Category: Education/Indoctrination

Catholic School Expells Student for Pro-Life Views

I have been following the strange saga of Katelyn Sills and Loretto High School for several weeks without rendering any comments until now. I’m now ready to chime in on this whole situation.

For those of you that haven’t been following this story lets me quickly summarize. Marie Bain was a drama teacher at a Loretto High School. In her spare time she was also a clinic escort at the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Oh, Loretto is a Roman Catholic School. This is an obvious conflict with established church doctrine and the moral example that Loretto should expect from its faculty. Once this double life was brought to the attention of the school administration, the school did nothing. Frustrated beyond words, Katelyn’s mother appealed this issue to the local Bishop, William K. Weigand. The Bishop thoroughly investigated this matter and decided that there were sufficient grounds to dismiss Bain. A few weeks later, the school administration retaliated by expelling Katelyn and her sister.

The fact that Marie Bain was perfectly fine being a clinic escort is all that you really need to know about her. I have spent my share of time protesting in front of abortion clinics and normal people that like abortion don’t do that sort of activity. Only zealots who believe in a culture of death will participate in the murder of unborn children. The women that I encountered as escorts were either hardcore members of the National Organization of Women (NOW), lesbians from the local Lambda Community Center, dumb girls recruited from Women’s Studies Department at Sac State or imports from San Francisco.

For Marie Bain to be a teacher at a Catholic School is anathema to everything that the Roman Church believes. As a teacher, you represent the school 24/7. Anything you do in public reflects back on the school.

Marie Bain has responded to her firing by filing complaints with two California state agencies: Department of Labor and Department of Fair Employment and Housing. These complaints will set the groundwork for her to file suit for wrongful termination against Loretto and Catholic Diocese of Sacramento.


Too bad for Loretto that Katelyn is an established blogger. This incident has received both national and international exposure. I have seen posts on Katelyn’s site from a host of other states plus England and Canada. Articles have run on WorldNetDaily, LifeSite and RenewAmerica and a host of other sites. This has turned into a BlogSwarm.


Katelyn is on the verge of becoming a conservative symbol of what’s wrong with America on the same magnitude as Terri Schiavo. Loretto may not readmit Katelyn to school but their hypocrisy has severely hurt their reputation as a Catholic institution.

My thanks to Andy Nevis at California High School Conservative for filling in the gaps in this story until Katelyn’s attorney gives her the “green light” tell us the rest of the story.

 

The Basis of Global Peace

This week, my junior high school student came home with an assignment to draw a poster for a Peace Poster contest. The instructions were to draw a picture but use no text or writing of any kind in your design. This turns out to be a preliminary step in some international competition. This event is sponsored locally by the Lions Club.

We were surprised and concerned that our child received such an assignment. As a result, my wife and I had an hour long discussion with our child about what is peace? What is war? What about nations that are not at war but tyrannical?

Our child wanted to use primarily a symbol of a dove to represent peace. Ok so what does the dove represent? Our child did know that the dove (with olive branch) was from the biblical account of Noah and the ark. Our next question was where else in the Bible do you find a dove and what does it represent? Our child was clueless. We opened the New Testament and read the account of the baptism of Jesus. Mark 1: 9-11 From this story we learn that the dove often is related to the presence of the Holy Spirit.

We also discussed the purpose and origin of government. As source material we used the Westminster Confession of Faith section XXIII on Civil Magistrates, the scope and limitation of government as viewed by our founders and the biblical covenant where God first established human government Gen 9.

What was shown was that God established human government as a means of protecting the innocent and punishing the wicked. God raises up human leaders and removes them at his pleasure. The government has a God-given role, the church also has a God-given role in society and each citizen has obligations to their government.

We also briefly mentioned a description of Christ on his throne ruling over the nations as described in the book of Revelation. We talked that normally war is only justified as a defensive measure. Government insures the safety of citizens from threats both internal and external.

Our child kept saying that harmony was a goal of nations. It was a typical Rodney King moment appealing to the why cant we just get along? sentiment. Ok. What does that mean?

Using the Global War on Terror as our example we explained that not everyone is interested in peace. Peace can often be confused for surrender. Just ask Cindy Sheehan. We asked our child what the United States could do to have a ceasefire with the Islamic fundamentalists. Who would we negotiate with? Who has authority to sign a treaty? What assurance would there be to compliance with the terms of peace? (These are the same questions that the Liberals are unable to answer.)

The War on Terror is a just war because it is a defensive measure necessary because of a clear and present danger to our nation.

Our child enjoys music and said that all the nations are a big orchestra and peace is defined as a harmony of all the parts. We then inquired as to why nations should be in harmony and to extend the analogy, what would they be playing?

My contention is that there can only be peace when every knee shall bow and tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Phil 2:11 To that end our song is Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come! Rev 6:8b Only to the extent that nations are obedient to Christ and fulfilling their God ordained role can any nation truly know peace.

Question 1 of the Westminster Catechism asks, What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever .

One purpose of government is to maintain a society where man is free to worship his creator and live in peace.

Now that you understand all this, we told our child to go and make a poster about world peace.

Newdow is Back

Michael Newdow is back! After failing to get the Pledge of Allegiance banned from Elk Grove’s public schools last year because he lacked standing in the courts, he has brought a new suit on behalf of others.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled today that the Pledge is unconstitutional because it contains the phrased “one nation under God.”

The judge cited the infamous 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco as precedent.

This should clear the way for John Roberts to be appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. This act of judicial activism illustrates why we need conservatives on the Court.

In the September 2005 edition of the newsletter NEAtoday, is an appeal from the National Education Association (NEA) to its membership to boycott Wal-Mart over Wal-Mart’s labor practices.

What do Wal-Mart’s labor practices have to do with education? Nothing; except that Wal-Mart doesn’t want to become a home for labor unions. They are perfectly happy operating in the free market economy.

The NEA is urging members to visit the Wake-up Wal-Mart website which is a site operated by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The Union is threatened by the expansion of Wal-Mart Supercenters where a grocery store is combined with a Wal-Mart retail store. Most of these Supercenters are open 24 hours and employ 200 to 550 associates.

In addition, the NEA has its own mini site dedicated to bashing Wal-Mart.

The claims on the NEA site have little to do with education and more to do with bashing the retail giant because they don’t represent the party line of the Democratic Party.

 

The only claim even close to touching education is the assertion that parents of students working at Wal-Mart are poor and are low income workers. The biggest fallacy of this argument is that the NEA assumes that Wal-Mart’s wages are the best that these parents can possibly earn in their working lives. Even if that were true, at least Wal-Mart is an honest job for people who otherwise would be on the dole.

The main headings of the Facts about Wal-Mart are:

Wal-Mart profits fund the anti-public education movement.
The corporation has contributed to support of school choice including vouchers, private and charter schools.

Wal-Mart is a low-wage, low-benefit employer.
Wal-Mart pays sales associates an average of $8.50 (well above Federal Minimum Wage) and requires employees to pay one third of their medical insurance. Benefits are a benefit not a right.

US taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart.
Many associates are low enough on the wage scale that they are eligible for some forms of government assistance. So, many in our Armed Forces are in the same boat and I don’t hear them complaining.

Wal-Mart will do anything to stop its employees from unionizing.
It is their right to be a non-union company. If employees dont like it, they can work somewhere else.

Wal-Mart hurts local businesses and communities.
Maybe, but I never hear anyone complaining about the same thing when Home Depot comes to their town and they play hardball with small businesses and contractors in their community.

Wal-Mart’s low prices rely on low-wage Chinese labor.
I don’t see the NEA going after HP or Intel or Microsoft or Toyota or General Motors for utilizing non-union labor in other countries.

