The principal of a middle school in Gorham, Maine, is apologizing after students at the school were given explicit instructions for homosexual sex during what was supposed to be a “Diversity Day” presentation October 25. According to the Associated Press, a group calling itself the Proud Rainbow Youth of Southern Maine was slated to give a presentation to the students about “gender diversity” and “discrimination.” But what they got, according to complaints from parents, was a pornographic explanation about homosexual sex.
“Principal Robert Riley said he was alerted by some teachers who said it all happened so fast they didn’t know how to respond,” reported AP. During a question-and-answer session toward the end of the presentation, the talk turned toward the inappropriate subject matter. While some observers said the discussion was prompted by a student question, others insisted the presenters initiated an explanation about homosexual sexual activity.
Parents were understandably outraged, “I don’t want my child taught heterosexual foreplay, let alone homosexual foreplay in school,” one of the parents, Kristy Howard, told reporters. She added that while teachers present could have stopped the exchange, they did not. “If you feel something is wrong, you stop it immediately,” she said. “And that didn’t happen. That’s bothersome to me.”
Principal Riley quickly sent a letter home to parents, apologizing for the inappropriate discussion, following up with a post on the school’s blog conceding that there was “no excuse for what happened. It happened, and it happened quickly in response to an honest student question. The results of which we are all very aware. We will be more vigilant in the future to make sure this does not happen again.”
Nonetheless “the idea of Diversity Day program is still very important to us as a Middle School,” added Riley, who said he thought in general the presentation with the Proud Rainbow Youth “went very, very well, with the exception of that particular time.”
Riley told Todd Starnes of Fox News that the “diversity” day “didn’t have anything to do with sex. It had everything to do with tolerance and kindness and trying to eradicate from our building the idea that it’s okay to be mean to each other.”
But the presentation went beyond mere “meanness,” said Howard, who told Starnes: “It was a gay diversity class that was supposed to teach tolerance. When it got further than that somebody in the room should have stopped it.”
Bob Emrich of Protect Marriage Maine, which promotes traditional marriage and family values, said that the pornographic detour in the “diversity” discussion did not surprise him. “Homosexual activists rarely advertise that they are going to indoctrinate children to their point of view,” he exlained. “It’s done under the radar, through mandatory ‘diversity, anti-bullying, and tolerance’ lessons.”
On November 6 Maine voters approved Question 1, a ballot initiative to legalize same-sex marriage. Before the ballot, Emrich warned that if the measure was passed parents could expect what happened at Gorham Middle School to become more prevalent. “If there was any doubt that gay marriage would be taught to young children in Maine schools just as it is in Massachusetts and Canada, that doubt should be removed now,” he said. “If they are willing to teach our kids how homosexuals engage in foreplay, do you really think they won’t force gay marriage instruction of young children when it is the law of the land?”