christian schoolmarms with their knickers in knots. I will not link to excerpts, but interested parties may google them and see for themselves.
So regarding all this, here’s my wind-up and a couple of questions. Certainly, the conservatives on this blog would concede that homosexuality has been mainstreamed into schools to an extent that whether gay-themed literature will be assigned is no longer at issue. In some states, it’s the law.
But can not even our gay and lesbian friends on this blog agree that it is not appropriate to assign sexually graphic/pornographic literature to high school students? And, if a teacher is going to assign gay-themed literature, aren’t there more age-appropriate, less sexualized, polarizing choices? Gay activists are constantly arguing that the gay lifestyle isn’t just about sex. Why then assign Angels in America and reinforce the opposite opinion?
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Well, I saw the play at the Kennedy Center a decade ago and it was extraordinary. Tony Kushner, the author, won a Pulitzer Prize for it.
The play in two parts debuted on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993 and was awarded Tony Awards for Best Play back to back in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Both parts also won back to back Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Play.
In 2003, HBO Films created a miniseries version of the play. “Angels in America” was the most watched made-for-cable movie in 2003 and won both the Golden Globe and Emmy for Best Miniseries. It starred Merryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Emma Thompson, among others.
Angels in America - The Opera made its world premiere at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, France, on November 23, 2004. In late 2005, PBS announced that they would air a live filmed version of the opera as a part of its Great Performances lineup. The opera made its U.S. debut in June 2006 at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion in Boston, Massachusetts.
As a cultural commentary on the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the gay community it’s an amazing work.
I’m sorry you can’t appreciate that.
One thing I’ve always appreciated about Anlir’s movie reviews, is that he was always cognizant of whether a movie was age appropriate, and what kind of content was in it - not just whether it got good reviews or received awards or the acting/script/effects were good.
I’m sorry DCLawyer can’t appreciate that.
OK, DCL, the play and HBO film were well received. Got it.
How about answering the substance of Lynn’s question? (hint: probably not the cleaned-up version of the book that made it onto stage)
Well, I simply disagree that the work is “obscene” and “pornographic.” And I don’t think it’s age inappropriate for late High School. Given that, and given the work’s clear literary and artistic merit, I’m simply not going to get my nightie in a knot over this.
Huck Finn uses the N-word repeatedly. Should we ban that too. Oh, I forgot, the school marms have tried.
Harold Bloom, America’s most ambitious reader if not greatest critic (as he would like to be), provisionally has declared Angels in America to be part of the “Western Canon” of literature.
Parents who want the best for their teens in High School will want them to read this fine play along with Huckleberry Finn and other gay literature.
If we’re not to use the N-word, even when discussing the N-word, what are we to tell our children when they ask, “What is the N-word?”
My first take on this story was that, even if you don’t know a thing about Angels in America, the Concerned Women of America must believe the faculty of Deerfield High School are stupid enough to put pornography on the required reading. Upon further reflection, I realized that the Concerned Women of America know that Lynn Vincent is stupid enough to think so, which is all they have to know.
Lynn, what else could a group calling itself Concerned Women of America be if not “straight-laced Christian schoolmarms with their knickers in knots”?
Because of the legacy of “freedom” in America and the dangers of those that would promote book burning and the threat of religion overpowering personal freedom, there is a tenancy for people to jump in and say, “I don’t support censorship”. Without even really looking at the material, they will fight to preserve “freedom of speech” at all costs. The question they need to ask themselves is, “Is this the “good” fight”?
In my freshmen year of High School, we were assigned, “Manchild of the Promised Land”. A book full of racism, violence, drugs and rape. Of course, there were moral messages, but at 14, did I really get “the message”? Honestly, all I can really remember about the book was the disturbing rapes.
So the question is, “Is it age appropriate”? Everyone knows that I believe it to be wrong to keep children “innocent” by shielding them from the “real” world. Innocence equals ignorance equals victim. But at the same time, do we need to rush children into these “truths”? There is time.
Abolish government schools. Let parents decide whether their kids are subjected to this tripe.
Christians, look at what a couple of the pornography apologists in this thread have said already. Not only is there no acknowledgement whatsoever that parents may have legitimate complaints here, they’re *advocating* the disputed material. What would compromise look like to these people?
To be innocent but not naive is the goal. Liberals from what I have seen tend to be the opposite.
#12: To be innocent but not naive is the goal
Naive is part of the definition of innocent. Is like have your cake and eat it too? Meaning have a kid that is innocent, but is somehow worldly at the same time?
When I see innocent, the words that pop up are “simple, naive, lacking, ignoranct”.
in·no·cent [ ínnəss’nt ]
adjective
naive: more trusting or naive than most people through lack of experience of life or failure to recognize the motives of others
an innocent young girl caught up in a terrible situation
ignorant of something: having very little or no knowledge of something
innocent of the finer points of etiquette
lacking in something: completely lacking in a particular quality
innocent of any artistic skill
noun (plural in·no·cents)
blameless person: a blameless vulnerable person, especially a very young child
naive person: a simple, naive, or inexperienced person
I think Amphipolis touches on the core of the matter. This assignment goes beyond gay issues to an intentional desire by liberals to ignore sexual appropriateness in anything. The theme of the book is the important thing, and no moral objection has validity.
