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Losing Massachusetts

In the state legislature this summer, the House of Representatives overrode several of Governor Mitt Romney’s vetoes, action that comes down to giving gay activists a free hand in the public schools, backed up by plenty of public money.

Lee Duigon
  • Lee Duigon
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Have homosexual militants taken over the state of Massachusetts?

“We are in a mess — the whole state,” said Evelyn Reilly, with the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“Really horrible stuff is going on,” said Brian Camenker, with the Article 8 Alliance/MassResistance. “People don’t realize how horrible it is.”

In the state legislature this summer, the House of Representatives overrode several of Governor Mitt Romney’s vetoes, action that comes down to giving gay activists a free hand in the public schools, backed up by plenty of public money. The overrides also preserved the creation of a new Commission for Gay and Lesbian Youth, which will have its own budget and be independent of the governor’s office.

The legislation dramatically increased the amount of money for pro-gay programs in the schools, from less than $500,000 a year to almost $2 million.

Meanwhile, at the resort community of Provincetown, homosexuals have been harassing and heckling normal people on the street, mocking them for being “breeders.” A woman was verbally assaulted when homosexuals learned she’d signed a petition for the defense of marriage (see Boston Globe article).

Catholic Charities has been forced out of the adoption business in Massachusetts for refusing to adopt children out to pairs of homosexuals; and the public schools have stepped up their “teaching” in favor of homosexuality.

How bad can it get?

More Money for the Gays

What really hurt was that Article 8/MassResistance, after days of canvassing legislators in person, thought they had the votes to uphold the vetoes. But when it came time to vote, some of the representatives broke their word and changed their votes in favor of the gay activists. A few others absented themselves from the vote. These included some representatives whom Article 8 endorsed and campaigned for.

“Nobody can trust anybody in the legislature,” Camenker said.

“They have utter contempt for the people,” Reilly said.

Why did the legislators break their promises?

“The other side has a lot of money to spend in lobbying, and they twist arms,” Reilly said.

Camenker went further. “These politicians understand pleasure and pain, nothing else,” he said. “They respond to favors, and they respond to threats and pressure. The other side understands that very well, and our side doesn’t.

“The conservative movement has not wanted to confront this issue the way it must be confronted. They want to be reasonable; they want people to think they’re nice. Well, that approach doesn’t work.”

“We do try to do it nicely,” Reilly said. “We haven’t twisted arms.”

But who’s going to do the twisting?

“Despite pleas via email and with phone calls,” Camenker said, “only about a dozen people were willing to go to the State House and make their case. In all, we calculate that a core group of about 80 people did the bulk work in this past week’s effort. Eighty people isn’t going to win a revolution.

“I guess what shocked me in this recent crucial fight was the apparent lack of anger, and the lack of any sense of urgency … Maybe a lot of people just don’t want to believe that these things that were just passed will homosexualize the schools in a way that you cannot imagine, and it will affect states beyond Massachusetts. Well, believe it!”

The people of Massachusetts, it seems, just haven’t risen to the occasion.

“They think that if only they elect good people,” Camenker said, “they can just sit back and watch Seinfeld every night.”

Is the Fight Over?

One arrow left in the quiver, Reilly said, is the prospect of a state constitutional amendment to defend marriage. A legislative vote to allow the proposed amendment to appear on the ballot in 2007 had been scheduled for last month, but in a move that Article 8 called “sleaze,” it was postponed until after this fall’s elections.

“It’s not over,” Reilly said. “We believe we have the votes to pass it, this time. It only needs a 25% vote in the legislature to put it on the ballot, and we have over 50 legislators who are standing firm.”

After the veto overrides, Camenker was thinking of giving up the fight. He has had some second thoughts since then.

“I must say we got an enormous amount of email on this from across the country and as far away as Europe. I was really quite surprised,” he said. “And just about all of it, at least that I’ve read so far, was exhorting us to continue, not give up, and push forward.

“We can’t give up. We just can’t.”

A New Vision

For all their hard work lobbying, networking, and fundraising, and for all their disappointments, there is one thing that the pro-family groups in Massachusetts haven’t tried.

“I don’t want to talk about homeschooling,” Camenker said. “I really don’t buy into it on a large scale.”

But he also said, “I’m no fan at all of the public school system. I think it’s corrupt and evil.”

Why leave children, day after day, in schools that are corrupt and evil?

“A lot of people can’t homeschool,” Reilly said. “It isn’t for everyone.”

Why is homeschooling the right response to the homosexual takeover of Massachusetts? Two reasons:

  1. It would immediately remove children from the toxic influence of the Massachusetts public schools. These schools are dominated by a teachers’ union pledged to support the homosexual agenda. (The National Education Association, at its recent national convention, recommended that support for “gay marriage” be made a requirement for teacher certification.) Who can calculate the damage done to a child’s mind and soul by twelve grades, plus kindergarten, in “corrupt and evil” schools?
  1. State and federal aid to public school districts is based on enrollment. If a school district loses a big chunk of its student population, it loses a big chunk of its finances. That means teachers and administrators must lose their jobs. When a “reduction in force,” teachers call it a “RIF,” becomes necessary, teachers are laid off according to seniority, newest first. “Riffed” teachers means fewer dues paid to the union, less money for the union to spend on promoting the homosexual agenda, and a decrease in the union’s political power.

The only way to hamstring the political power of the teachers’ unions is to cut off their money supply: the public schools.

For as long as the pro-family movement remains secular in its outlook and its goals, it will not succeed. It can only react to moves made by “the other side,” and its enemies will forever hold the initiative. No one ever won any contest in which the other side always held the initiative.

The other side is actively engaged in building something new; it has a whole new vision of society. To create its perverse utopia, it requires a public school system that recruits children to the sodomite lifestyle; a government that protects and promotes it, and punishes its foes; and an “affirming church” that justifies it. All social institutions — banks, news and entertainment media, auto manufacturers, etc. — are to be forced onto the gay bandwagon by whatever arm-twisting it takes.

Rather than react to what these people are doing after they do it, Christian Reconstruction seeks to build something new, too. Homeschooling is part of a coherent, consistent plan to build a godly, Biblically informed way of life.

With all due respect to our friends in Massachusetts, it is not possible to “save” or “reform” public schools dominated by the teachers’ union. Nor is it possible to sway politicians who will always knuckle under to pressures far more intense and ruthless than any that Brian Camenker or Evelyn Reilly would ever attempt to apply.

What is needed in Massachusetts, and all throughout the Western world, is a new vision, one based firmly on the Bible, and on the acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ over every sphere of life.

Homeschooling is one practical expression of this new societal vision. It is the only educational model given in the Bible, and it is the best way to inculcate a Biblical worldview in the child. It may not be infallible, but it is infinitely better than sending the child to a public school where teachers read “gay stories” to six-year-olds and hand out to teenagers a “little black book” listing the addresses of “gay bars” in their neighborhoods.

How you school your child, conduct your business, vote or serve in public office, entertain yourself — in fact, everything you do — can and ought to be done in a way compatible with God’s desires for us.

All other ways lead only to that place where Massachusetts is now.


Lee Duigon
  • Lee Duigon

Lee is the author of the Bell Mountain Series of novels and a contributing editor for our Faith for All of Life magazine. Lee provides commentary on cultural trends and relevant issues to Christians, along with providing cogent book and media reviews.

Lee has his own blog at www.leeduigon.com.

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