Wal-Mart violates child labor laws.
They accuse Wal-Mart of not letting students have breaks while working. So teachers don’t get breaks, I know, I’m married to one. I have never in my adult life had an employer that had a regular break schedule. If I need one I will take it.

Wal-Mart discriminates against women.
Ok, who takes time off to care for children? The spouse with the lesser benefits will usually care for children and prefer part-time hours, is it any wonder that men earn more than their female counterparts? It is logic not discrimination.

Wal-Mart hires undocumented workers.
No they don’t. Some work that they contracted out was done by illegals. If you have bought a house then you have paid for work done by illegal aliens. Get over it.

Wal-Mart has a negative effect on the environment.
I’ve seen more violations of health, safety and sanitation codes at my local school district than the NEA can compile against Wal-Mart for the same number of employees.

The Looney Left definitely has their claws into the teacher unions. I look forward to the Passage of Paycheck Protection in November.

Ohio Girls Can’t Say, “NO”

65 of 490 girls at Timkin High School in Canton, Ohio are in a family way. That’s right, over 13 percent of the young lasses have reported the consequences of promiscuity. This is double the teen pregnancy rate of the rest of Ohio.


If you add in a factor of one in three pregnancies ended by abortion, then the actual pregnancy rate would be closer to 20 percent of all females in the school. This is outrageous!


The school website contains this excerpt from a letter by the principal.


Our students have the opportunity to focus their academic careers through the Arts, Services and Technology academies. These in turn produce natural opportunities in extracurricular activities. It is an exciting concept, and this is an exciting time in our school’s history.

Yeah, they must have lots of unsupervised extracurricular activities; and this might very well qualify as school history, but not the kind that makes alumni write big checks.


The school mascot really is the Trojans!


Now if we could prove that Planned Parenthood wrote their sex ed curriculum, we could close the circle on this failed institution.

Hugh Hewitt stole some of my thunder about this subject on his radio show today but this the type of story that is too good to pass up. Thanks to Matt Drudge for giving this article the attention that it deserved.

CAIR Unmasked: Live

Hugh Hewitt spent almost three hours this week with Hussam Ayloush—a spokesman from the Southern California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Wow, what an eye-opening interview.

The CAIR representative kept trying to pass himself off as an average American guy who just happens to defend the rights of people who read the Koran and pray to Allah. He did a good job defending his point of view in a partisan sort of way. That is until he was asked to denounce actions that Muslim folks had taken against non-Muslims and then he was unmasked. (You could tell that he was holding back from revealing what he really believed.)

Hewitt nailed Mr. Ayloush with a question about the unprovoked attacks on Israel in 1948 and 1973. The CAIR representative saw nothing wrong with surprise military attacks on Israel with no provocation. He also had excuses about why the people in the Palestinian refugee camps were taught in school with maps that purposely-left Israel off the Middle-East maps.

At the mention of Israel, Mr. Ayloush went into attack mode and accused Hewitt of being a Jew lover and a hater of Islam. He then went on to accuse Hewitt of being a racist and a bigot. When pressed for answers, Ayloush went into a lame retort that he is a simple engineer and not a politician. In other words he was not qualified to speak on these matters. Excuse me, Hussam Ayloush, you were there as a spokesman for CAIR! This dumb bumpkin from the carpet bazaar act may work with some folks but he picked the wrong host on which to pull that stunt.

CAIR was revealed to be what I have often heard them accused of being, they masquerade as loves of peace and democracy but their true aims are the same as the terrorisms that plague the world today. They are obstructionists to a solution. Instead they run interference and provide cover for those sworn to kills us.

I often wonder if their brother Muslims were such caring and loving people as Mr.Ayloush claims, then why have they forced the Palestinians to live in refugee camps for over half a century? There is more than enough land and money in the Arab countries that if they wanted to absorb the Palestinians into neighboring countries they could. Apparently, it is better politics for Arab rulers to keep the peasants stirred-up about a non-existent external threat (Israel)that oppresses their brothers than to confront the oppression in their own nations.

