Targeting Our Children – No. 4729
The war against our children never lets up. Various activist groups are continually aiming to get our children into their less-than-healthy lifestyles. Such attempts occur at a regular pace, and it is hard to keep up with it all.
The latest attempt to hijack our kids comes from – no surprise here – yet another academic pushing an agenda. Deakin University health and education lecturer Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli said parents should teach their children about gay relationships from the age of three or four.
The academic is the author of When Our Children Come Out: How to Support Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Young People. She said parents should tell their children there was nothing wrong with same-sex relationships. That way, if they were gay, children would feel comfortable coming out to friends and family.
Of course our sexpert here is not some disinterested and neutral academic. She is an activist who has a clear agenda to push. For example, she is an Honorary Lifelong Patron of P-flag (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and is often featured in the homosexual press.
Homosexual activist Rodney Croome says this about her work: “Pallotta-Chiarolli validates her research in holistic and humanistic terms the great Kinsey would have approved of.” Of course the perverted Kinsey conducted “research” into the lives of sexual offenders and paedophiles in prison, and his work has been roundly criticised. So she is moving in some bad company here.
But what about her proposal? Do three-year-olds need homosexuality education? Do they even need general sex education? Clearly not. Such young children are not at all ready, either mentally, emotionally, or psychologically, to grapple with such adult themes.
They are not even asking about the latest Playstation console. They are simply trying to be children, and we should not seek to steal away their innocence and childhood. What we have here are adult activists who are seeking to sexualise our young people, and who want to normalise homosexuality.
Indeed, this is really just a recruitment drive on their part, a way of targeting vulnerable children. It has everything to do with the agendas of the homosexual lobby, and nothing to do with the well-being of little children.
But Ms Pallotta-Chiarolli argues that a child might have a homosexual uncle, and thus needs to learn about this. But a child might also have an uncle who is a heroin addict, or is in a correctional institute. Should we be telling these little children all about those adult situations as well?
It is time that we let our children be children. We must resist the attempts of the radical homosexual lobby to indoctrinate our children. They are free to recruit adults into their high-risk lifestyle, but they really should get their hands off our children.
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Dear Bill, people need to read Robert Gagnon, Joe Nicolosi of NARTH, and Dr Jeffrey Satinover. Children, our families and the freedom to live out a Christian life are all going to be swept away by the incoming tide of secularism and atheism. Persecution really is just around the corner.
David Skinner
Thanks for another excellent alert, Bill.
I note (sadly) that a lot of the population will swallow this like a camel, while also agreeing that there is a significant problem with “corporate sexualisation of our children for profit”.
This again demonstrates the ability of mankind to hold two opposing ideas in the same head at the same time without going stark raving mad.
John Angelico
Excellent article, Bill.
I only hope that by the time I have kids, I’ll still be able to raise them in the way that I think is right, rather than how society and the government think is right.
James Swanson, Tennessee, USA
Hi Bill.
You argue that teaching children about homosexual relationships may “sexualise” them prematurely. Would you also agree, therefore, that in teaching children about heterosexual relationships we may be in danger in doing exactly the same thing? Do you believe that heterosexual relationships are any less predicated on sexuality than homosexual ones? If we can discuss heterosexual relationships with children without explicity exploring human sexuality, could we not do the same in discussions about homosexual relationships?
James Preston
Thanks James
Two issues here: I have already said that all forms of sex ed are inappropriate for our young kids. Any attempt to sexualize young children is wrong.
As to the well-being of children, I have argued elsewhere on this site that there is no better environment in which to raise children than with their own biological mother and father, preferably cemented by marriage. The social science evidence on this is quite clear.
This has nothing to do with sexuality but with the right of every child to grow up with his or her own mother and father. Homosexual couples of course do not provide this. Plus as I have also argued elsewhere on this site, the homosexual lifestyle is a high-risk lifestyle, one which we should certainly not be encouraging in our children, or anyone else for that matter.
An analogy would be to argue that because some members of one’s household may smoke three packs of cigs a day, we therefore need to tell our three-year-olds that this is a normal and acceptable lifestyle, that such realities exist, and we need to be accepting of these situations. That is what the Deakin academic is suggesting regarding homosexuality. She is on a crusade to convince our young children that this is a perfectly healthy, normal and acceptable lifestyle, while most parents would beg to differ.
It is about indoctrination and social engineering, in other words, something most concerned parents will not countenance in their homes or schools.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
It seems to me that advocates on this issue are worried that if children are raised in a society where homosexuality is marginalized, they will struggle ‘coming out’ later on. I think in today’s society homosexuality is far from marginalized. It is all around us. It is being advertised and promoted more and more.
To suggest educating three and four year olds on any sort of sexual relationship, to me, is just outrageous. They are only children, lets stop trying to make them grow up before their time. It is our role to protect them. We should not be exposing them to sexual issues, we should be shielded them from it.
Ania Majdali
Well said Bill. Three year olds are still learning about their own bodies. They do not need adult sinful behaviour thrown on them. Children are children, let them be children. No need to confuse them at such a young and tender age.
Judith Bond
It would appear that the only people who would ‘feel good’ about Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli’s agenda would be adults who ‘feel good’ about her homosexual agenda anyway.
As an educator, it is my observation that most children feel quite uncomfortable when discussing or commenting about sexuality and sexual issues of any sort.
Children do not ‘feel good’ about these issues. They are inherently inquisitive, yet nervously cautious. They want certainty and safety, not deception and harmful behaviour.
