Public School Teachers Told to Stop Saying “Boys and Girls”

Transgender, ,

Teachers in one Nebraska school district have been instructed to stop using gender-specific language when addressing students.

According to National Review Online, teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools have been told that phrases like “boys and girls” are not “gender-inclusive” and should not be used in the classroom.

So what, you might ask, are teachers to call their students? The training handout says, “Create classroom names and then ask all of the ‘purple penguins’ to meet on the rug.”

Instead of lining students up as “boys and girls,” the training material advises teachers to separate students according to their likes or interests, such as “skateboards” or “listening.” It even suggests separating students according to whether or not they are athletes–as if that isn’t going to make the classroom a charged environment. Does anyone really think labeling students according to their athletic prowess is somehow better than calling them a “boy” or a “girl”?

What is most striking about the material, however, is its instruction that teachers literally should be intolerant of opposing views. The handout reads,

“Be intolerant of openly hostile attitudes or references towards others EVERY TIME you hear or observe them, but also use these as teachable moments. Take the opportunity to push the individual on their statements about gender. Being punitive may stop the behavior, at least in your presence. Being instructive may stop it entirely.”

But just a paragraph or two later, the material states,

“Help students recognize ‘all or nothing’ language by helping them understand the difference between patterns and rules. Teach them phrases like ‘That may be true for some people, but not all people,’ or ‘frequently, but not always,’ or ‘more common and less common.’ Avoid using ‘normal’ to define any behaviors.”

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Christian College Risks Accreditation Over Biblical Standards

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Gordon College in Massachusetts is facing pressure from its accreditation board over the college’s biblical standards concerning sexual activity by students.

Gordon is a Christian college who lists same-sex activity alongside other forms of forbidden student conduct. However, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges is investigating whether Gordon has violated the Association’s standards for accreditation in doing so.

John Stonestreet with the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview writes,

“In late September, the higher education committee of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the body that accredits Gordon, met to consider whether Gordon’s inclusion of homosexual acts as a ‘forbidden practice’ ran afoul of the Association’s standards for accreditation. Note that the Gordon statement requires all students to adhere to sexual behavior standards. There’s no singling out of same-sex attracted folks, nor are there any prohibitions against admitting students with same-sex attraction. The stance has to do with sexual behavior, which falls in line with two millennia of Christian teaching.”

According to Stonestreet, Gordon College has one year to prepare a report for the Association defending the college’s policies.

Gordon is, essentially, being accused of discrimination even though all it is doing is proscribing standards of Christian conduct for its students. The implications of this situation are significant. If a college is free to profess a religious basis, but risks its accreditation by insisting its students adhere to some basic tenets of that religion, that’s a problem.

Stonestreet has prepared an excellent commentary on this situation and similar cases. You can listen to it below or read it here.

[audio:http://bit.ly/Zt3Y88|titles=John Stonestreet – The Jealous God of Tolerance]

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Why is the U.S. Supreme Court Jilting States on Marriage?

2 CommentsMarriage, ,

Earlier this week we learned the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear several appeals over lower court rulings that struck state laws defining marriage as the union of one man to one woman.

This was a surprising move by the court. And while it is not the “victory” many on the Left claim it is–there are still other appeals pending, so our justices will not be able to dodge the issue forever–it does raise the question exactly why the U.S. Supreme Court is running away from the marriage debate at the moment.

In order for an appeal to brought up before the U.S. Supreme Court, at least four of the court’s nine justices must vote to hear it. The fact that these appeals concerning marriage will not be heard means that no more than three justices wanted to hear the cases–and it’s possible that the court decided unanimously to ignore the appeals. Depending on who you ask, many people agree there are three or four “conservative” justices on the court: Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. Since it only takes four votes to bring an appeal before the court, presumably at least one (maybe more) of these four justices did not want the marriage issue brought up. Why would they do that?

It’s just speculation on my part, but the answer may lie in Associate Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion from the 2013 United States v. Windsor ruling that struck part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In his dissent, Justice Scalia wrote, (more…)

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