Tag: Grooming

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I believe that Christians are so hypersensitive about gay/trans grooming is they do so much grooming of their own that they can’t believe other groups aren’t doing the same. Christian grooming is so pervasive that any attempt to reign in Christianity is seen as hostility towards Christianity. When they are asked to stop their proselytizing, particularly in public spaces, they see this as hostility as opposed to equal treatment of religion. There are now substantial numbers of pagans, Jews, Muslims and Hindus in the mix. With this type of diversity, it is best, in the interest of fairness, to eliminate religion from the public sphere. It is after all the Constitution that binds Americans together and not a specific religion.

The problem, then, is that Christians see this diminution in access to public spaces is somehow hostility to Christianity. But how? Are Christians forbidden from practicing their religion anywhere in the United States? Do they get thrown in prison for going to church services? Are they discriminated against if they apply for jobs? Are they put in large arenas and fed to lions? I am pretty certain that the hostility, in no way, matches these more hostile examples of the treatment of Christians. They just don’t happen in the United States.

A recent Supreme Court case found that it is legal for a football coach (in other words a public school teacher) to lead his team in prayer after the game. The majority opinion was that a little prayer is neutral. It give some comfort to the Christians in the audience and does no harm to the non-believers. All right then if a prayer is neutral, which runs counter to Christian thinking by the way, why worry about it if it isn’t included in a public space. Why argue about it at all then? Nothing is stopping the Christian players from getting together and praying and leaving the non-Christians out of it. But the non-believers aren’t forced to participate? It is up to the individual whether they participate. Well, yes, but when the person in charge of your team is praying, there might be an impetus to participate in the prayer in order to stay in his good graces.

Would the Court feel the same if they coach decided to exercise his first amendment rights to free speech if he decided to talk about Trans Rights. Indeed, we know that many states have curtailed teachers from engaging in this particular form of free speech. So talking about Trans people is grooming and wrong while praying is free speech and positive for Christians and neutral for everyone else. This begs the question who is the prayer for — the Christian children or the pagan children. If for the Christian children, it is hardly necessary. These children should be praying at home it their parents are so devout and, if they aren’t praying at home, why should I think it is so important to make these children pray after the football game? This leaves the pagan children who may not know anything about Christianity and who’s parents don’t want them to know anything about Christianity. Why do they need to see prayer? Because it is good? Because Christians are good? Because Christians don’t encourage transgender children to act on their feelings?

I can hear Christians getting exasperated with my arguments. No one is forcing the non-believers to prayer. The non-believers can keep respectfully silent while the Christians pray. Wait. Why? If you are expressing your first amendment rights to prayer on public property why do I have to respect you for that? If you are praying in your church, sure I have to respect you? But if you are praying on public lands, I owe you nothing. I can scream as loud as I want, interfere with your prayers in any way I see fit because you are actively grooming children to be Christians. You believe it is neutral and harmless, others may not believe the same thing. Why should the non-believers stand idly by while you foist your beliefs on others? What’s the harm in a little prayer? Well, then what is the harm in a little Satanic chant?

If you want to pray, have at it. Pray all you want but if you do it audibly in a public space, know that you are irritating me and thus are harming me. You can’t claim a Christian prayer is both neutral to non-believers and good for believers. Your aim is to influence non-believing children and that, by your own definition, is grooming and wrong. So stop it.

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A principal at a private school in Florida was fired because she allowed students to see Michelangelo’s David. Ironically, this school emphasized a classic education. To which I ask, what could be more classic than Michelangelo’s David? Michelangelo is one of the greatest artists, if not the greatest artist, of the Italian Renaissance. The statue is based in a Biblical story. People come from all over the world and stand in long lines just to see this statue. The problem, as far as I can tell, is David stands naked before the world and some children shouldn’t see naked people.

To be fair, the principal has some fault here. There was some kind of problem with notifying the parents that their children would be seeing the naked David. The parents failed to get the communication. This was handled poorly and, certainly if the communication had been better, any parent who found David’s nudity disagreeable could have opted out. But the reaction to the mistake is disproportionate to the damage done.

If the disagreement was that David’s brazen nudity was too much for young eyes, I could agree with the parents who didn’t want their children to see the image. Unfortunately, it was more than that. One parent used the word pornographic to describe David. David as pornography suggests that David’s value is of a prurient nature only. So this small minority of people, against the judgement of almost all of Western society, are redefining Renaissance Art as pornography.

