Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Sex for Dummies
By John Leo for U.S. News & World Report
May 23, 2005 issue
When covering a dispute over sex education in public schools, many reporters know what to do. Just type that the fundamentalist yahoos are at it again. For all we know, editors have installed a special timesaving key on newsroom computers so that the usual sex-ed news article pops out in 15 seconds or less.
A classic example is the front-page Washington Post piece for Saturday, May 7, [Link] dealing with a new pilot program in Montgomery County, Md. The reporters managed to associate the protests with national right-wing Christian politics, the anti-evolution crusade, and Dorothy's discovery in the Wizard of Oz that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. (For a deft takedown of the bias in this piece, go to oxblog.com and scroll down to the May 8 analysis "More Ignorant Christian Fundamentalists?") From AA: You will need to scroll down to May 8, 2005. The post is the 6th entry, posted at 1:46 a.m. by David Adesink)
The school system withdrew the curriculum, for the current school term at least, after a federal judge, Alexander Williams Jr., issued a 10-day restraining order on two First Amendment grounds. Those grounds were viewpoint discrimination (the curriculum teaches "the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle" to the exclusion of other perspectives, the judge said) and state entanglement in religion. The curriculum depicts the churches that endorse homosexuality as theologically sound, while singling out Baptists and fundamentalists for scorn. Churches differ, the curriculum says, but all agree that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. Why the state should involve itself in telling us which religions are wrong and what Jesus said or didn't say is obscure.
for full article
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050523/23john.htm
By John Leo for U.S. News & World Report
May 23, 2005 issue
When covering a dispute over sex education in public schools, many reporters know what to do. Just type that the fundamentalist yahoos are at it again. For all we know, editors have installed a special timesaving key on newsroom computers so that the usual sex-ed news article pops out in 15 seconds or less.
A classic example is the front-page Washington Post piece for Saturday, May 7, [Link] dealing with a new pilot program in Montgomery County, Md. The reporters managed to associate the protests with national right-wing Christian politics, the anti-evolution crusade, and Dorothy's discovery in the Wizard of Oz that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. (For a deft takedown of the bias in this piece, go to oxblog.com and scroll down to the May 8 analysis "More Ignorant Christian Fundamentalists?") From AA: You will need to scroll down to May 8, 2005. The post is the 6th entry, posted at 1:46 a.m. by David Adesink)
The school system withdrew the curriculum, for the current school term at least, after a federal judge, Alexander Williams Jr., issued a 10-day restraining order on two First Amendment grounds. Those grounds were viewpoint discrimination (the curriculum teaches "the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle" to the exclusion of other perspectives, the judge said) and state entanglement in religion. The curriculum depicts the churches that endorse homosexuality as theologically sound, while singling out Baptists and fundamentalists for scorn. Churches differ, the curriculum says, but all agree that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. Why the state should involve itself in telling us which religions are wrong and what Jesus said or didn't say is obscure.
for full article
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050523/23john.htm