I do appreciate that this book an extremely important point and is rightly a part of great western lit. However, I would not appreciate it if a child of mine under the age of 17 was being assigned this in school. Would not appreciate it if a similarly graphic book on hetrosexual sex was assigned, either. So yes, I can agree that this assignment was inappropriate.
One of the few times I actually agree with the bombastic and utterly despicable CWFA.
What I mean by naive is unsuspecting or credulous. We can be innocent but yet not be surprised by another’s guilt.
Matthew 10:16
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
When innocence and guilt cease to have meaning we becomes naive.
YEAH: Not only is there no acknowledgement whatsoever that parents may have legitimate complaints here, they’re *advocating* the disputed material. What would compromise look like to these people?
Assumptions. Here’s my story of compromise, with apologies to those who have seen it before:
Not awfully long ago, the father of one of my students sent a copy of the “Miller’s Tale” to the principal with the vulgarities highlighted and asked him to tell me to remove the reading from the syllabus. The parent was a Methodist minister. The principal forwarded the correspondence to me without comment. I asked him to inform the parent that my class would move on to other readings.
I did this to relieve the boy of being embarrassed by his ignorant father. I also wanted to convey the notion that one particular literary classic isn’t a big deal to me. The Renaissance and the rest of English literature lay ahead, truly an embarrassment of riches that afforded many other opportunities to pollute young minds.
Coyote Blue makes a reasonable point. Kushner’s work is simply not appropriate for high school literature, particularly in context of a public high school.
I agree with Yeah that the time has come for serious Christians to mount a full bore effort to do away with American public schools, which by any standard, including the appropriateness of literature, has become a bureaucratic albatross with a lack of rigorous curriculum and at best mediocre students.
Let the gay advocates fund their own private schools, and the Christians theirs. Basically, as it now is the American schools are infested with teachers like Scroop Moth who are consciously involved in polluting young minds with hard-edged liberal secularism.
As a play that’s been awarded with just about every major award a play can receive, it’s should surprise no one that this was assigned in a school setting. Its level of provocativeness is more in its language and sexuality, rather than any kind of “gayness” factor. The gayness isn’t the issue. It’s the adult themes of the plot, whether they’re men in love with men or men in love with women.
The issue is not about the value of the material but about how to choose appropriate material for children who are still under the authority of their parents.
The public school seems to forget this often.
As the rather arrogant ScroopMoth said he did not want to embarass a child due to the father (a minister) being ignorant because of objecting to the type of language being used.
What Mr Moth ignores is that this is a legitimate realm of parental authority. It is not the school’s or teacher’s place to decide when a child is ready to have their “innocence” removed by subjecting the child to that which the parent objects.
If this material were about something the liberals objected to, say Creationism, and the school required it to be read, then the ACLU and their ilk would be in court filing petitions and recalling school boards.
Let it be something that is graphic and lewd and the parents authority is not considered at all.
An obvious reason to homeschool and let Mr. Moth find his own pupils to shape in his own likeness.
I do appreciate that this book an extremely important point and is rightly a part of great western lit. However, I would not appreciate it if a child of mine under the age of 17 was being assigned this in school. Would not appreciate it if a similarly graphic book on hetrosexual sex was assigned, either. So yes, I can agree that this assignment was inappropriate.
Thank you, Coyote! A liberal voice of reason in the East!
Call me a schoolmarm…
…but this is akin to sexual exploitation of CHILDREN, yes, CHILDREN (even in High School). I’ve had it with the overstimulation and sexualization of kids. This is not “cultural enlightenment” but, rather, cultural debasement of our young people at a time when they need anything BUT.
This is more of the same: disturbing and disgusting indoctrination.
And, Harrison, while I agree with the net-thrust of your point, I still believe it is important NEVER to concede ground on of safe and normal heterosexual behavior. Yes, it is unpopular. Yes, it makes me (to the popular culture)a “bigot” but, really, we cannot forget the design in human kind which is wholesale being discarded with steamroller efficiency. No matter how many times they attempt to brainwash the next generation of public school children, it isn’t right behavior…it is sinful, it is unsafe, it is shame-producing and death-resulting. Lust is not love and every inclination of the heart and whim of the will should NOT NOT NOT be followed, no matter how intoxicating.
The gayness is an issue.
PETER LEAVITT: teachers like Scroop Moth . . . are consciously involved in polluting young minds with hard-edged liberal secularism.
This is hysterical, Peter. Besides, I don’t teach anymore. Had I wanted to pollute young minds with hard-edged liberal secularism, I knew it was as easy as requiring them to read Jonathan Edwards. But I considered it one of my failings that I wasn’t able to forestall disgust, let alone to awaken the appreciation Edwards deserves. You don’t give secularists enough credit, Peter! We understand better than anyone that the first step to overthrowing the forms is teaching them. Many a college professor has complained, “How am I supposed to deconstruct the categories of Western metaphysics when these kids don’t know what they are?”
The sex in Angels is no more graphic than the sex in Updike’s Roger’s Version, for example, which in turn is no more graphic (through far sexier) than half the romance novels on the 50-foot isle of Books a Million.
The soul can be overthrown by soft-core eroticism just as easily as by the explicit versions, so people’s obsession with “pornography” never made sense to me. I understand that people glom onto it, but it never turned my crank. Consequently, I suspect that what conservatives actually hate about Angels is that it constructs the Republic of Ronald Reagan as an evil empire. Be honest. Isn’t that the knowledge y’all want to keep from kids?
Scroop Moth is a TEACHER of children? Good grief. In his post #7 he makes the completely false and defamatory (toward Twain) statement that Huck Finn is ‘gay’ literature.
Wow. No wonder the public schools are increasingly graduating morons - and worse. They are being ‘taught’ by the same.
Or even worse they are being ‘taught’ by people who apparently have no compunction about lying and fabricating slanderous crap in order to support their social engineering agendas.
I am beginning to understand those who claim the total failure of the American public education system. How could it do anything but fail with such termites working at it from inside?
Jesus’ point of view:
“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be BETTER for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Jesus (Matthew 18:6, emphasis mine).
TWPECK: As the rather arrogant ScroopMoth said he did not want to embarass a child due to the father (a minister) being ignorant because of objecting to the type of language being used.
To being rather arrogant I must plead guilty but that doesn’t excuse the ignorance of the minister nor yours for presuming my cause for judging him.
The Miller’s Tale is a classic, rigorous, and serious lesson in orthodox morality, including the essential details about what’s “above” and “below.” How could you be a father and a minister yet not appreciate Chaucer’s masterful, age-appropriate pedagogy, unless you’re blind — like one of the characters in the story?
Jesus continued:
“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come.”
Jesus (Matthew 18:7)
RDEAN, “Naive is part of the definition of innocent.”
Not so. Jesus was fully innocent and at the same time the LEAST naive man who ever lived.”
Harrison, #19,
Don’t strain at gnats. What’s the moral difference?
Tell us what you think in response to Lynn’s question.
I think it’s about moral and sexual chaos, which is pervasive in our public arena, while Christian spirituality and biblical principles are basically banned.
Peter Leavitt wrote; “Let the gay advocates fund their own private schools, and the Christians theirs.”
As it is, Peter, Christians who send their kids to Christian private schools have to funds their own schools AND the (all too often) homosexual advocating public schools too.
I can think of few things more despotic than for government to deliberately use its powers to undermine the beliefs and values of the children of parents who are charged with bring up their children in their faith. This Angels in America crap is nothing but manipulative propaganda used to create sympathy for something despicable. Homosexuals are NOT going to gain support from conservative religious people when change agents in public education so blatantly and heavily-handedly indoctrinate kids to advance the homosexual agenda.
That’s right Joel. What’s needed is to trash the failed public school system and establish a private school system. Milton Friedman presciently argued the economic case for this. Christians need to make the moral case for it. Do we really want such secular fanatics as Scroop Moth teaching our young people?
When I was junior (age 16) in HS, we were assigned Go Ask Alice to read. If you are unfamiliar with the book, it is supposed to be a diary (published anonymously) written by a teenage girl who fell into the drug (read: LSD and heroin) culture of her day. It is filled with profanity, drug usage (of course), sex, and even has one homosexual sex scene. This was in a small town HS in the deep south, btw. I do believe the teacher came under fire for assigning it.
If you don’t want fanatics like Scroop Moth or RDean or any other libs, homosexuals, Democrats or whatnot teaching your children, then vote in a new school board. Put in a curriculum more to your liking. Force change.
Destroying our public schools will destroy our economy, pure and simple. This country will turn into a third-world morass in a couple of decades.
I see that Scroop Moth is no longer teaching , a distinct blessing to children, though there is a preponderance of his clones loose in the public schools.
Personally, I enjoyed The Miller’s Tale in a college version of Middle English. It’s a tolerably good Chaucer tale, though again hardly suitable for school-boys.
Harold Bloom’s pronunciamento that Angels in America measures up to the canon is absurd. The canon of literature doesn’t ordinarily include modern works. Even T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland hasn’t arrived at that status. If Scroop Moth has bought this trope of Bloom, he reveals a certain naivete.
My students were deaf and spoke with difficulty, like the person they brought to Jesus:
MAT 7: 33 Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; 34 and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” 35 And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. 36 And He gave them orders not to tell anyone;
Elsewhere, Jesus said, “Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”
Peter, I said “provisional” There’s nothing wrong with Bloom or anyone else giving a best shot at canonical prophecy. Bloom knows about time and influence in literary history, if you don’t know. He’s made it his thing.
Great point in your last paragraph, Peter. One of the characteristics of a “classic” is its longevity. If the lit-du-jour gains canonical status at the expense of something like Eliot, we might very well have a problem.
As a 16 year old, did I enjoy reading Go Ask Alice? Absolutely. Is it a classic? Not on any planet. Would I have benefited more from reading Faulkner instead? Do I really need to answer that?
Whenever I hear of Great Literature depicting heinous things, this verse comes to mind:
“For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”
Eph. 5:12
Ah yes, the blind secularist leading the deaf.
TJ - “As a 16 year old, did I enjoy reading Go Ask Alice? Absolutely. Is it a classic? Not on any planet. Would I have benefited more from reading Faulkner instead? Do I really need to answer that?”
I read Go Ask Alice in High School too. Maybe even Junior High. The message I got from the overdose death ending certainly benefited me more than reading Faulkner. The amount of drugs available to me between the age of 14-18 was quite staggering.
Actually, Travis, the message of GAA was quite clear, but it did not do its job of dissuading me from drug use (though I did not do “hard drugs”; I guess “Acid and Smack and no way back” did get to me a little). It actually made me more curious about drug use because of the titillating events involved. And, of course, when you’re a teenager, the ending is irrelevant since you think that the same thing will never happen to you.
CWA - “…some of the most graphic, vile and vivid depictions of homosexual anal sodomy every put in print.”
Can anyone provide a link to any excerpts from the book? Seriously. It’s hard to comment on this without actually reading the passages in question.
Somehow I figure the CWA might be exaggerating a wee bit. I hear the Dana Carvey “Church Lady” voice when I read the above quote. And now I’m hearing Anita Bryant orange juice commercials! yipes! Do you hear that too? Anybody? Show of hands?
Before I start reading responses to this thread I was wonder if we could just take a quick poll.
Who here has actually READ Angels in America??
Lynn, I am looking to you to answer first.
All I’m going to say is Lynn is not stupid.
No NJL, I know more than anyone that our Botox loving feature editor is not the half wit she sometimes pretends to be. Scoop was wrong to say that, but here is the kicker. I do not want the Bible tought in high schools and that is based upon having actually READ the Bible. Lynn does not want Angels in America tought in high school and that is warranted by having read CWFA’s commentary on Angel’s in America. I submit that I have achieved a more moral level of decision making than Lynn has!
TJ - who knows, maybe GAA did, in some way, keep you off the hard stuff? Personally, my 14/15 year old mind wouldn’t have gotten much out of Faulkner. Everyone from that era remembers GAA though.
Looking back, drugs were everywhere. Every day for years. Hard to believe I made it through some of those times. Too many close calls where i could easily have lost my life, the lives of others, or done serious jail time.
Enough about me. I’m off to picket the CWoA book burning. After all, a book is a book, no matter how small.
PS- I know some of you have aversions to reading in general. Luckily for you the HBO mini-series is actually quite a strict following of the play.
Deerfield High will require/suggest this filth, but I can’t get a single high school to put on my play Fiddler On A Hot Tin Roof.
What a world.
If you remember the “plot” of GAA, Travis, you’ll remember that Alice did not intend to get on the hard stuff in the first place. Somebody spiked her soft drink with LSD at a party. It was after that first experience that she upped the ante to heroin. That’s actually pretty scary to think about, and well in line with your second paragraph.
I chose Faulkner because he’s my favorite 20th century American writer. They now teach As I Lay Dying to 11th graders in high school (or did when I was a HS math teacher). That’s certainly easier than The Sound and the Fury, but probably still too much for a junior high student. I’m sure there are lots of great works of American lit that we would have placed before GAA. We didn’t even read the Red Badge of Courage for goodness sake!
NJLAWYER: Small praise. It was dumb to suggest the faculty of Deerfield High School are dumb enough to assign pornography.
PETER LEAVITT: Ah yes, the blind secularist leading the deaf.
This is neither bragging nor complaining, but I never got to teach a word of literature that you can’t find in the most conventional 11th and 12th grade textbooks of American and English lit — or perhaps not even on your typical home school lesson plan. I assigned Bible reading, too, and was ever the obedient servant of the masters. So, please don’t blame teachers. Plato warned you that literature would corrupt your children. And when they learn that theirs is to reason why, their virginity can be the least of your worries.
51: Plato warned you that literature would corrupt your children.
And what does this literature teach? Is the moral of the story, “Do what thou wilt”? Is the hero tolerant of everything except intolerance? Does the story revolve around the self? Are the characters awash in self-congratulatory compassion? Cliffs notes please-preferably G-rated.
Scroop Moth, did you actually say this? “I suspect that what conservatives actually hate about Angels is that it constructs the Republic of Ronald Reagan as an evil empire. Be honest. Isn’t that the knowledge y’all want to keep from kids?” Tell me you didn’t actually teach our kids! You really don’t remember that “the evil empire” was referring to the doomed, and yes evil, Soviet Union? That may be part of the point of the book/movie, but it certainly isn’t “knowledge,” it’s an aburdly ridiculous lie.
I’ve always thought I’d put my kids in public school if I ever had kids…but garbage like this makes it harder and harder even to think about that.