So, like clockwork, another controversy engulfed, unsurprisingly, another Florida school. A parent objected to the showing of a film called Ruby Bridges which is about a six year old Black girl integrating the New Orleans public school system. The school pulled the film because, well, Florida. The complaining parent was concerned that 2nd graders might learn about racism and actually start hating Black people. Yeah. Right. On the other hand, the movie is a tad bit embarrassing to White children as it show White people as bigots who threaten a six year old. Not exactly the image of great grandmother you want to hand down. Ironically, almost all of these stories are rich with irony, protecting White children from the past is vital. We can’t have white children questioning the actions of their forefathers. Yet, little Ruby Bridges had to walk through a crowd of hostile White people screaming racists chants. Hmm, which is a more traumatic experience.

This is why I get nervous about the all powerful parent and curriculum. Parents have a right and should have some say in what their children learn but there has to be a limit to their guidance. This is particularly important when the parents represent a small minority within the community and what they want is out of step with the rest of civilized world. We can quibble about whether it is age appropriate but David is a masterpiece and Ruby Bridges was subjected to vicious racism when going to school. Few will debate these points so both have historical importance. When is it appropriate for the youth of America to learn more about them?

Then there is the grooming going on here. These parents want to control what their children learn about the world. In the process, other people’s children are just collateral damage in their struggle. They are, in fact, trying to groom all children into their narrow view of America and Western Culture. This means no nude art and a no problems America. They will nitpick every disagreeable comma until they drain history and art of what little life is left in these courses. They believe that if they maintain this control over what a child learns that child will adopt their world view and all will be right afterwards.

Perhaps but it also fails to address the possibility of what happens when the child eventually encounter different ideas. Creating the illusion of a perfect world and, then, being unable to provide one, doesn’t prepare a child for the world they live in. It doesn’t help the child sort out good information from bad information. It, in fact, hobbles the child, and future adult, with the notion of a black and white world. America is good. Nudity is bad. Education, for these groomers, is not about thinking but about the recitation of canned responses. They will give you the answers that you want. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. They will protect children from anything that might make them squeamish or excited or rebellious. We won’t have to worry about these children thinking outside the box because they will be so tightly jammed into a nice little box they will have trouble breathing much less thinking.

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Florida legislators are discussing further limitations on what teachers can and can not talk to children about. Yesterday they debated whether it is OK to talk about menstruation with girls who are already menstruating. These laws are protecting no one because, as far as I can tell, no one has ever proven that talking about sex with children is damaging. No child has become gay. No child has become a drag queen. You can not groom a person’s sexual nature. There is no danger.

But innocence, you have to protect a child’s innocence. What do you do about children’s legitimate interest in sex? After all, playing doctor isn’t just about the child’s future career options. They want to know where babies come from, why boy’s bodies are different from girls bodies. What is a teacher to do? Refer them to their parents who, by the way, just might tell them about the stork delivering babies instead. Which is, I guess, OK because the child’s all important innocence is preserved even though they are getting incorrect information.

It also creates a stigma regarding conversations about sex that might impede the child feeling free to talk about it. How do you warn children about sexual predators without talking about sex? What it is so important about preserving a child’s innocence? Children need to learn how to take care of themselves and this means a free flow of information is imperative. If a child senses that talking about sex is somehow wrong then how will they feel comfortable talking about it when they have questions? At some point, preserving a child’s innocence is counter productive and is no longer in the child’s best interest.

These same Republican legislators, so worried about preserving children’s innocence, also vigorously defend the right to bear arms. This means that children, for their own safety, must go through drills on what to do if gun man enters their school. How is discussing sex any more dangerous to a child’s innocence than explaining that some day some crazy gun man might start shooting up the school some day and you will need to protect yourself. I suspect that after learning that someone might want to murder them for no good reason that a child’s innocence is pretty much shattered so spare me the concern about a child’s innocence.

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Of course, that’s what everyone wants and, without any effort from anyone, over 90% of the children will eventually turn out that way. They won’t read books. No one will guide them to heterosexuality. Somewhere around 13, nature will take over and a heterosexual child will appear. The process just sort of happens without anyone doing anything.

