NJ Pastor fights back against forced LGBTQ curriculum (Opinion)

There's a value in fighting for tolerance and acceptance to make sure people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are not discriminated against. But it's quite another thing to promote a biased political agenda among children, remove parents from the conversation and then call everyone who questions the motives and content bigots.

One Pastor is teaming up with parents and fighting back. His name is Pastor Mike Dellaperute from the Calvary Baptist Church in Little Egg Harbor. He joined me this morning and has been outspoken on the issue from the moment it was introduced.

His objections are simple. First, public education should be about the basics of learning. English, Math and History should all be taught objectively without a political bias. Second, parents absolutely have to be involved in the process and have the ability to object without detriment to their children. Third, religious liberty.

The radicals at Garden State Equality (GSE) might not like it, but there are many people who raise their kids with traditional religious beliefs. A religious position supporting marriage defined as one man and one woman and questioning the push for gender-neutral children is not bigotry. Actually, it's protected by the United States Constitution.

Digging through history to find examples of LGBTQ people who have played a role in significant events in the world is not teaching history. It's selecting history to push a political agenda. Putting a weighted significance on someone based solely on their sexual or gender identity is a distortion of the truth at best and discriminatory at worst. Here's a look at my recent coverage of the issue on Chasing News.

As you see, GSE is using bullying as the excuse to push for the mandatory curriculum. My question is how does infusing sexual orientation and gender identity into everything from history to math address bad behavior of students? Shouldn't we instead address discipline in school? Better monitoring of student behavior? Better training for hall, playground and classroom supervision? Maybe a little bit of letting kids work out some things among themselves so they learn to stand up to bullies?

And if a lack of classroom time on LGBTQ issues is the culprit for the bad behavior, then maybe a class highlighting LGBTQ contributions to history and other subjects would be more appropriate. But to pretend that the entire history of the nation and the world should be viewed through the lens of sexuality is ridiculous, especially with children, and especially without the specific consent of parents.

What about the parents who teach Catholic and Muslim values at home? They certainly account for a much higher percentage of people in NJ than those who identify as LGBTQ. In the US, the number of people identifying as LGBTQ is less than 5%. In New Jersey, one out of three adults are Catholic and 70% of all adults are either Christian or Muslim.

So how is it that a tiny fraction of the population is dictating school curriculum to everyone else? This 'tyranny of the minority' through the new mandatory LGBTQ curriculum is nothing short of political bullying in the name of tolerance in order to push an agenda that is part of the effort to erase gender, disparage people of faith and usurp parental rights.

First of all, it's an exaggeration to paint the grim picture that gay people are persecuted in the US because people are "afraid of someone who is gay". The rest of the world is full of horrific places where homosexuality is a criminal offense and in some cases, a person can be put to death for their sexual orientation.

Are there hate crimes in our country? Obviously. But most hate crimes in the US are against people based on race and religion accounting for a total of 78% of all hate crimes, according to the Justice Department. Maybe we should talk about a religious tolerance curriculum and make sure we point out all the incredible contributions from Christians, Jews and Muslims over the centuries?

And if we need to call out the bullies, then let's identify ALL of them. Start at GSE who think it's OK for a kid to choose a pronoun opposite his or her real sex/gender without their parent's knowledge. The bullies at GSE have helped create an atmosphere of oppression where teachers and school nurses are afraid to protect kids from the aggressive recruiting efforts away from their faith, and science, because they could lose their jobs and be labeled bigots in the public square.

The real danger to our society is the radical political agenda of organizations like GSE and politicians like Phil Murphy who think that the state should correct your 'flawed and old fashioned' views by indoctrinating your children and shutting down any conversation that hints at anything less than full submission. We've seen this kind of thought-policing throughout history. It never ends well and often leads to more hatred and intolerance.

GSE, in my opinion, is doing this to create an issue for them to continue to raise money and justify their existence as an advocacy group. They are as bad as every politician in Trenton who fails to actually serve their constituency and instead exploits them for self-preservation. The truth is that after winning the legal battle over gay marriage, the group could have shuttered their doors, mission accomplished. But they have to keep the special interest machine going, too much money at stake I guess, so they scream about the horrors of bullying, which can and should be addressed at the level of school discipline and adult leadership.

Seems to me that GSE doesn't really want to end bullying, it's the fuel that provides them cover to offer their biased "solutions", which include shutting down religious families and selectively teaching history to further a biased political agenda.

The good news is that many parents, straight and gay, have had enough. A gay parent called the hotline today to tell me he agreed with my take and it should be up to him and his husband to teach sexuality to their three kids.

Parents have had enough of the recruiting prepubescent kids to reject their birth gender without parental knowledge.

They've had enough of identifying historical figures based solely on their sexual preferences.

They've had enough of sexuality in the classroom of middle school kids.

They've had enough of the misinterpretation of the First Amendment as if it means to exclude religious values from the work place and schools. It does not. Actually it means the exact opposite. The Constitution protects the free exercise of religion and prohibits the state from sanctioning an official religion.

And they've had enough of the scare tactics which have shut down debate scaring kids and adults that if they don't submit they will be destroyed.

This fight has just begun. Stay tuned...

Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015. Tweet him @NJ1015 or @BillSpadea. The opinions expressed here are solely those of Bill Spadea.

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