CAIR will provide political cover and legal representation for terrorists but is not interested in rooting out the terrorists in their own community. Its too bad. If they wont deal with their own people, they will create a situation where those outside the community that they claim to represent will have to do it for them. They are setting-up the circumstances that they claim to be trying to prevent. (This is a common tactic of many special interest groups.) When a crackdown begins on their people they will have no one to blame but themselves.

Thanks Hugh for giving Mr. Ayloush enough rope to hang himself with his own words. Transcript on July 25 & 26 at RadioBlogger

 

Nightmare Exposed

I am a parent here in Elk Grove. My child attends a local junior high. Next week there will be a presentation at that school called “Nightmare on Puberty Street”

I was one of only five parents that went to the preview night to review the course material on family life two weeks ago. At that meeting I was assured that only biology would be discussed and that there were no outside organizations coming to the school to make presentations about sexual matters. The school began its family life courses this week.

Yesterday, the second day in the family life curriculum, my daughter brought home a permission slip for this program called “Nightmare on Puberty Street”.

On the permission slip, we were given two choices; we could either check the YES box or the one labeled MORE INFORMATION. There was no option on the permission form to say NO.

Because of the previous assurances from the school and the fact that the permission slip did not give parents a NO option, I immediately became suspicious.

I will share my finding with you in a moment but I wanted to add one more detail. I was told by the school activities director that this presentation, which begins at about nine AM will continue until 12:10 pm. This entire time from nine ‘til just past noon is considered first period. This caused me concern that there might be time allowed for the workshops which accompany the presentation.

This program contains values contrary to those that most Christians that I know would find objectionable and some language that is quite course.

A San Francisco Bay Area theater group reviewed that program (which they liked) and summarized it as follows:

Lasit (the director of the program) is big on creating a show with which kids will identify; he’s also not afraid to have his actors tackle taboo subjects, which is why he show now opens with a discussion of nocturnal emissions (“There’s not actually a bone in there,” a character assures the udience, “it’s just called a boner” to  appreciative laughter) before the four vibrant young actors sing and dance their way through peer pressure, gay-bashing, menstruation, name-calling and suicidal tendencies—the real nightmares of pubescence.

Web Link: Educational Theatre Projects Tackle Tough Social Issues

Kaiser, the healthcare provider is a big supporter of this program and gives you some sample lyrics from the program:

There’s A Name for You  is the title of a song from Kaiser Permanente’s educational Theatre Program Nightmare on Puberty St. Read the lyrics and discuss the labels the characters in the play used. Think about how these labels make people feel.

CHORUS (yelling, popcorn style)
Malika: jock
Natalie: brain
Nick: faggot
Jerry: ho
Natalie: punk
Nick: nerd
Jerry: wanna be
Malika: slut
Nick: freak
Natalie: all those words
Jerry: big baller
Malika: no cash
Nick: tweeker
Natalie: attitude

Yes, there is values clarification, self-esteem and confidential resources to see if you might be gay. If you don’t believe me check out the teacher guide  with lessons.

See page 2 for Confidential Hotlines for students to use and page 24 for teacher resources.

This program is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Inner City Public School Teacher [Visitor]

Dear Sir,

I first saw “Nightmare on Puberty Street” in 2002 in Paramount Unified School District. I was mortified that my students were subjected to it. Recently in my present district I received a notice that it was going to be shown and I went to the principal and assistant principal to have a talk. I let them know that I didn’t approve of it, that I refused to show it to my class, and that it was “the hill I’d die on.” I described it to them and they were concerned but the show went on. I talked to a few colleagues and they either watched the kids who didn’t have permission or forgot to send home the permission slip. The program was faxed to all sites after a promo was received from Kaiser or somewhere about it. Its showing at our school wasn’t properly considered and definately was a “point of view,” not something all inclusive or appropriate for students. One teacher who had attended the school as a student told me that the parents won’t have approved of it. I felt vindicated by his statement.

Cordially