For educators with a conservative agenda, teaching that sex means hete — Homosexuality

"America is a different country now, a dozen years on from what Frank Rich described in 1999 as "[t]he homophobic epidemic of 98, which spiked with the October murder of Matthew Shepard." After a decade of legislative fighting, federal hate crimes legislation was finally extended to protect gay people in 2009. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed as a rider to the National Defense Reauthorization Act and was signed into law by President Obama during his first year in office. The president has done an "It Gets Better" video; so too have the White House staff and some leading Democrats in the United States Senate. Gay marriage is legal in nine states and the District of Columbia; "Dont ask, dont tell" has been overturned; America has elected its first openly lesbian U.S. Senator -- and from the Midwest! -- and even the president backs same-sex marriage rights. America is a different country now. But the "Stone Age," as Jodi Foster has called it, in which gay people were seen as perverts justifiably targeted for violence or invective, is a none too distant a memory, and in too many quarters it is still extremely difficult for people -- especially very young people -- to be out and gay without experiencing severe social, physical, or economic repercussions (as the documentary Bully showed this past year, in case any one had any doubt). Today, according to Washington Post-ABC News polling, 58 percent support gay marriage, up from 41 percent in 2004, while opposition has dropped from 55 to 36 percent. A March CNN/ORC International survey puts the jump as an increase from 40 to 56 percent support from 2007 through 2013."

"Ballet is the fairies baseball."

"Beginning in the mid-thirteenth century, French secular legislation adopted stiff new measures against homosexual relations. Li livres de jostice et de Plet, probably written around 1260 in Orleans, called for the amputation of the testicles of first-time offenders, the removal of the penis for a second offense, and burning of third-time offenders. Women were to be mutilated for the first two offenses and burned for a third."

"Zoroastrianism, founded in Iran at an unknown date by the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathura) who reformed the old Aryan religion on, took a far harsher view of homosexuality. The subject is not mentioned in the Gathas (the earliest known Zoroastrian scriptures), which are attributed directly to Zoroaster. However, the later Vendidad, or Code Against the Devas, which contains much of the Zoroastrian moral teaching, places sodomites among the ranks of those who may be killed on the spot, along with brigands, burners of carrion in a fire, and criminals taken in the act. Later texts, from the ninth century A.D., continue to regard homosexuality as heinous."

"If it be sin to love a lovely lad"

"Visible minorities. Along this same line, high RWAs misperceive how diverse America is. It’s quite natural to think, when you are in the white, Christian, heterosexual, solvent majority that this is a huge majority. Minorities should speak out for their rights. If they don’t, they are (among other things) helping a lot of the majority remain steeped in ignorance. People can learn, but they won’t have a chance if the minorities remain invisible. I know, I know, the high RWAs will howl whatever chorus their leaders dictate when minorities become “uppity”. But recall the evidence that nothing improves authoritarians’ attitudes toward homosexuals as much as getting to know a homosexual--or learning that they’ve known one for years."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"I say this to you because we Spaniards are a forgetful people, because we are used to living for the moment, because we do not look back, because we do not know how to see the chain of heroes, because we do not contemplate the sum of sacrifices."

"Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone."

"Long time to see. (VS: Tapion)"

"Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants." Once in a discussion about the rapid growth of mathematics in modern times, von Neumann was heard to remark that whereas thirty years ago a mathematician could grasp all of mathematics, that is impossible today. Someone asked him: "What percentage of all mathematics might a person aspire to understand today?" Von Neumann went into one of his five-second thinking trances, and said: "About 28 percent."

"Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their childrens minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are."