What’s wrong with “innocence”? I’m 40 years old, and I still strive for innocence of evil. I’d never read this book. (I’d skim if it I were on the school board or otherwise had a reason to need to read it. As a regular citizen, I don’t need to read it, and shan’t.) Years ago I picked up The Color Purple. I knew little about it except that it was considered quality literature about the black experience. Somewhere into it, I thought, Is this going where I think it’s going? (Hints of lesbian sex.) I read a little more, and it clearly was. Now, I rarely, rarely start a book and don’t finish it, even if I don’t like it. That book didn’t get finished. Why? I’m an adult, but I value my innocence.
ScroopMoth, some profane literature, including Angels in America badly corrupts children, though great literature including Pilgrim’s Progres and Shakespeare hardly corrupts them.
Even, much of Renaissance literature, that you claim is capable of polluting minds, has a sacred element.
In fact your argument greatly strengthens the need for privatizing education. If you and your profane friends wish to teach homosexual garbage to high school students, fund your own schools.
I would like to point out that the reading assigment of Angels in America is optional. Students were not required to read the book.
Scroopy and Luke, I’ll join Lynn in her “dumbness.” It sure does sound pornographic. If I were a parent, my kid would be in Christian school. Let them read this in college.
My sister teaches high school English, so I will ask her if she teaches this book. At times, I have a tendency to underestimate her, but I just can’t see her teaching this.
Luke: Botox-loving? When you say things like this, I don’t know how to respond to you. Is this a good time to tell you that there are schools that are teaching the Bible as literature?
This is another vivid reminder for the concerned Christian parent as to how terrible our public schools have become. We have long passed the time when all Christians should take their children out of the these places of corruption and death. They have become like pig stys where teachers love wallowing in filth and drowning your children in it.
2Pt 2:22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
PETER LEAVITT: . . . great literature including Pilgrim’s Progres and Shakespeare hardly corrupts them.
You can’t be sure about either of these.
I don’t believe that parents who take a strong stand against OR love their kids can stand by and watch . . corrupt literature, sexual training within schools, be it homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, or training kids ‘how’ to have sex can keep their kids in public school.
Even in High School there is no need for this explicit education into various forms of sex, or choices, etc.
The liberal ideas of nonsensical teachers and administrators have gone so far, most can’t remember (back when I was a kid) when parents were the controlling factor in their child’s education. . . when parents wouldn’t stand for anything even remotely resembling this sort of pornographic so called ‘literature’- I’m sure there are the mindless, who claim “how can you judge literature”, well it sure doesn’t take a great mind to see that what has been posted as a TOPIC is trash.
Are the teachers in our public schools so undereducated, and deluded by their own sexual perversion that they have to foist it on the rest of us? Is this world so lacking in ‘REAL LITERATURE’ or do we need to fill in the gaps with trash.
My question is “WHY would any thinking, educated person call this ‘literature’? How obtuse can one be?
Christian schools are growing, churches support them, I don’t know how people can even think of sending their kids to public school any longer.
Shakespeare hardly corrupts? He’s not graphic, but, uhm, there are some barnburner tales in the bard’s works.
To the Christians who want to have private schools, great go do your thing separate from the world in be not in it, that’ll teach us bad, bad, bad sinners.
Botox loving feature editor?
Lynn uses Botox?
CoyoteBlue, we’re not interested in setting up private schools to teach sinners anything. We are interested in a school system that has a decent moral compass and that doesn’t teach profane literature. Also, we object to paying taxes for schools that teach objectionable subjects.
Let’s be fair. Rdean usually falls outside the acceptable, but he was actually in agreement that some things need to wait until a child is older (i.e. an adult in a case like this).
Scroop Moth: You said yourself that there is a ton of other great literature. So, there is NO NEED to expose a high school student to “literature” like this. There is more great literature than any one person could get through in a lifetime, so why pick this?? And for high school??
I read *Catcher in the Rye* in high school, and honestly the ONLY thing I remember about it was all the dirty words. That’s it.
A book like this? All kids will remember are the sex scenes.
I would object to it even if it were heterosexual sex. There just isn’t a place for it in high school literature.
There’s a reason that I homeschool my kids. And, they really do know true literature.
Coyote (#60) you sarcastically dismisses our concerns as if we don’t matter. But we do matter.
Our property tax dollars finance the public schools. Yet, when we are concerned about what goes on there with our children, we are dismissed, ignored, or told to shut up. We are left with only one alternative—leave. But, you would squeal like a stuck pig if we left and took our tax dollars with us.
Then you would suddenly care. But you don’t care now, so long as we keep paying your bills and leave our children under your thumb. That is both selfish and unjust.
Michael
My property taxes and income taxes pay for a grand number of your subsidies,including government services for your churches, like fire trucks if there is a fire, for example, so you can imagine I am rather unsympathetic to your argument. If you read my original post on the topic matter you would find that I actually agree regards the topic of sexually graphic lit for kids under 17, but rather than make common cause, comes the sinner, sinner, sinner litany. Gee, pardon my grumpiness, like you say, I must be so selfish and unjust that I could not possibly agree in the first place. And Oh, once again as a person who does not yet have kids, I pay quite a tax to support yours so you might thank me now or not, probably more comfortable for you to continue living in erroneous assumptions land.
Peter
Well, I object to any scrap of my tax dollars that support Christian institutions that teach kids a kind of moral superiority. So, I guess we kind of have an even gripe. But the remark was aimed at folks on the board who say things like, let’s get rid of all the public schools. I don’t think you are there. If you were to find me at a PTA meeting on a topic like this, I think you would be pleasantly surprised to find a vocal and articulate ally. But hey, see Michael’s post, that just might be beyond imagining.
I’m with Luke — if you haven’t read the book then why the condemnation. Even if you just read until you felt you couldn’t tolerate it any longer, I will give you some credit. I read the Wikipedia summary — sounds like a work of literature, appropriate for senior academic levels or first year university.
Shakespeare doesn’t corrupt??? At what level are you reading the Bard?
I want to add one more thing about sex in general and the teaching of sex ed in schools and that is if parents were doing their jobs of parenting in the first place, maybe sex ed would not be necessary. On tolerance, particularly in the matter of sexual orientation, if parents were not teaching their kids to hate what is different, maybe talking about it in schools would be unnecessary. But many a parent is not doing his or her job and so it falls on society, in the form of the school to pick up the slack. If parents were doing their jobs on the teaching of religious philosophy (that being a reference to how the world began) maybe we wouldn’t have to have a controversy on a fairly well proven theory that evolution exists. If Christian parents in particular trusted Proverbs and trusted God with their child, maybe they would have less fear about that child’s exposure to ideas that are at variance with their own. This offends the sensibilities of parents who have particular views which they want to ensure that everyone else shares. But we live in a pluralistic society. So the question for us all is how can we make the best compromises for all of our children and stop the endless accusations?
Coyoteblue wrote (60): “To the Christians who want to have private schools, great, go do your thing separate from the world…”
Michael Martin (64) responded: “Our property tax dollars finance the public schools. Yet, when we are concerned about what goes on there with our children, we are dismissed, ignored, or told to shut up. We are left with only one alternative—leave.”
CB came back with (65) complaints that her “property taxes and income taxes pay for a grand number of your subsidies…”
_________
Ah, but Michael Martin never suggested that you, Coyoteblue, should “separate from the world” if you don’t like it. However, you did suggest that for Christians who want to have private schools.
Michael Martin’s point stands.
I would add that maybe the government is using our tax dollars for far too many things that we should be doing better for ourselves and our families. Maybe anyone who has no children in public school and is paying tuition in a private school should be excempted from some tax burdens. But as it is, anyone who pays tax dollars should be able to voice opposition to the use of that money, including Coyoteblue. I just wish she more clearly recognized that right for conservatives who pay taxes too. If she did, she would not have suggested that we just “separate from the world.”
Eliminating public schools would equal economic and intellectual devastation for America. What you all don’t get is the vast majority of Americans with kids use and LIKE their public schools. And many of the rest of us support the idea of public education.
And I don’t want to hear one more word about your blessed tax dollars. Mine are going to fund a military-industrial complex and an immoral war. They’re funding Bush’s “faith-based initiatives.” They’re funding tax breaks for big oil and other polluters. And I can’t do a bloody thing about it, except withhold a war tax and risk prosecution. If you don’t like paying your school tax, how about a little civil disobedience? Otherwise, stuff it. In a democracy you’re going to pay for a lot of things you don’t like.
Coyoteblue (68),
Many of the very parents who do all the things you suggest at post #68 and do them well, including NOT teaching their children to hate, are also many of the SAME parents who are legitimately outraged with this sort of vulgarity and moral pollution.
What this high school did is not “picking up the slack” where parents are allegedly leaving off–not by any stretch.
Decent parents have every right to make accusations when they believe that a school is polluting the hearts and minds of their children.
It’s the tax dollars of the rich and well off that are paying for most of what our gov’t does. That’s because the rich pay a much higher proportion of all tax dollars at a higher rate as well.
Our taxes are too high.
DCLawyer said he did not want to hear one more word about our blessed tax dollars.
So I used five words so I would pass DCL’s muster.
I know some very devout Christian 9th graders. They have been raised exceptionally well by their families. Wonderfully bright kids. They are more than prepared and equipped to read CWoA ‘banned books’ with zero chance that they’ll spend the rest of their lives down in the hot place where the guy with the horns and pointed stick conducts his business. Give these kids some credit.
“We have long passed the time when all Christians should take their children out of the these places of corruption and death. They have become like pig stys where teachers love wallowing in filth and drowning your children in it.”
Snort! Cough! (Excuse me, I was laughing so hard that milk came out my nose!)
I’m going through my junk drawer tonight in the hopes I can find my “I read banned books” button. It will sure look fetching on my jacket tomorrow.
No Joel. Michael’s point was a personal slam aimed squarely at me for being selfish with his tax dollars. My rejoinder was look again and oh by the way, I’m not actually against you on this point of sexually graphic literature for under 17’s. The point on separating from the world was to the Christians who say do away with public schools. Michael seems to have taken that personally and aimed back at me in a personal way calling me selfish and unjust. I defended myself against that unwarranted charge. Moreover, the point on separating from the world was irony. Sorry if it was too obtuse. Furthermore it was not I who suggested separation from the world in the first place but rather Christians on this board who did. I was sarcastic, Michael is right about that one thing. But really, if Christians are going to say stop funding public school so we can have private ones, well, they deserve the sarcasm. Do try to keep in mind that I do read whole threads and do try to keep in mind that I do agree on age appropriate material. Sheesh.