The path to homosexuality or trans identification is much the same experience however a lot of people don’t believe that. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the children will find themselves liking the same sex or not wanting to be the gender nature assigned them. But, since so few children end up with these different identifications, a lot of people are suspicious on how the child turned out different. They think that some adult has interfered with the child and nature to create this difference.

Science is still searching for a reason why most 13 year old boys wake up one day wanting to see pictures of naked women and another, much smaller percentage, wants to see pictures of naked men. There is no answer why but there is a great deal of suspicion that the child has somehow been tampered with and needs fixing. This becomes the problem for the child. Parents and religious leaders reject that the child has somehow freely became interested in this minority sexual identification. How can an innocent child know about homosexuality or transsexual identification?

How does a young boy know to be interested in naked women? Nobody tells children to be interested in the opposite sex either. It happens though and nobody notices because that’s what people are expecting. It doesn’t even come off as sexual to anyone. It is the normal process of boys and girls realizing who they are. Isn’t it sweet, Johnny is playing the Dad, and Suzy is play the Mom. Those little scamps Johnny and Suzy are playing doctor. This little game of children playing with heterosexual identification goes on without mention or worry.

It is only when Johnny wants to dress up as a woman that things get messy. Why would he want to that? Who could have given him that idea? The thinking here is that there is no way a child could think outside of normal heterosexual behavior on their own. So now instead of continuing to help these kids who think differently, the focus switches to who is grooming them to have such outrageous ideas.

What is to be done? First, and I can’t say this enough, most children are on the heterosexual track. There is no way that gay and trans friendly teachers or books changes this. I mean why would a child choose a Gay or a Trans sexual identification when heterosexual identification is more socially accepted and just as sexually pleasurable. There is no advantage in abandoning heterosexuality for homosexuality. Protecting the straight child is beside the point and meaningless. They are going to be just fine. The lesson they could learn from all this is that there are people who have different sexual identifications and that these people are just as worthy of respect as they are.

But protecting the different child is important because they are in an incredibly vulnerable position. They may not have parents who they are able to talk with. Other kids may be bullying them. They are confused about why they are different from most other children. No amount of heterosexual grooming is going to turn them around. The past three thousand years tells us this is true. Children have been guided to the only acceptable sexual identification — heterosexuality and still, despite all of the of the negative repercussions of homosexuality, still choose being gay. They choose homosexuality even if there are heavy legal and social penalties for being gay or trans. They choose it even if they loose the love and protection of family and friends. They choose it sometimes even if they are faced with death. It has nothing to do with grooming.

If grooming becomes the concern then the different child will be abandoned. Grooming encourages parents to go after the groomer and ignore the child who couldn’t possibly becoming up with these strange sexual ideas on their own. They look for someone to blame instead of helping their child through a difficult time. They might try to make their child normal with torturous psychiatric procedures instead of finding the best way to accept his difference. How is the child supposed to view their differences if people don’t want to talk about it, don’t want any teacher or book to deal with the subject? I am is so horrible that people can’t even talk about it. What is a straight child going to think of these differences that can not be discussed in school? If people can’t talk about these differences, how is he supposed to know that it is all right for people to be different, that anybody different deserves respect even though they think differently about sex?

The goal of the schools should be about making more understanding heterosexual kids and protecting the Gay, Lesbian, and Trans kids from abuse and bullying. But lets be clear no one knows how to create heterosexual children or homosexual children for that matter. It happens without any grooming or guidance from anyone. Stopping teachers from talking about it or banning books that might explain it isn’t going to to stop children from choosing differently. It might, however, cause them to look outside the school for help and there they might actually encounter a groomer or a pedophile. Is that really what we want?

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Governor DeSantis thinks that Florida teachers are in the business of sexual indoctrination. It isn’t happening but it’s scaring a lot of people needlessly which is precisely what DeSantis wants.

The most important thing to remember is that it isn’t happening. But instead of saying this over and over again, the people who oppose this law are saying “Don’t Say Gay.” But what is meant here is that a teacher might have to explain to a 2nd grader why Johnny has two mommies. What I fear some parents are thinking instead is why on earth do teachers need to say gay to 2nd graders. Let me repeat yet again, no one is explaining the joys of gay sex to 2nd Graders, or any sex, for that matter. It is a divisive political tool and nothing more. The law is not giving children any extra protection from being indoctrinated because no one is trying to indoctrinate them.

