Tag Archives: Public Education

Commentary

What causes homosexuality? Is there a gay gene?

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Here is an article from Trayce Hansen, Ph.D. She summarizes the evidence on homosexuality in response to proposed changes to a California school board’s curriculum that would promote and normalize homosexual behavior.

Excerpt:

ENVIRONMENT IS PRIMARY FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE AND GENDER IDENTITY

Decades of research confirm that sexual orientation and gender identity are not inborn but are primarily shaped by environmental influences during childhood and adolescence. The proposed school curriculum will affect the sexual preference and gender identity formation of some children exposed to it because it teaches that all sexual and gender variations are equally acceptable. Sexual preference and gender identity formation are fragile developmental processes that can be disrupted and altered by environmental influences such as the lessons in the proposed school curriculum.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS NOT INBORN

Many people continue to believe that sexual orientation is inborn, although that is not true. Extensive, worldwide research reveals that homosexuality is predominately influenced by environmental factors. For instance, recent large-scale studies compared rates of homosexual behavior in sets of identical twins. If homosexual behavior were inborn, every time one identical twin was homosexual, the other identical twin would also be homosexual 100% of the time. But this is not what the research revealed. Rather, every time one identical twin was homosexual the other twin was homosexual only 10% or 11% of the time. Homosexual behavior is clearly not genetic.

In fact, an accumulation of extensive research utilizing millions of research subjects finds that environment, not genetics, is the main factor in the development of non-heterosexual behavior. (To review these research studies see references 1-4 listed below).

[…]NON-HETEROSEXUAL BEHAVIOR LEADS TO INCREASED RISK OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL DISORDERS

Sadly, the research is also clear that individuals who adopt non-heterosexual lifestyles are more likely to suffer from a host of negative outcomes including psychiatric disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide attempts, domestic violence and sexual assault, and increased risk for chronic diseases, AIDS, and shortened lifespan. Schools should not affirm and thereby encourage young people to adopt lifestyles more likely to lead to such devastation. (To review these specific studies see references 5-10 below).

GENDER IDENTITY DISORDER IS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER THAT SHOULD NOT BE NORMALIZED TO CHILDREN

The proposed school curriculum also teaches that transgendered lifestyles are a healthy and acceptable alternative to the norm. That is not true. Many transgendered individuals suffer from a psychiatric disorder known as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) that is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder in need of psychological treatment… (For a thorough understanding of Gender Identity Disorder, see reference number 11 below authored by world-renowned GID experts).

Read the whole thing here, at the Ruth blog. The references to medical research publications are at the bottom of the article. The majority of the research papers cited are from 2005 to the present.

You may also be interested in a recent post discussing why people oppose same-sex marriage.

Mentoring

How I got interested in the relationship between Christianity and economics

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I listened to all the lectures of this course by the Christian philosopher Ronald H. Nash. He presents a view of economics that is consistent with the laws of logic and the Bible. And this course is comprehensive. I’ve moved on from Dr. Nash’s course to read F. A. Hayek and Thomas Sowell. And I found that Dr. Nash’s course was excellent preparation for these more advanced books.

Take a look at some of the topics:

  • the role of the government in regulating commerce
  • the meaning of justice
  • capitalism and socialism
  • interventionism vs free market capitalism
  • introduction to economics
  • marxism
  • wealth and poverty
  • liberation theology and the religious left
  • judicial activism vs legal positivism
  • pollution
  • public education

You can grab the lectures here.

A little blurb about Dr. Nash

Nash taught theology and philosophy for four decades at three schools. He was chairman of the department of philosophy and religion and director of graduate studies in humanities at Western Kentucky University, where he was on faculty from 1964-91. He was a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary from 1991-2002 and at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1998-2005.

Nash wrote more than 35 books on philosophy, theology and apologetics, including “Faith & Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith,” “Life’s Ultimate Questions” and “Is Jesus the Only Savior?” Nash received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University; his master’s degree from Brown University; and his undergraduate degree from Barrington College.

From this Baptist Press article.

News

Quebec forces homeschoolers to teach moral relativism and religious pluralism

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Story from the National Post. (H/T Canbuhay)

Excerpt:

In a recent troubling judgment (Lavallee vs. Commission scolaire des Chenes), Quebec’s Superior Court ruled that parents do not have ultimate authority over the moral or religious education of their children, and that the state can impose a curriculum that conflicts with the moral codes parents strive to instill. The court rejected a claim brought by parents seeking to exempt their children from the “Ethics and Religious Culture” (ERC) course, which in 2008 became mandatory for all students from Grade 1 to Grade 11, including students in private religious schools.

[…][The province maintains, and the court accepted, that parents’ constitutional freedoms remain intact since they are still free to instruct their children in their own moral codes in the privacy of home. But even homeschoolers, who frequently opt out of government schooling precisely because they prefer to instruct their children in their own belief systems, will be required to teach the “even-handed” ERC course or an equivalent course. Imagine parents instructing their children about the importance of adhering to their own religious beliefs in the morning, then telling them that there are a dozen other religions to choose from, all equally valid, in the afternoon. It’s ludicrous for the province to argue that such a process respects freedom of belief.

This is exactly the problem I have with some fundamentalists who don’t see the need to raise their children to have an impact on the world as a whole. I don’t think that the secularists are going to leave Christians alone, so as a matter of self-defense, we need to be the best in our fields in order to have an influence at the highest levels.

Many of the most ambitious people tend to be rabidly secular because they are usually the people who are least likely to want to give up their autonomy to the demands of the moral law. The higher they rise, the less they respect any external restrictions on their selfish pursuit of pleasure.

It’s natural for influential non-Christians to use the law and the public schools to suppress things that seem to limit their autonomy and pursuit of happiness, such as free speech, parental rights, etc. It annoys them when we disagree with them, and that we teach our children things they don’t believe.

Rather than having a live and let live attitude, they are not at all shy about using the law and the public schools to attack our basic human rights. In order to prevent that, we need to make sure that Christians are in position where they can defend human rights for ourselves, and everyone.