On post 68, please do note that I should have said many parents, apologies for being overinclusive. Many parents in this country in this day in age are not actually decent parents, Joel. And there are some that fill their children with hate and fear of that which is different.
There are many posts on this thread which call those who are opposed to the homosexual lifestyle, and to include it being taught in schools “HATEFUL” or teaching “HATE”- For all those who oppose this idea, who are Believers the word “HATE” is hurled at the speed of sound against us, because we disagree.
Our freedom does not rest upon the immoral acts which are written about in books, handed out to kids in schools whom we nurture and love. Most homosexuals don’t have children unless they have been using ‘ARTIFICIAL’ means, or through adoption, or previous male/female relationships, which have resulted in a child being born. Everyone knows that two males, or two females cannot produce a child, yet these homosexuals feel it their duty to tell us how our children should be instructed within the public school system.
Trying to read through this mumbo jumbo, what I observe is HATE coming from those liberals who would herald in any sort of sex education to include whatever the school board could squeeze past.
I see loud and clear HATE coming from the liberal left in large doses, only because we the heterosexual community will not accept your lifestyle, nor will we stand by while you try and tell us how our children are raised. You have a lot of nerve interfering in our families, it is our freedom of religion which you are stepping on, and its OFF LIMITS.
There are many posts on this thread which call those who are opposed to the homosexual lifestyle, and to include it being taught in schools “HATEFUL” or teaching “HATE”- For all those who oppose this idea, who are Believers the word “HATE” is hurled at the speed of sound against us, because we disagree.
“Many?” There is exactly one, #68.
The only other times the word “hate” or its variants are #23, where it refers to the play, not to people; #75, where the author of #68 amends her original comment to make it less broad; and a few cases where conservative Christians use it.
……….
“Many parents in this country in this day in age are not actually decent parents, Joel. And there are some that fill their children with hate and fear of that which is different.”
Interesting how someone has a magical ‘window’ on parents in this country and their parenting skills. Moreover deciding that they actually are not decent parents. Then to further make magical remarks, state that they fill their children with “HATE and FEAR” of that which is different”- Different from what? ….. a sinful life?
Parents who love the LORD who are Believers don’t want their children to grow up to mock God, to disregard the LORD’s Word. That’s one of the problems with those who sin, they want everyone to join their sinful party, but for what reason? Didn’t Satan want Eve to disobey God? Why was that? Could it be that Satan couldn’t bear the fact that Eve and Adam knew the LORD and they enjoyed fellowship with HIM? It’s not to different today, Christian parents raise their children to know the living GOD, they warn them of the pitfalls of sin, the children are taken to church, parents teach them about Christ. The last thing a parent wants to see is a child that goes astray. How must GOD have felt as HE watched Eve disobey HIM in the garden, allowing Satan to tempt her, and them giving in to his deceitful lie which led she and Adam straight out of the garden with their sin.
Lets look at this, two different ways:
CB WRITES
“And there are some that fill their children with hate and fear of that which is different.”
I WRITE:..
“And some parents fill their children with Christ, and to fear the LORD rather than mock His Word.
Many parents have done a great job raising their children, they have nurtured them, loved them, given them a Christian education, taken them to Church. However……… that child turns from its teachings, from the very parents who raised them.
The parents I describe above are decent parents, what has happened is, the child/children they have raised are the ‘prodigal sons and daughters’ which can come home and repent any time.
It’s a CHOICE, I hope it won’t be too late.
So the count for those of us who have read the play in question includes Me, DCL, and Harrison? How did we ever get to 77 posts?
Coyote (#’s 65, 66, 68, 75),
Wow, I posted a nine sentence comment at 8:24 PM. I come back around 11:30 and find a three hour tirade. Obviously my last sentence—“That is both selfish and unjust.”—struck a deep nerve. But, as Shakespeare said, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
I take it then, that you have never been selfish and have always been perfectly just. I can’t say the same for myself.
However, my points stand as originally written.
It is unjust to force me to pay for something and then have school officials contemptuously dismiss my concerns about how they run the schools I am paying for. It is doubly unjust for the Christian, who cannot afford to send his child to a private school, to be forced to have his child indoctrinated in a moral climate he detests. You do not own my child. The State does not own my child. God owns my child and He has given me the responsibility to raise him, not you and not the State. The only reason the public schools exist is to assist parents in the fulfillment of their God given responsibilities. When schools become unresponsive to parental wishes at the most basic level, there is something seriously wrong. Or worse, when they indoctrinate in direct opposition to parents and undermine parental authority at the most basic level, it comes close to criminal.
If you hold against these points I make, then you are unjust.
It is unfair for the government to force citizen A to pay twice as much for the same service as citizen B. This is what happens when the Christian parent, as a matter of conscience, is forced to withdraw his child from the public school system he is paying for and then pay AGAIN to have his child educated in another school. Of course citizen B benefits by having A pay his own bill and B’s too. But what does B care, he’s getting a good deal, even if it is a selfish one.