The homosexual lobby deceptively seeks to portray certainty and safety especially to children, and they use it {as do pedophiles) to prey upon the young to benefit their own lustful agenda.
Children usually learn their moral boundaries from their parents, and often learn how to break those boundaries from peers/friends, and any adults who challenge their parents’ authority, such as Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli.
I know, I was a kid once.
Michael Evans
I like this blog. For the most part, I don’t share your views, but I like reading your (mostly) rational comments on issues that are important to me. It helps me see a different perspective, question some of my beliefs, reaffirm others, and get a feel for what is right or wrong and what is simply a matter of opinion.
On this subject, I think it’s important to separate sexual orientation from the subject of sex education. As much as I think accurate sex education is important, I agree that we shouldn’t be sexualising our kids. In other words, we shouldn’t push information onto kids who aren’t ready for it, but we should make sure they have access to that information when they need it. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with that.
I won’t sit my kids down for “The Talk” and make them uncomfortable with details. Instead, they’ll learn bit by bit as they grow, absorbing information as they need/want to know.
Likewise, I won’t sit my kids down and explain that homosexuality is normal/okay. Instead, I’ll make sure they understand this intuitively as they grow up, taking care to protect them from predujices they pick up as they journey through life.
Nathan Jones
Whatever happened to the days when children grew up watching parents in a natural, loving relationship.
There is an old saying “more is caught than taught.”
I have a grown daughter who has watched her mother and I grow stronger together over the years.
Yes, there have been dramas in our lives so we are not perfect but our child has seen our mutual love and respect for each other grow.
She has also seen that we have taken our vows to each other seriously – we have kept ourselves solely to each other and not strayed.
My wife and I never sat and educated as to lifestyle choice but she has grown seeking a normal heterosexual relationship because she saw the happiness in mum and dad.
My daughter is not antagognistic towards “gays” she has just made a choice to reject their lifestyle.
Jim Sturla
Bill, again a fantastic article. Children have always and will always grow and mature properly living in an environment with parents of the opposite sex.
There is no way children should be taught about homosexuality as it will only confuse the child, and later on could develop a complex towards their sexuality.
Children are like clay and are easily moulded, and so need to be guarded against this sort of thing.
Fivos Panayiotou
There seems to be a deliberate misunderstanding not only of homosexuality, but of Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli’s intentions on this blog. I think what the campaign is about is simply making children ‘aware’ of same-sex relationships (i.e. that two daddies or two mommies is socially OK). My brother is a homosexual, and having to come to terms with his sexuality in the context of a heterosexual home was hugely damaging to him. He eventually confessed to me that his first sexual thoughts were homosexual ones. There was no decision. He is not a spiteful person. He was a Christian. He had a secure group of Christian friends. There is no logical reason why he would marginalize himself life that. Seriously, can you think of one?
Furthermore, it doesn’t seem logical that heterosexual couples provide a more stable setting for a child to grow than homosexual couples. Marriage (or ‘partnerships’) are enabling homosexuals to now aquire the same levels of security that previously only heterosexuals were entitled to. If there are statistics against homosexual child-rearing, expect that to change as soon as homosexuals are allowed to marry.
This really typifies the height of Christian ignorance. Do yourself a favour. Speak to a homosexual Christian (a contradiction in terms in my view… nevertheless they do exist) and ask them if they are homosexual out of choice or if God made them that way…
Steve Paul
Thanks Steve
It is not altogether clear if you are writing as a Christian here, but let me take that approach. (If you are not, I can address your concerns on a non-biblical level as well).
Yes a Christian homosexual is a contradiction in terms, just as a Christian adulterer or Christian fornicator is. God’s design for human sexuality has always only been for one man, one woman for life, in heterosexual marriage. All other forms of sex are sinful, end of story. Thus if you are a believer, you let Christ tell you what is right and wrong. You do not tell him what you think is right and wrong.
And if you are a Christian, then you should know the answers to your own questions. We are all born into sin and selfishness. Thus everyone one of us have orientations that lead us away from God. That is why Christ came, to set us free from sin and self, and to help us live a life pleasing to him in holiness and righteousness. So people may be born with an orientation to same-sex attraction, to overeating, or anger, or whatever. All are sinful orientations, and all need to be repented of, not indulged in, as if we have no choice in the matter.
The idea that no one would choose homosexuality because of the negative consequences is not very convincing. You might as well argue that no one would choose to be a criminal or arsonist, because of all the negative reaction. But people do make such choices all the time.
Homosexuality is still ultimately a matter of choice, as the more honest homosexuals admit to. And if a person claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, then no sinful orientation or lifestyle need trap up any longer. God is in the business of setting people free from such dead-end lifestyles. I have a number of friends who used to be homosexuals but have now fully left the lifestyle. That is the good news everyone needs to hear, including your brother.
The stability and importance of heterosexual parents for the wellbeing of children is now fully documented in many thousands of empirical studies. You have a choice here: you can accept this wealth of social science data, and put the interests of children first, or you can ignore the research, and instead push your pro-homosexual agenda.
And you can – if you are a Christian – obey Christ and live a life pleasing to him in accordance with his commands, or you can tell Christ to get lost and refuse to obey his clear words to us as given in Scripture. But to do so means you are no longer letting Christ be Lord in your life. And that is what makes someone a Christian: when we stop seeking to be the boss and let Christ be Lord of all.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch