Dispatches from Bitter America: A Gun Toting, Chicken Eating Son of a Baptist's Culture War Stories

by Starnes, Todd

  Whoever said homecoming dances are a drag?

  Gender-benders are not just limited to colleges. And that brings us to Fairfax High School in Southern California. Last year Sergio Garcia (not the professional golfer) became one of the first males on the west coast to be elected prom queen. To his credit, Garcia chose to wear a suit instead of pantyhose. "But don't be fooled, deep down inside, I am a queen,"3 the eighteen-year-old told the Los Angeles Times.

  Among his detractors were a number of high school girls who wondered why he didn't run for prom king. But supporters said Garcia's election was a significant step in breaking homosexual stereotypes. Following his reign, he hopes to pursue his dream of becoming a choreographer and hairdresser.

  And then there's the story of what happened at George Mason University. Students elected Ryan Allen as their homecoming queen. Allen is gay. The twenty-two-year-old junior is also a drag queen and goes by the name Reann Ballslee.

  Allen was crowned during halftime of the men's basketball game. He accepted his tiara wearing a sequined top and size twelve pumps.

  Two other contestants actually had functioning female parts, but Allen was able to garner the most votes. He won a qualifying pageant for the contest by performing a Britney Spears song wearing a silver bra and zebra-print pants.

  You might be surprised to learn that not everyone at George Mason is happy with their homecoming queen. Some even said their "miss" who is a "mister" was an embarrassment.

  But don't count George Mason's administration among the offended. The university spokesman told The Washington Post they were "very comfortable" with the choice.4 The school, he said, does not require participants in the Mr. and Ms. Mason pageant to compete along precise gender lines.

  Vickie Kirsch, the director of George Mason's Women and Gender Studies Department, was overjoyed. She told reporters the choice was "a significant and positive benchmark in Mason's history."

  So in that alternate universe known as academia, a homosexual wearing female panties is one small step for man, one giant benchmark for George Mason University.

  The student newspaper, the Broadside, hailed the newly crowned queen. Allen was given a "thumbs up" for "being an outstanding representative of Mason."5

  And why wouldn't they be proud of a young man wearing zebra-print pants, lip-synching to a Britney Spears song? It's the pinnacle of diversity and inclusiveness.

  Meanwhile, I've been wondering about the homecoming dance between Mr. and Ms. Mason.

  Who led?

  27

  Rub a Dub Dub

  Editor's note: The following chapter contains some instances of graphic language necessary to communicate the severity of the subject matter. So you might want to set down your iced tea.

  Jack and Jill went up the hill and did something incredibly inappropriate, according to a comprehensive sex education plan in Helena, Montana, that would begin teaching the subject to students as early as kindergarten age. The Helena Public School System plan proposes introducing first graders to the idea that people can be attracted to the same gender. In second grade, students are instructed to avoid gay slurs. And by the time students turn ten years old, they are taught about various types of intercourse. By grade five, the subject matter becomes even more vivid and descriptive. Shocking. If I don't want to talk about it here, makes you wonder why it seems appropriate there.

  Jeff Laszloffy, of the Montana Family Foundation, is among those outraged that educators want to teach sex education to kindergartners. "It's absolutely insane," Laszloffy said. "This is not education. This has crossed the line and has gone from education to indoctrination, and that's the problem parents have.

  "This is not the reason we send our kids to school—to be indoctrinated on different sex positions," he said. "These types of conversations should be had between parents and their children at the appropriate time, and we don't think it's the state's job to determine when that time is."

  School Superintendent Bruce Messinger told me parents have fair questions about the content of the plan. "This is by design a formative process," he said, noting the section about human sexuality has drawn the most attention.

  He said educators are still looking at the age appropriateness of the material and said final decisions won't be made until August. "There will be plenty of time for public comment," he said. "We are working through how the content would be taught and how the curriculum would be presented to students."

  He said the school system stresses parental involvement and said anyone with objections to classroom material has the option of pulling their child out of the class.

  "We honor that," he said.

  But he defends teaching sex education in grade school based on national data that he said indicates a growing number of ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds becoming sexually active.

  Laszloffy counters by saying that the bottom line is this: the program puts government between parents and their children. "It tramples parental rights, and we think those rights need to be upheld," he said.

  The debate over whether to teach and what to teach kindergartners has been raging for years. In 2007 then Senator Barack Obama said he supported sex education for kindergartners—calling it "the right thing to do." Obama recounted how grade school sex education became a campaign issue during his 2004 senate race against Alan Keyes.

  "I remember him using this in his campaign against me," Obama told Planned Parenthood as he mimicked Keyes, "Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergartners, which—I didn't know what to tell him, but it's the right thing to do—to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools."

  A wide number of parents who live in Montana, though, are adamantly opposed to the plan that's being considered in their state. Many say it's not the school's responsibility to teach such graphic material to their children. Others call it a disgrace.

