Gay Friendly Agenda Gaining Footholds in Catholic Schools Around the Country
The October 30 through November 1 conference of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) attracted nearly 1,000 teachers, administrators and activists to gloat on the group's gains in schools and to share tactics for pushing the gay agenda in schools, getting around opposition from parents and school boards.
Parents and their elected representatives on school boards were identified by a number of speakers as "the enemy," including keynote speaker Suzanne Pharr, a homosexual and racial activist from Plant City, Florida. The biggest enemy, according to Pharr, is the "Right"—a group of people, mostly men like the Promise Keepers, who don't have any beliefs or ideals of their own, but want to hurt gays and to control youth and women. Pharr said that the current agitation for the gay agenda in schools is as important to their movement as the 1957 school desegregation court decision was to the civil rights movement.
Father James Schexnayder, speaking at the conference as a representative of the Diocese of Oakland's Task Force for Outreach to Gay and Lesbian Communities and their Families and as Executive Director of the allegedly NCCB recognized National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries (NACDLGM), continues this theme of gay rights versus backwards "conservatives" into the Catholic realm. Right wing Vatican officials and preVatican II Catholics are the hateful, vocal minority trying to prevent progress in human rights. Church sexual teachings are superstitious, based on fear rather than theology or revelation.
With helping from a willing bishop, John Cummings of Oakland, Schexnayder and his group have made the diocese's nine Catholic high schools gay-friendly. When Contra Costa County public schools passed a gay sensitivity resolution this year, Schexnayder's diocesan Task Force formed a "Safe Schools Program," funded by the United Way, to go into the public schools, hold faculty and staff in-services, to do presentations to classrooms and to form support groups to help gay students "come out of the closet"—things that were beyond the wildest dreams of gay organizations because of parent and school board objections, but which had been going on in Catholic schools for years. Asked by a questioner in his talk why the public schools would bring in a Catholic agency to promote gay and lesbian issues, Schexnayder replied, "Because we had had the experience in Catholic schools and even gay/lesbian agencies hadn't been doing that."
Schexnayder noted that the Catholic Charities employee who runs the Safe School Program, Julie Lienert, is a GLSEN board member and that she was attending the conference. Lienert's business card and brochures for the Safe Schools Program were put out on a display table for a "queer youth" consortium of which the Safe Schools Program is a part. The program is, according to the brochure, conducted "in collaboration with the Center for Human Development" (a radical gay organization). Services offered to "gay, lesbian, and questioning youth and families" include: staff in services, classroom workshop ("Interactive presentations that help students explore myths and stereotypes, sexual identity, and family diversity."), curriculum/library resources, and links to gay community services.
Only a handful of people attended Schexnayder's talk— several of them already involved with the Task Force and most of the rest gay teachers in Catholic schools who came to complain about the Church's teaching that homosexual sex is wrong.
Members of the audience were first asked to identify themselves and describe their work in Catholic schools. Kim Eisman, a male teacher at Ursuline Academy, an all-girls high school in Cincinnati, Ohio, noted that his school had been very "progressive and aggressive" on this issue, beginning about four years ago, when lesbian students demanded to be allowed to take same-sex dates to dances. The school has a Sexual Orientation Awareness Committee, which is currently attempting to proselytize other, less "open-minded" Cincinnati Catholic schools. In response to Eisman's description of his school's activities, Schexnayder responded that a Cincinnati bishop, Carl Modell, had recently contacted him to obtain resources on the subject.
John Otterford, a religion teacher at Notre Dame High School in Belmont, California, noted that he is trying to get his administration to do faculty in services on gay issues.
Greg Miller, a teacher and campus minister at St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco said he had come for ideas on forming a gay/straight alliance in a Catholic school and for discussion of worries about gay faculty being fired if they have partners.
Martin Mayer from Woodside Priory School, a Benedictine school in Portola Valley, California, complained that religion teachers were expected to teach that "homosexual activity is wrong." "This year," he noted, "we started our school year with an in service done by Kevin Gogin." [Gogin is a gay activist working for the San Francisco City School District to push gay issues in elementary schools.] Mayer suggested that other Catholic schools might bring Gogin in to speak. But, complained Mayer, "I am still concerned about what somehow we are expected, being Catholic schools, to present to students, and how psychologically-damaging that can be, and trying to find some way of making our curriculum acceptable."
