Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 06:33:58 -0700 From: jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Jessea NR Greenman) Subject: Focus on the Family/Holidays [from one of our midAmerica correspondents] FYI - ====================== If you or your teaching colleagues receive an 8 page Thanksgiving Day card complete with lesson plan and legal support for teaching about religious issues, or at Christmas, a "A Gift for Teacher" with similar content, please be aware that these items are a product of an organization called "Gateways to Better Education" and are sold at a cost of $4 each, minimum order of 2. They are promoted in the Nov. 1995 issue of >Focus on the Family<, the magazine produced by fundamentalist Dr. James C. Dobson of Colorado Springs. The article also contains a list of steps Christians (the very conservative kind) can take to "restore holiday-friendly classrooms in your schools." Needless to say the holidays listed are all Christian holidays. The article, by Eric & Kim Buehrer, also blasts the Anti-Bias Curriculum published by the Nat'l Assoc. for the Educ of Young Children. They misrepresent the material by first making a quote and then going on to make statements which are not in the original source but seem to be because they are paired together. Anyone can subscribe to >Focus on the Family<...free.... which I do to be informed about what those I disagree with are saying. If you have a Christian radio station in your area listen to it, or call it for info to do with the address for this publication. (I do not use my own name so that if I show up on other mailing lists I know where the material originated.) It is also important to be alert to the kind of logic many families are susceptible to, often without realizing the full extent of what is being stated. Dr. Dobson has some good material, but it is often insidiously mixed with exclusivity of other, open, views. All this ties in with the Phi Delta Kappan (Sept/95 issue) report on a new poll which included 9 questions to do with spoken prayer in the schools. A footnote in the article: "A CBS News/NY Times poll taken recently showed that the majority of Americans (sic - interviewed) 55% did not know that a child's right to pray privately in school is constitutionally protected. Many probably do not know, either, that the Supreme Court struck down Alabama's moment-of silence law in 1985, terming it a constitutional establishment of religion." Eileen ============================== *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ YOU MAY RE-POST. Jessea Greenman The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project*; ph/fax: 510-601-8883, 586 62nd St. Oakland, CA 94609-1245 Gopher to "gopher.outright.com" Action Alerts and Organizing Manual: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/ http://www1.usa1.com/~furball/glb/person.html/ (Children's Animated Television) Organizing Manual: http://www.pride.net/pridenet/person The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project is *always* looking for volunteer organizers. Please cc us (for our files) on correspondence you send or receive re our action alerts. *P.E.R.S.O.N. stands for Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally.