11/29/98
Just when you were about to lose hope that even a single
school board in Maine has sufficient courage and intellect to
defy the meddlesome ruling class in Augusta, along comes a news
story from Washington County that's enough to make you want to
jump up and shout, "Right on!"
The Machias school board‚s decision in late October to just
say "no" to gay-activist sensitivity training for
students in grades 7 through 12 must have come as a great shock
to the diversity fascists in Augusta. Assistant Attorney General
Steve Wessler and lesbian activist Betsy Sweet are not accustomed
to having their precious "civil-rights teams project"
nixed by local school boards.
In the two years since Wessler and Sweet corroborated to create
this vile indoctrination program, nearly 100 elementary, middle,
and high schools across the state have foolishly volunteered to
have Ms. Sweet's lieutenants recruit and train student snitches
to tattle on kids suspected of harboring politically-incorrect
attitudes about gay rights. Machias is apparently the first
school district to tell her thanks, but no thanks.
Way to go, Downeast Maine!
In a totally unexpected and out-of-character twist to the story,
the Bangor Daily News actually editorialized in support of the
Machias school board's decision, notwithstanding the newspaper's
years of mindless cheerleading for gay rights in general and
gay-rights advocate Steve Wessler in particular. Readers had good
reason to conclude that if the BDN's smugly progressive editorial
board couldn't't stomach the Wessler/Sweet project, it must be
exceptionally odious.
It is indeed.
I can make that statement with a high degree of confidence, based
on my review of hundreds of pages of documents obtained from
Wessler's office under the Freedom of Access law.
While the BDN's short list of potential abuses included
unfounded allegations, rumor-mongering, and malicious
prosecutions, those objections don't even begin to scratch the
surface of what's wrong with the "civil-rights teams."
From its very inception, the program has been rooted in false
premises, political extremism, and a deep-seated contempt for
basic liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. Moreover, its
design and execution are yet another example of government
funding for affluent homosexual activists who plead victimhood
and oppression even while they connive to stuff their pockets
with taxpayer dollars.
The student teams and their faculty advisors are under the direct
supervision and control of Wessler's office, and are required to
report "bias incidents" and the use of "bias
language" to law enforcement authorities.
Since the primary offense -- the use of "bias language"
-- is undefined, gay activists have a blank check to install
speech codes that punish any communication they deem to be
hostile to their social and political goals. (It's no secret that
many gay-rights advocates regard any opposition to gay rights as
prima facie evidence of "bias.") Free-speech rights
will be trashed to accommodate politically-correct Gay Left
fascism.
The installation of speech codes (written and unwritten) is a
process already well advanced on most college campuses. Steve
Wessler and Betsy Sweet are determined to bring it down to the
local school district level.
Watch what you say; Big Sister and the Thought Police are
listening.
Will a whispered joke on the playground or in the hallway become
grounds for interrogation and punishment by the authorities?
Don't laugh; the Wessler/Sweet project even includes a
"rehabilitation program for offenders" -- without ever
defining what constitutes an offense.
The program's roots go back to the notorious "Diversity
Commission" appointed by Gov. John McKernan in 1994. A final
report detailing the Commission's radical wish list for Maine was
submitted to Gov. Angus King and the Legislature in January of
1995.
Under the cover of promoting "diversity," the
Commission's recommendations laid out a blueprint for converting
Maine into a laboratory for revolutionary social engineering by
homosexual extremists. Public schools in particular were targeted
by the report's authors for transformation into pro-gay rights
indoctrination centers where dissent from the party line of gay
activism is met with authoritarian bullying.
Steve Wessler, representing the Attorney General's office,
testified before the Commission and argued passionately for
enactment of a statewide gay-rights law, and for the creation of
"Hate and Bias Intervention Teams" (HABIT) to stomp out
any exercise of free speech deemed to be "hateful" by
gay activists. The final report of the Commission adopted
Wessler's HABIT-forming recommendation, as well as his call for
immediate enactment of a "sexual orientation" amendment
to the Maine Human Rights Act -- the perennial
"gay-rights" bill.
The total package of Commission recommendations went far beyond
anything ever proposed in Maine by even the most militant members
of the gay-rights lobby. Commissioners agreed to recommend hiring
preferences for self-avowed homosexuals at all levels of local,
county, and state governments, including the university system,
the technical colleges, K-12 public schools, and local police and
fire departments. A proposed Cabinet-level "Diversity
Office" would enforce the quotas by means of an annual
performance review and report.
(It should be noted that Concerned Maine Families blew the
whistle on the diversity scam shortly after the Commission's
final report was made public. CMF was harshly criticized by
Maine's elite media -- and by the Beltway Religious Right's
surrogates in Maine -- for daring to challenge Steve Wessler's
veracity.)
Gov. King praised the work of the Commission, in effect giving
the bureaucrats in Augusta the green light to begin
implementation of the hideously coercive and counter-cultural
agenda outlined in the final report.
Soon thereafter, Wessler applied for a crime-control grant
from Janet Reno's Justice Department. Wessler proposed a
HABIT-styled "civil-rights teams" project to combat
"bias language" in the schools. But nowhere in the
grant application or in subsequent documents is there any
definition of what constitutes "bias language."
The task of filling in the blanks was assigned to long-time
lesbian activist Betsy Sweet, upon whom Wessler lavished a
no-bid, $50-an-hour contract to write the curriculum. Sweet made
at least $15,000 on the deal, while Karen Geraghty, past
president of the Maine Gay/Lesbian Political Alliance, was paid
$1200 for her services as an "advisor" to the teams.
Sweet's curriculum includes various scenarios for students to
contemplate. Examples: What if a male student announced his
intention to bring a male date to the prom? Or what if a
well-known lesbian physician, active in the gay-rights movement,
were invited to address middle-school girls about self-esteem
(!), and parents objected, drawing the attention of the news
media?
Clearly, this sort of touchy-feely drivel, imposed on a captive
audience of impressionable school children, has little or nothing
to do with crime control (the purpose for which Wessler procured
the federal grant) and everything to do with homosexual activists
driving a wedge between parents and children.
This is the stuff of which KGBs were made.
Even if it weren't't, the Wessler/Sweet diversity duet looks more
like a federally-subsidized jobs program for underemployed
lesbian activists than a serious effort to combat crime.
Members of the Machias school board have acted with prudence,
wisdom, and courage in rejecting this intrusion into their
community. They will doubtless be subjected to intense pressure
and unwarranted criticism from the Gay Left and its allies in the
media, government, and academic elites. If you live in the
Machias school district, now is the time to let your school board
members know that you appreciate their stand.
Thank you, Machias.
Lawrence Lockman of Seboeis Plantation is chairman of Concerned Maine Families. His email address is ldlockman@telplus.net |