Meg Gorzycki, a history teacher at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland helps run the students Gay/Lesbian Education and Awareness (GLEA) club. Later in the session, she presented a more detailed account of gay activism at her school.
Amity Buxton, who formed the International Straight Spouse Network after her husband "came out," expressed great hatred toward but little knowledge of Church teachings, which she described as "anti-gay." "I had to fight my own conscience about the Vatican saying my husband is evil when I know he's not," she said. Later in the talk, Buxton claimed that "Vatican II changed the definition of marriage it's not for procreation anymore." This fact indicates, she said, that the Church now views gay unions as equal to marriage.
Schexnayder began his talk by describing "a big leap" in the Church's view of homosexuality in recent years, especially as demonstrated by the U.S. bishops' document Always Our Children. He acknowledged that the Church continues to officially call homosexuals to chastity, but stated that the Church's definition of the term "chastity" has been updated. "[T]he Catholic Catechism of last year, of all things, says, `Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of the person in their bodily and spiritual being.' I think we need to begin to utilize that because it speaks, at least for me, to what we're about helping to integrate people, young people, integrate them with their own sexuality who they are —integrate them within their families..." "Since the Church is saying everybody is called to it," said Schexnayder, "it's not primarily abstinence."
During Schexnayder's remarks on chastity, the audience was scowling, with one man appearing to be on the verge of tears.
Schexnayder said he would present two models of gay-friendly schools, starting with his own diocesan high schools. The diocesan superintendent of schools, he noted, is very supportive. Schexnayder's High School Youth Project helps develop "welcoming communities" for gay students. He noted that they do not currently use the terms "bisexual" and "transgender." "That's not because, you know, necessarily that's what we didn't want to do," he said, "but because there was a lot of political issues around this and hesitancy to take it to the next step, so right now this is where it needs to be." Apparently, he is certain that this "next step" of believing that some people must have sex partners of both genders and that some people are born in the "wrong body" will be reached by the Church eventually.
Two areas of focus of the High School Youth Project are working with school staff and re working the curriculum. Schexnayder gives staff in services on gay and lesbian issues or Always Our Children. He says that they stress to administrators that there are legal risks, such as under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, if students are not protected from "harassment." With regard to the curriculum, he noted that the first "temptation" is to include gay studies in religion classes. This is wrong, says Schexnayder, because it implies that homosexuality is a behavior that is chosen. He noted that he has spoken about gay issues to high school classes in ethics, health, lifestyle, psychology and other subjects. He is also collaborating with National Catholic Education Association on getting resources for secondary educators, including library resources, counseling, community resources.
Schexnayder noted that there are special difficulties teaching about gay issues in Catholic schools, with a number of different cultures represented, some of which are less open to homosexuality. Depending on the culture of one's family, "there are advantages and disadvantages of gay and lesbian youth coming out."
Meg Gorzycki described her work at Bishop O'Dowd High School. The GLEA club, she said, is purely social, open to anyone who is gay or supportive of gays, and including kids from other Catholic high school campuses. Only a couple of the kids in the club are "out," although she indicated that many of the rest are simply afraid to make their orientation known. The club has social events, such as pizza/movie nights, host speakers, and participates in the school's multicultural week, with presentations about homophobia. Although more faculty members were enthusiastic when the club first started, only 4 to 6 are "really involved" in the group at this time.
In response to a questioner, she noted that there are about 10 gay teachers at the school, "two and a half out."
What the students really want, however, according to Gorzycki, is a confidential gay and lesbian support group. "The administration has moved very slowly on that," she complained. She continued: "There are other ways of being really effective on campus in the way of educating people, without necessarily having a private support group. We've made incredible inroads, for example, in our library, and if you go to Bishop O'Dowd library, you see that we do have on the shelves a lot of material on gay/lesbian issues, homosexuality, transgender, all this kind of thing."
In spite of their efforts, though, she says some teachers still are homophobic, make "off-color" remarks or allow other students' comments to gays to go unpunished. "The principal hasn't been very aggressive in every instance in calling those people in and drawing a line in the sand, so to speak." (It was unclear from her remarks whether a teacher could be disciplined for presenting the Catholic teaching about homosexual activity being wrong or for broaching the question of whether homosexuality is a reversible condition for example, based on the recent Newsweek cover story on "curing" homosexuality.") Gorzycki also suggested that a GLEA club could do a "parent in service," perhaps in conjunction with the school's parent orientation session. Erica Espinosa, a public school teacher from out of state, noted that she had had a bitter experience while speaking at an in service in her district. Two Christian teachers, she complained, "did not respond" to the in service, and instead formed a school "virgin club" to counter the newly formed gay and lesbian club.
