Now that children in New York are learning that a couple named Bruce and Trevor can “marry,” they’re going to learn the fine art of unrolling condoms and using contraceptive foam. That’s the latest from leftist Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (left) New York, where the Department of Education has mandated that all school children get sex education rammed down their throats, regardless of parents’ objections.
Furthermore, he’s aiming the program at blacks and “Latinos," whom he has singled out for special help, along with leftist billionaire George Soros, with his “Young Men’s Initiative.”
Parents Have No Choice
According to the New York Times, the mandatory nature of the program merely reprises something the Empire State had done before. The curriculum is mandatory for middle- and high-school students and “includes lessons on how to use a condom.”
“It’s obviously something that applies to all boys and all girls,” said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. “But when we look at the biggest disadvantages that kids in our city face, it is blacks and Latinos that are most affected by the consequences of early sexual behavior and unprotected sex.”
Gibbs told the city’s CBS New York that “The goal is we want to help young people make better decisions about sex.”
“The change,” the Times reported, “will bring a measure of cohesion to a patchwork system of programs largely chosen by school principals.”
The mandate requires “schools to teach a semester of sex education in 6th or 7th grade, and again in 9th or 10th grade,” and lays out two curricula to use. One is called “Health Smart,” the other “Reducing the Risk.”
HealthSmart offers such titles as “Coming Out: What Every Teen (Gay and Straight) Needs to Know,” a DVD and “computer game” for grade 7 to 12. One can only imagine what kind of games HealthSmart will importune students to play with that DVD. Another is “The Man in the Mirror,” a DVD for grades 6 to 12 that covers “stereotypes, sexual identity, homophobia and bullying.” A third title is “Sexual Feelings,” which “covers special issues faced by gay, lesbian and bisexual people” and “offers ideas for what to do if you have feelings for someone of the same sex.”
HealthSmart does offer many titles on abstinence as well.
Reducing The Risk is a brainwashing program published by an outfit felicitously called “Advocates for Youth.” This curriculum offers such titles as “condom efficacy and use,” and the undoubtedly highly sought after “Overlooked and at Risk: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in the Caribbean.”
Reducing the Risk goes so far as to define its targets as GLBTQ, an acronym meaning gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer.
The New York Times did not offer details on these programs, and reports that city school do not have a settled curriculum. One teacher uses “materials of her own.”
‘Trust Us’
A cryptic comment from one principal suggests that school officials know that minority families, particularly immigrants from Catholic countries, aren’t as hip to rolling condoms down bananas as are those in the sex education industry and government school system.
Casimiro Cibelli, the principal of a middle school in the Bronx, told the Times that he and his ilk would “have to be the bridge between the chancellor’s requirements and the community.” That’s because, the Times reminds readers, that section of the city is one “where many of the students come from immigrant, religious families with traditional views on sex.” “Hopefully,” Cibelli told the Times, “we’ll allay their concerns because of their trust in us.”
One person who doesn’t trust the schools is Bill Donohue, a frequent presence on television representing the Catholic League on Religious and Civil Rights. Donohue says the program is beyond the pale. “The entire idea is culturally irresponsible and morally insane,” Donahue told CBS New York, adding, “Our kids cannot even read and write according to standard and now you are going to take more time out of the classroom to talk about this?”
Not that the schools haven’t been brainwashing children for the last two decades, the Times reported. The state mandated AIDS education in 1987, which “for students in the city … has meant at least five class sessions each year, from kindergarten through 12th grade.”
As well, the Times reported, “high schools in New York have been distributing condoms for more than 20 years.”
In the new sex-education classes, teachers will describe how to use them, and why, going where some schools have never gone before. To others, though, the topic will be familiar territory.
Parents have some rights, though, and can remove their children from the condom-rolling lessons.
Second Initiative from Bloomberg
This latest from Mayor Bloomberg follows another program he announced last week. The “Young Men’s Initiative,” CBS New York reported, will include job recruitment centers and “fatherhood classes in public housing.”
“We’ll improve the health of our city’s black and Latino young men by building on our successful Fatherhood Initiative, which is already helping men better their lives and reconnect with their families,” Bloomberg said in a prepared release. He added,
At the same time, we’ll help more young men avoid fatherhood until they are ready by making our hospitals and reproductive health clinics more welcoming to young men.
Schools, Bloomberg avers, will “focus on young black and Latino men who may be able to get their high school diplomas, but still aren’t prepared for college or careers.” He notes,
Thanks to a major donation by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations, we will provide rigorous training and supports for young black and Latino men in 40 public high schools. And once we help more of them graduate ready to succeed, we’ll know how to do it in every school.
Bloomberg and leftist Soros are nearly matching the money Hizzoner is taking from taxpayers to pay for the “Young Men’s Initiative.” They will put up $30 million each, with city taxpayers coughing up $67.5 million.
“This can be a game-changer,” Bloomberg said. “We can take ourselves to a new level and maybe the impact of what we do will be copied in other cities.”
“This will help make our city stronger and a better place,” said Soros, without explaining why city isn’t as strong and good as possible given the federal, state, and local welfare programs aimed at New Yorkers during the last 50 years.
