Category Archives: LBGT

August 19, 2016 Radio Commentary

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LGBT Grades 2 – 12

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, August 19, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

No doubt, many parents of school-age children were alarmed when California passed S.B. 48 in 2011 and became the first state requiring a homosexual curriculum for grades 2 – 12. So, regardless of community attitudes, California schools became cultural change agents for alternate lifestyles through enhanced classroom instruction.

To accommodate multiculturalism, handicapped individuals, and sexuality activists, two California code sections now require history and social science courses to focus on three additional groups: (a) hyphenated Americans, (b) persons with disabilities, and the (c) ever-expanding list of alternate lifestyles – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups. Also when S.B. 48 became law, California gave “sexual orientation” civil rights status.

As for textbooks and instructional materials, “sexual orientation” and “occupation” were added to the list of designated groups teachers must present in a positive light, always. To get it done immediately, California’s Board of Education adopted updated guidelines to integrate changes into current instruction, because the next scheduled adoption of teaching materials is 2017.

Meantime, California’s second-grade teachers are encouraged to read students stories about “a very diverse collection of families,” including “families with lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender parents and their children.” Continue reading →

July 22, 2016 Radio Commentary

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14 Years of GSAs

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, July 22, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Fourteen years ago Senator Richard Marable introduced S.B. 426 so parents could be notified of clubs and activities available for students to join at school. Opponents of the bill included Georgia Equality, Georgia Rural Urban Summit, Enlight Atlanta, the ACLU and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

The bill did three things: (a) local boards of education were to develop policies to notify parents or guardians of clubs and activities available to students. (b) It would have provided an opportunity for parents to WITHHOLD permission to join, (c) but it did not REQUIRE parental permission for students to join. The focus of the bill was to keep parents in-the-loop about school activities available to their children.

Opponents brought in a Lakeside High School junior to speak against the bill when it was heard in the Senate Education committee. The student was president of Lakeside’s Gay Straight Alliance club. Despite opposition, S.B. 426 passed out of committee, but it died without further action.

When the bill was introduced, eleven Georgia counties had GSA clubs in high schools – six were school-certified and five were not certified. Now, Georgia has almost four dozen GSA clubs, and it’s important that parents know their focus. Continue reading →

July 1, 2016 Radio Commentary

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Georgia’s First LGBT School

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, July 1, 2016 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

A new private school is scheduled to open in Georgia in September.  Its name is Pride School Atlanta and its aim is to attract lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and teachers.  Pride School Atlanta will be the first private school for LGBT in the South, but not first in the country.  The first opened in Oak Lawn, Dallas, Texas in 1997, but closed in 2004.

New York City’s Harvey Milk school opened in 2003 as a public LGBT school funded by 3.2 million tax dollars,  That school originated from a 1985 social-service agency program teaching displaced youths to earn a GED degree.  In 2001 it became an accredited, four-year, diploma-granting high school.

The founder of Pride School Atlanta is a transgender male who has taught math and other subjects since 1992.  The school will initially operate out of a church – the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta.  Tuition will be about $13,000, with financial assistance available.

Pride School Atlanta will be a “Free Model school” tailored after schools in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Brooklyn.  “Free Model” means students will “explore freely, think critically, and work collaboratively, across ages, to govern themselves and their school.”  Brooklyn’s Free Model School embedded “education for social justice” strategies throughout its curriculum. Continue reading →

June 2016 Newsletter

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377-Page Rule Put HUD1 on Steroids
Q. Should a 41-year-old federal appointee
have power to decide who lives where

“This new regulation is designed to give unelected, anonymous bureaucrats in Washington the power to pick and choose who your new next-door neighbor will be. If they don’t believe your neighborhood is ‘diverse’ enough, they will seize control of local zoning decisions – choosing what should be built, where, and who should pay for it – in order to make your neighborhood look more like they want it to.”
–U. S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered an amendment to defund an unconstitutional power-grab that allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development to become a National Zoning Board with authority to rewrite local zoning laws and land-use regulations in every city and town, and transform demographics of state legislative and congressional districts. Senator Lee’s amendment was tabled by a vote of 60 – 37. Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson was one of 162 Republican senators who voted NO. Those NO-votes kept the President’s plan alive.

The new rule authorizes HUD to re-engineer the composition of neighborhoods by race, ethnicity, and class. That means HUD could move low-income families into single-family neighborhoods or disperse low-income housing developments into any community anywhere, regardless of local zoning ordinances, actions of elected local officials, or community desires. Unless the plan is stopped, HUD will re-zone all U.S. neighborhoods to comply with federal government specifications developed and enforced by the executive branch of government.

It can be stopped! Senator Lee says the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) plan can be easily thwarted, IF local governments, simply, refuse to take federal grants. Local officials who accept AFFH grants must agree to relinquish their power to control zoning policies. Meaning, the plan is contingent on successfully bribing local officials into compliance.

Senator Lee explained how AFFH works. Cities and towns must audit their local housing policies under close supervision of HUD regulators. Communities that fail to meet HUD’s new definition of “fair housing” must submit a community reorganization plan to comply with HUD.

Not only will HUD direct local governments and public housing authorities to make specific changes to zoning policies, HUD will require local officials to adopt HUD’s preferred housing policies or lose their traditional Community Development Block Grant for community needs.

Current Status. The U.S. House passed Rep. Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) amendment to defund AFFH and attached it to the FY 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Now the Senate must do likewise and pass Senator Lee’s amendment that was tabled in May. All senators in footnote 2 must be asked to vote YES.

ACTION – Call Senator Johnny Isakson, 1-877-762-8762 or 770-661-0999, and ask him to support Lee’s amendment.

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