Another participant asked what to do about "traditional" Catholic teachers who believe homosexual behavior is wrong and attempt to teach this. "I kinda want to answer that in the same way that I would answer a question about what do I do when I get a kid in my history class who says there really was an Adam and Eve, don't tell me about Darwin...You want to let them know that there's a whole body of knowledge out there that they're turning their back on."
Gorzycki said she is very worried about what will happen after Bishop Cummings retires. "Bishop Cummings has been an amazing support with regard to this issue. We have things in our curriculum that, you know, the first time I learned about it made me blush. I mean, my introduction to Bishop O'Dowd 15 years ago was just overwhelming. I walked into the faculty room one day and there was Sister Mary Lois with a bag of groceries and I said, `Hm, cucumbers, that's an interesting thing to bring to school.' She said, `It's for my Christian sex class. We're going to learn how to put on condoms today.'"
She said that gay issues are included in many parts of the curriculum. "We have material on gay and lesbian issues in our Christian Sexuality class, which is a combination of, you know, your basic biology, physiology and introduction to ethics. We discuss it in Christian Morality. We have a component on that in the upper division health classes. In the Psychology class it comes up. And we also have a component on gay/lesbian issues in the Ethics in Media class, which is a fun class to teach. And then, finally, there are a number of us in the History classes who are trying to integrate gay history with a traditional approach to American History. So, we're trying to just integrate it at so many levels that the kids say, `Okay, well it really is just another part of life.'"
Talking over the microphone again, Schexnayder said he believes that the Church is changing perspective on homosexuality because it is starting to listen to the life stories of gay and lesbian people, rather than just making theological pronouncements. Gays must share their experience with the people in the Church who "make the decisions, write the theologies." Always Our Children is a helpful document, he said, because the writers consulted gay and lesbian Catholics. "This did not get mailed down from Rome by people who never had a conversation about it," he said. He added, however, that there is still a lot of "schizophrenia" in the Church's position. Schexnayder's further suggestions for schools included training teachers and faculty to be "safe staff" people to whom gay students can go when they have problems (and who presumably would not advise the students to go to confession or abstain from sex). He also advised "training" parents and school board members. "Administrators are afraid of school boards and parents. So, include them in the picture. They may not all be happy about this, but it certainly helps the picture."
According to Schexnayder, another way he gets at parents, when the schools won't cooperate, is to hold parish meetings. The following week, he noted, he was to speak on the subject at parishes in Hayward, along with the Diocesan Family Life Director and parents of gay and lesbian children. "The best form I've found is by having parents and families come out in that parish and diocese by having parents go to their pastor and bishop and saying, `I am parents of gay and lesbian people of a child —and I feel that this needs to be addressed."
Just before the session closed, Amity Buxton complained that the Church says it is wrong to "express homosexual friendships sexually." Schexnayder responded, "The Church validates the sanctity of an individual conscience. After a certain point, it's nobody's damn business. What are we going to do? Ask everybody? We don't do that of heterosexuals. Because they have a loving relationships before marriage, do we go around asking, `Are you sexually active?' As Cardinal Mahony said at our national conference last year, we should be careful not to ask more of gay and lesbian people than we do of heterosexuals."
The schools program has been quite successful, according to Schexnayder. He noted that he used to be "almost afraid" to speak at one particular Catholic high school in the diocese because he would have opposition from the students. But, more recently, when he went to speak to several classes at the school, the students' said: "`What's the big deal? We all know gay and lesbian people. Why can't gay and lesbian people get married?' I was like, wow."
The Diocese of Oakland's participation in this conference demonstrates just how radical gay Church activists are and how successful they've been in subverting Catholic education, thanks to ecclesiastical secrecy and bishops who ignore parents' and children's moral and civil rights. Our Catholic schools are controlled by people who think their job is to, in Schexnayder's words, "help integrate young people with their own sexuality." The program is funded by a secular agency, so even if a new bishop comes to Oakland, his only effective means of stopping Schexnayder's programs —pulling the funding — is useless.
© The Wanderer, 201 Ohio Street, St. Paul, MN 55107, 612-224-5733, http://www.thewandererpress.com.
This item 684 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