If there was indoctrination going on, and I can’t say this often enough — there isn’t, it would fail miserably. If your child identifies as a heterosexual, then no amount of indoctrination will change that. None. Zero. Nada. It will not happen.

The reason I know that is, as a gay man, I went through years of heterosexual indoctrination and still turned out gay. Even though the whole social structure I grew up in supports heterosexual relationships, even though the art I saw idealized heterosexual love, even though the religion I grew up only recognized heterosexual marriage, despite the fact the almost everyone I knew was heterosexual and I desperately wanted to heterosexual, I turned out gay.

There was also a strong social stigma against being gay. I grew up with a very real fear, unfounded thankfully, that every person I know and loved could turn against me if the learned I was gay. I could be fired from jobs for being gay. I could be arrested for being gay. Straight boys could get away with beating up a gays by saying the gay guy made a pass at him. Or the gay guy wouldn’t press charges because he somehow felt he deserved it. Still, despite all of the social support for heterosexuality and all the social pressure against being gay, I turned out gay.

You can’t make someone gay. Overbearing mothers don’t make you gay nor does distant fathers nor does playing with dolls or being a tomboy or any of a million different explanations. Right now, the only explanation, and I hate to quote Lady Gaga here, is that people are born that way and thus unable to change no matter how hard you try. This would also mean that heterosexuals are born that way as well. No amount of indoctrination is going to change someone’s sexual identity.

For DeSantis to claim that the Florida schools have been turned into sexual indoctrination centers is more than a little disingenuous. He is using gays, a group that doesn’t vote for him and is proportionately a small part of the Florida electorate, as a straw man. He wants to frighten parents into thinking that Florida teachers are trying to make their children gay or transgender.

I would ask him what the Florida teachers are actually doing to indoctrinate children.

Are they telling heterosexual children they are going to Hell just because they are heterosexual?

Are they forcing conversion therapy on heterosexual children? Which is, by the way, still legal in Florida and he supports. Parents can force their children to undergo this therapy against the wishes of the child. I am curious does this mean it would be OK for a parent to use conversion therapy on their heterosexual child to make them gay? If a parent can dictate their child’s preferred sexual identification, why not?

Are they forcing heterosexual children to take medication that makes them vomit when they see heterosexual pornography so that the child will learn to hate heterosexual sex? Or do they use electric shock therapy to stop children from being aroused by heterosexual sex?

Do they punish boys who like to play with trucks? What about girls who like to play with dolls?

If DeSantis really wanted to stop the indoctrination of children’s sexual identity, he might ponder making conversion therapy illegal and let the Florida teachers get back to their actual jobs of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

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Whenever I hear people saying if only children could pray in the schools, America would be a better place. They assume that forcing children to pray in school will somehow make them religious in the future. As someone who experienced twelve years of Catholic schools where prayer, religious ceremonies and religious instructions were all a part of the daily schedule, I can assure you that this rigorous adherence to prayer and religious faith in no way guarantees a Christian when this education ends. I have no desire be a Christian.

The religious training I received was boring, incoherent, and, whenever the questions got difficult, fell to stop asking all these questions and believe whatever I am telling you. Daily Mass was bore number one. If you want to turn a kid off religion, there is nothing better than daily Mass to do the trick. Mostly because it was daily. At some point, someone realized it was counter productive to force children, particularly small children, to sit quietly in Mass and listen to a religious service that had little meaning to them and so they went to a three days a week Mass schedule. By the time I graduated 8th grade, I think we were down to once a week. The teachers spent most of the Mass maintaining order among their unruly charges while the priest raced through the Mass in order to end, as quickly as possible, everyone’s misery. My fondest memories of Mass was that they sometimes served Long Johns (maple bars and chocolate bars) afterwards.

I attended St. Pius X grade school. One of St Pius X greatest achievements while he was pope was he lowered the age when a person could receive first communion. Children, if willing, could now participate in the sacraments. A fact that we were reminded about on a frequent basis. How lucky we were that we could become Catholics so young. Which is why I learned to curse Pope Pius X’s name because instead of limiting religious training to those few 7 year olds who freely choose to be Catholic, the Church, after Pius X, assumed that every child attending first grade would receive the sacraments whether they liked it or not. I guess I could have objected and the whole process would have stopped. But who is going to listen to a 7 year old concerning his religious commitment. They were in the business of making Catholics and no child was going to stop them from their duty.