If you are an indifferent citizen B, then you are selfish.
OK, Coyote, go on another three hour tirade. I don’t care.
Looks like this is more “on topic” here than in Whirled Views 3.6 (go there for links):
Whereas homeschoolers should be applauded for their dedication and accomplishments, a judge in California has recently declared them all criminals.
Hmph. And just when parents are being encouraged to pull their kids OUT of public schools because of new legislation the Govinator signed to “institutionalize [in public schools] the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyle choices.”
Michael
But see I did not contemptuously dismiss your concerns. I did contemptuously dismiss those who say just close public schools. In the explanation of that to Joel, which is part is unclear?
Three hour tirade? I wrote one response to you, one to Joel and then a general one.
As to selfishness, yeah I’m human, sue me. I do pay my fair share of taxes though, more than fair share when it comes to that. The point about a plural society Michael is that the concerns of all citizens should be taken into account, not just the hard right Christian ones and I have to say the way the hard right Christians yelp, you’d swear they are the most victimized group in the country.
Lastly Michael, private school is a choice, whether it be an elite academy or a religious one. If a parent makes that choice, I don’t have much sympathy for the paying twice argument.
Victoria
I see the point on tolerance, which is about how people are treated, not about what is sinful is woefully lost on you.
HRW and LUKE:
Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial.
a couple of other things (not that it makes a difference to folks who are using this issue to go on a tired tirade about decadence and indoctrination):
The book in question is an option in an AP English class that is for seniors only
The book and curricula was approved by the Advance Placement College Board
Again students do not have to read the book.
I haven’t read Angels but I’ve seen the HBO series. I note that the HBO series is rated TV-MA, which would suggest that the content is not suitable for children under 17.
Having seen Angels, it strikes me as more college/uni age material. Not simply because of the language and sexual content, but for the fact that a number of the thematic ideas are explored through sexual contexts, which is possibly not something high-schoolers are really going to grasp.
Luke (post #80) raises a very important point. If you’re not familiar with the books, or its offshoots, then there’s no context for the criticism. The CWFA criticise the “overt racism through multiple uses of the N-word,” but don’t acknowledge that those multiple uses all come from one character, who is clearly - wait for it - a racist! By the CWFA’s standards any text that grapples with racist characters could be deemed a racist text.
Regarding the pornography issue; pornography is purely designed to arouse the viewer and has no artistic or narrative value beyond that. To classify Angels as porn dismisses the narrative contexts of the sexual interactions. And cherry picking out offending quotes, as the CWFA do on their website, also removes the literary contexts.
I’m not saying that Angels should be taught to high-schoolers, I’m saying that lambasting the work in such an ill-informed way just generates more hysteria than is necessary.
Gay activists are constantly arguing that the gay lifestyle isn’t just about sex. Why then assign Angels in America and reinforce the opposite opinion?
Well, Angels in America isn’t just about sex. There are many complex issues that are explored in the play, for those willing to not fixate on the sexual content.
DCLawyer,
When we consider all gov’t spending from federal and state taxes (income, property, sales, gas, etc tax monies), we spend more on education than on national defense, by far. And, DCL, I am glad that your tax money has to go to national security (a legitimate expense for federal funds) needs regardless of how ungrateful you might be for their protection of you and your freedoms.
The Iraq war is just, not immoral. Immoral is the word for the jihadists who use Down-Syndrome women to blow innocent people to bits. Al Qaeda is immoral and it is quite moral to fight them.
Also, all sorts of social organizations and applicants for federal and state grants and funds qualify for them and there is no reason that some responsible and effective faith-based organizations should also qualify, if so many others also qualify.
Regarding “big oil”, you should know that the most profit from each gallon of gas we pay for goes to government through taxation. The profits of oil companies pale by comparison.
Paying for funneling moral pollution into our children is something that may indeed call for civil disobedience. And I, for one, won’t follow your lousy and heartless advice when you said we could “stuff it.”
TRAVIS BIRKENSTOCK wrote; “I’m going through my junk drawer tonight in the hopes I can find my ‘I read banned books’ button.”
Having read the Bible several times, I could wear that button too.
I recall the “banned books” table at the Yale University bookstore. It had all sorts of obvious garbage on it and some other leftist material that I would not necessarily call “garbage”.
I told the clerk that the table was missing the most banned book in our country: The Bible.
Excellent points at #81.
LUKE — I’ve read Angels and have quoted from it on previous threads. I think it’s fantastic for 11th or 12th graders. Challenging but less difficult than a Tom Stoppard play.
TRS — You’re right that students have a vast heritage of great literature, which only the most prodigious readers encompass. However, you’re missing something important if you don’t allow students access to ambitious literature of their own time. So what if people a hundred years from now won’t put this particular literary sensation next to the Divine Comedy? Reading great literature doesn’t “rub off” on people any more than staying overnight at the Ritz hotel turns them into members of the beau monde. I’m sure you agree that something more than “exposureR