|
Jewish World Review / Nov. 23, 1998 / 4 Kislev, 5759
Don Feder
The ACLU wants your kids to get a love life
The American Civil Liberties Union is taking time out of its busy holiday schedule of
fighting carols in the schools and creches in public parks to strike a blow for teen
sexuality.
In newspaper ads, the ACLU's Ira Glasser asks, "Should government be allowed to investigate
your teen-ager's sex life?" The ads are illustrated with an attention-grabbing photo, a la
Calvin Klein, of a shapely blue-jean clad behind.
What? Are civil servants staking out Lover's Lane in unmarked cars? Are investigators
following up on graffiti in the boys bathroom ("For a really good time call ...")?
None of the above. The ACLU is referring to a few chapters of the National Honor Society
that have denied membership to unmarried mothers.
Unfair, discriminatory, Victorian, the selective civil libertarians fume. "Do we want
schools conducting Ken Starr-like investigations into the sexual behavior of our teen-aged
sons and daughters?" Ira inquires with a timely allusion.
Are Glasser and company so out of it that they believe the average parent wants their
teen-ager to have a sex life? "Deny my darling the chance to contract a sexually transmitted
disease? Never!"
At issue is the case of Somer Chipman and Chasity Glass of Williamstown, Ky.
Both were rejected by their high-school chapter of the honor society for engaging in
premarital sex -- as evidenced by the fact that they produced little, out-of-wedlock, bundles
of joy.
The ACLU is so incensed by this gross injustice (organizations having standards) that
tomorrow it will be in U.S. district court arguing that the Williamstown honor society
violated federal anti-discrimination law. Traditional values are anathema to the ACLU. It
periodically sues the Boy Scouts of America to force them to accept homosexual scoutmasters
(on the grounds that they are a public accommodation, like Motel 6).
The civil libertarians will generously allow Americans to embrace biblical values as long as
they don't try to uphold the same in their daily lives.
Listen to the ACLU long enough, and you begin to feel like Alice on a conference call with
the March Hare and Mad Hatter. The organization in question is called the National Honor
Society, for crying out loud! What exactly is honorable about producing children who, in all
likelihood, will never know their fathers?
In the name of civil liberties, the ACLU has done a terrific job of helping to sexualize
America's kids and in opposing efforts to restrain their libidos.
In the ad, it poses as a rather eccentric champion of families ("we'll fight for your right
to keep government out of your kid's bedroom"), but a champion nonetheless. Yet it
consistently opposes parental authority in areas that actually matter.
Your 15-year-old daughter has a constitutional right to obtain contraceptives at a clinic
without your knowledge, the ACLU argues. If these fail, she has a right to have an abortion
without your consent.
Nor is its attempt to abolish innocence limited to abortion and contraception. The ACLU
currently has suits going against a dozen libraries to force them to remove software that
blocks juveniles' access to cyber-porn. Your kids have a First Amendment right to log on to
www.horny-housewives.com, it absurdly maintains.
Of course, it believes that there are things too awful for kids to contemplate. In 1991, the
organization that accuses its opponents of book-banning sued the state of Wisconsin to
suppress a text called "Sex Respect," which teaches abstinence.
The ACLU argued that the volume promoted gender stereotypes by suggesting that teen-age boys
often feign love to get sex, and teen-age girls frequently fall for the ploy. Only the ACLU
would consider such an opinion controversial.
It also charged that the book promoted "one religious perspective regarding the 'spiritual
dimension' of sexuality."
Promoting a spiritual perspective on sexuality? How horrible. Why, kids might get the
impression that there's more to sex than genital friction -- that quaint concepts like honor
and caring should come into play.
If, as the ACLU claims, kids are emotionally scarred for life by hearing "O Little Town of
Bethlehem" in a holiday program, imagine the psychic trauma of encountering a non-animalistic
perspective on human sexuality?
To call a refusal to bestow an honor on those clearly unworthy of the same "a Ken Starr-like
investigation" is too bizarre.
However, to continue the analogy, if the alternative to sexual scrutiny is raising a
generation of Lewinsky-like bimbos who pursue degenerate politicians and save semen-stained
dresses like battle trophies, bring on the grand inquisitors.
11/18/98: Why liberals hate tobacco and guns more than drugs and crime