Particularly troublesome for me was Communion. The whole idea seemed weird to me. The priest changed a piece of bread into the body of Jesus. I couldn’t figure out why. Really. Why are they doing this? Why did the church think it was so important to change a piece of bread into the body of Jesus Christ? More importantly, why did I have to eat Jesus’ body after the priest made the change? I was assured that one day it would make sense to me. I am still waiting.

Then there was Confirmation. Why? The only thing I could figure out is it allowed me to meet the archbishop of our diocese and I got to choose my confirmation name. Except my mother wouldn’t let me. My mother insisted my name was too long as it was. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Thomas Bartholomew Fitzpatrick. She insisted that my confirmation name be Bartholomew because of that. I tried to argue the point. In my confirmation training I was encouraged to find a saint who I resonated with. I reviewed the Lives of the Saints and found my saint. It was pointless. My mother, of course, won the argument and so all I really got from the whole Confirmation thing was a handshake from the Archbishop.

Too prepare for all these sacraments, most of the first four years of religion training was reviewing the Baltimore Catechism. The book outlined the important Catholic beliefs in a question/response format. By that I mean the book had a question: Who is Satan and then the book gave you the Catholic Church’s approved response to the question. If anyone in authority ever asked you a question about your faith, all you had to do is give the canned response from the Baltimore Catechism. Since I was good at memorization, I was golden. But I can’t say that I had a good sense of what the Catholic Church was about. In fact, soon after being confirmed, I promptly forgot everything I learned because someone older and wiser, perhaps my older brother or sister, informed me that no one will ever ask you a question from the Baltimore Catechism again. I, in case you are wondering, can confirm this to be true. I have yet to have anyone ask me a question that required a response from the Baltimore Catechism.

After twelve years of Catholic education, all I really I took from this time is a vague fear of Hell, a hatred of Confession, a difficultly staying awake during Mass, an unhealthy attachment to personal suffering and a pretty good recollection of biblical stories. Of these, only my recollection of biblical stories has helped me in real life as Biblical questions occasionally comes up in trivia contests. Faith, however, eluded me. I never quite developed any faith. I even asked my parents if I could stop going to church as I really wasn’t believing it. My parents declined my proposal and assured me that some day down the road, faith would come to me in some moment of need. I needed to continue with religion and religious education in order to prepare myself for this eventuality. As long as I lived with them, I had to go to church.

This might work for some people. It, however, was the worst possible way to persuade me. What I have discovered its that people either have religious sentiments or don’t. If you don’t, no amount of prayer is going to change that. In the 4th grade I remember a fellow student telling me he didn’t believe in God or any of this Catholic shit. I was amazed because, even though I had similar sentiments, I was confident that my parents were right. At some point in my life, it would all make sense to me. All I had to do was wait. I had no definite opinions on God one way or the other, but my friend definitively told me, “I don’t believe in God.” Think about it. After four years of Catholic education, in disagreement with his parents, his teachers and society as a whole, at ten years of age, he came to this conclusion. It is a feeling deep inside of him. You either have it or you don’t.

My parents wanted their children to be Catholics. In order to insure this outcome, they sent, at some expense, their five children to Catholic schools. The Church failed miserably. Zero Catholics out of five. I am sure there are better outcomes out there but I am betting those results had very little to do with prayer in the school or Catholic education. I once was arguing with my mother about God and I finally asked her, “What do you want from me?” She replied, “To get you to heaven.” I thought will this is impossible then. In her eyes, you are either Catholic or hell bound. For her, I was hell bound. How horrible to do everything possible to make your children Catholic and to fail. You won’t share eternity with your children because they rejected the Catholic faith. It was at this point I turned irretrievably against the Catholic Church. All I could think, and still think to this day, what a horrible religion. I understand that the Catholic Church is less strident about such ideas these day. Well good, it is, unfortunately, too late for my mother.

Pray with your children. Give your children a Christian education if you wish. Just don’t count on having a Christian when you are done.