  "Outrage," said Shannon Karp of Belgrade. "We are just setting children up to start having sex at an earlier age. I think we should let our children be children. Let them be innocent and enjoy their grade school years. There will be enough pressure on them as they get older."

  Well said.

  Meanwhile, school leaders in Provincetown, Massachusetts, approved a measure that will provide free condoms to elementary school students. The policy, unanimously approved by the Provincetown School Committee, does not include an age limit, meaning children of any age can ask for and receive free condoms.

  The committee also directed school leaders not to honor requests from any parent who might object to their child's receiving condoms. In other words, you don't have a right, mommy and daddy, to prevent your seven-year-old from getting a contraceptive device if he or she wants one.

  The policy does stipulate, however, that kids must consult with a nurse or trained counselor before getting their sexual protection—a provision that surprisingly upset some of the committee members,1 according to the Provincetown Banner.

  "I can see some kids opting out because of the conversation. I'm not against [the policy]. I'm just trying to put myself in that teenager's spot," said committee member Carrie Notaro.

  "I don't like that students can't be discreet about this," committee member Shannon Patrick told the newspaper. "They have to go and ask for it. I'd rather them not have the conservation [with counselors] and have the condom than not have the condom."

  School Superintendent Beth Singer, on the other hand, supported the instructional aspect of the rule, explaining that younger boys and girls might not be experienced in such adult matters. "We're talking about younger kids," she told the newspaper. "They have questions they need answered on how to use them, when to use them."

  Reaction has been mixed on newspaper Web sites. One reader opposed to the measure wrote, "A condom distribution policy at the elementary school? Twelve-year-old kids need condo
ms? When I was twelve, I thought a peck on the lips was something."

  Another reader wrote, "Stupidity exists everywhere. Why not just give the kids free needles while we're at it?"

  However, a supporter of the measure praised committee members. "If the kids really are sexually active that young these days, then they absolutely should have access to condoms. Sure, it's demoralizing to think of eleven- and twelve-year-olds starting at that age, but if they are, they're not going to stop."

  This must be the sentiment in Philadelphia, as well, where children as young as eleven years old are not only allowed but are encouraged to get free condoms. The condoms are paid for by taxpayers, and according to the health department's Web site, "If you live in Philadelphia and you are between the ages of eleven and nineteen, all you have to do is fill out the form below, and we'll put together a package for you."

  Ronnie Polaneczky, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, exposed the health department's perverse desire to equip young boys and girls with sex tools without their parent's knowledge or consent.2 This is happening within a context where, according to the executive director of one local nonprofit that works to prevent the spread of HIV, "Teachers call us because their kids are acting out sexually. They'll catch them in the bathroom or the stairwell. They hear that kids are cutting school to have orgies." Philadelphia's health commissioner told the newspaper that approximately 25 percent of the eleven-year-olds in West Philadelphia are sexually active. Eleven-year-olds!

  I'm not a professional educator, of course, but maybe if the school system would stop teaching third-graders how to have sex, they wouldn't have so big a problem.

  The sexual indoctrination of boys and girls isn't limited to the West or Northeast, however. Parents in Shenandoah, Iowa, were outraged after fourteen-year-olds were instructed on graphic sexual acts during a Planned Parenthood sex education class at the local high school.

  "It was horribly inappropriate," Colleen Dostal told me. "To do that in a mixed-gender classroom, I truly believe it was inappropriate."

  Dostal's fourteen-year-old son was one of a handful of eighth-graders in the class. The students, she said, were given instruction on how to perform female exams, and the instructor used a 3D, anatomically correct male sex organ to explain how to use a condom.

  But Dostal said she was most upset over the instructor simulating sexual acts using stuffed animals designed to resemble STDs. "I do not understand why any adult with a classroom of children would show them sexual positions," she said. "I think that's horribly inappropriate."

  "Had we known this was going on, I would have sat in the classroom, or I would have pulled him out," Dostal said.

  She took her concerns to the principal, whom Dostal said was "mortified" and willingly apologized. Still, several other parents decided to take the issue to the school superintendent, including one parent who said, "I understand it's a state law that sex education be taught, but it is also state mandated that parents be told that this is going to happen, and we were not told."

  Planned Parenthood's Jennifer Horner, for her part, defended the class and said some of the material had been misconstrued. "We are not trying to keep any of this a secret," she told the newspaper. "All information we use is medically accurate and science-based."

  Superintendent Dick Profit told the Omaha World-Herald he actually received an equal number of calls both supporting and opposing the Planned Parenthood presentation. "It's a political hot potato; it's a religious hot potato; it's a parental hot potato,"3 he told the newspaper. "It's all of these things that cause a crack in the system between society, parents, and schools, and we're still required to do it."

  He said parents and guardians will receive advance warning next year about the class. But that may not satisfy parents like Scott Gray, whose sixteen-year-old son was in the class. "As far as we were concerned, it wasn't sex ed.; it was sex demonstration," he told the newspaper.

  I could go on.

  I could tell about the sex lessons described in books that, according to the Christian Institute, a British advocacy group, are meant to be read by five-year-olds.

  I could tell about the provocative survey sent out to seventh- graders at Hardy Middle School in Washington, DC, asking about the students' sexual orientations, the date of their last HIV test, and the precise extent of their sexual experience.

  I could tell about the eight-hour leadership class attended by Hillsboro High School seniors in Nashville, Tennessee, that at one point (for some reason) included a demonstration from representatives of a local AIDS education organization, complete with anatomical models that left little if anything to the imagination.

  I could tell about a lot of things.

  But let me just say this for the sake of full disclosure: I don't have children. I'm simply a taxpayer who foots the bill for their free condoms, sex education classes, Planned Parenthood abortions, and STD medications. And I'm really not sure why all these government leaders and education leaders are sweating the growing number of kids engaging in sexual activity. Instead of being shocked, they should be celebrating. These esteemed educators have taken sexually charged, hormone-crazed teenagers and given them the tools to use what the good Lord gave them. And judging from the nation's teenage pregnancy rates, I'd say they've done a pretty good job.

  But if school leaders are truly wanting to curb teen sex—if that's the case—I've got the perfect solution for them: stop teaching how-to classes and start teaching don't-do classes.

  I know the experts are throwing out all sorts of statistics these days, but there's only one statistic they need to arm themselves with. Exactly 100 percent of American teenagers who practice abstinence do not become pregnant. Until the schools start living with that, why not stick to the reading and writing and leave the child-rearing to the experts?

  And a word of advice to moms and dads: try acting like your child's parent instead of their friend. Stop letting your daughters walk out of the house dressed like high-priced hookers. Start telling your sons how to treat ladies—with respect and dignity.

  In the meantime, though, if your first-grader comes home and says he read Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Three Men in a Tub, don't assume it's a nursery rhyme.

  28

  Tag—You're Out

  It was bound to happen sooner or later—recess has been outlawed. And you can blame the demise of fun-time on the most violent schoolyard game ever concocted—dodgeball.

  Jump rope? Don't even think about it.

  Hopscotch? Kid, you're just asking for trouble.

  Tag? Don't make me taser you, bro.

  The assault on recess started in earnest at the turn of the century. Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, California, for example, decided to ban the game of tag because it created self-esteem issues among the less athletically inclined boys and girls.

  Principal Pat Samarge told parents children were suffering physical and emotional injuries. "Little kids were coming in and saying, 'I don't like it.' [The] children weren't feeling good about it,"1 he said in a 2002 FOX News report.

  Heaven forbid children learn that winning and losing is a part of life. And that's the point Tamara Silver tried to make to the school. "I want my child to know that he can have some freedom," she told FOX. "I want my child to know he can play. I want my child to know that he call fall down and skin his knee."

  But Ms. Silver's opinion is not shared by those uber-intelligent folks who run the nation's school systems. Places like Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Charleston, South Carolina, and Spokane, Washington, have banned playground activities such as soccer and touch football.

  USA Today reported on educators who worried about "kids running into one another" and getting hurt.2 That's why the appropriately named Freedom Elementary School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, decided to tag out tag.

  The Oakdale School in Montville, Connecticut, de
cided to cut out traditional recess altogether. The New York Times reported in 2007 on their progressive approach to educating children.3 Kids were banned from vigorous games of tag and other "body-banging" activities because school leaders were afraid feelings might get bruised.

  Parents made such a fuss that the school decided to modify their rules—allowing kids to play kickball—but only if no one kept score.

  Here's what irate mommy Shari Clewell told The New York Times: "Life is competitive. Kids compete for attention. They compete for grades. You compete for a job. You compete from the time you're little all the way to the end."

  Oh, Shari! Sweet, naïve Shari. If only you had been educated in child-rearing by childless, intellectual elites!

  My favorite story comes from Broadway Elementary School in Newark, New Jersey. The principal actually hired someone to coach recess. The story warranted front page coverage in The New York Times.

  It seems the school was having a problem with boys and girls running into each other, arguing over basketballs, and ignoring kids they didn't want to hang out with. In other words, the kids were just being kids.

  So the school outlawed unauthorized activities like hopscotch and replaced them with structured free time. The rule at Broadway Elementary School? No goofing around during playtime.

  Back when I was a youngster, recess was the most wonderful time of the day. It was a chance to get lost in the honeysuckle patch behind Hope P. Sullivan Elementary School. It was a time for me to daydream. It was a time to play make-believe with my friends. It was a time to fall down and get dirty, to scrape elbows and knees. It was a time to learn the hard and fast lessons of life. There are winners. There are losers. Sometimes you get knocked down, but you have to dust yourself off and get right back up.

  Those lessons were brought to the big screen a few years ago in the inspirational movie, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.4 The film follows a band of misfits as they triumph over great obstacles and become dodgeball champions. Their winning mantra—dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.