Arrested father had point to make: Disputed school's lesson on diversity

[Kathy in Cambridge]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/04/29/arrested_father_had_point_to_make/

"CONCORD -- For David Parker, the first alarm went off in January, when his 5-year-old son came home from his kindergarten class at Lexington's Joseph Estabrook School with a bag of books promoting diversity.

Inside were books about foreign cultures and traditions, along with food recipes. There was also a copy of ''Who's In a Family?" by Robert Skutch, which depicts different kinds of families, including same-sex couples raising children."

snip:

"David Parker said he moved his family from New Jersey to Lexington last year after his employer relocated him. He acknowledged yesterday that he and his wife oppose same-sex unions, but they described themselves as Christians who do not advocate hatred. "
------------------------

Of course, he's a blow-in from NJ, and probably funded by the Article 8 Alliance and other RW groups. :eyes:

[SouthernDem2004]

1. Ha! Its not in the South! :)

[Clark2008]

3. :)

See - there are weirdos all over. ;)

[Kathy in Cambridge]

4. But notice he's NOT from Massachusetts

:-)

85% of folks in Lexington, a very wealthy suburb with a great school system, voted for Kerry. This guy is a transplant. He should send his kid to a Christian school.

[sui generis]

2. they don't advocate hatred

but they oppose same sex unions. That's not hatred. Deciding that two adults who may be doctors, lawyers, activist judges, soldiers, OR hairdressers shouldn't "be allowed" to commit to living together merely because they're the same sex?

Duh, if it's not hatred then what the hell is it?

I really despise their doublespeak. They are so profoundly dishonest about everything, it's not wonder they grow up twisted and bitter and Mother-of-Carrie batshit crazy.

[rodeodance]

8. parents had opportunity to opt out

Parents received notice about the book bag at the beginning of the year and the date that it was scheduled to be sent home with their child. The bag's contents also were put on display at a back-to-school night earlier in the school year, she said, and parents are not required to have their child bring it home.

''The kids don't have to take them home," she said. ''Parents can either opt out entirely or use whatever materials they want."

Tonia Parker said yesterday she attended back-to-school night, but was not told about the bag or its contents.......

[Kathy in Cambridge]

11. So Tonia is lying. Typical RW "Christian"

:eyes:

[Ian David]

17. How can we buy copies of these books to send them to all the schools?

Anyway, you know the Article 8 guy will be all over this Republicans on a welfare-mom.

[really-looney]

5. Its easy to spend the night in jail in Lexington

Its easy to be oh so courageous in Lexington, I wonder if he would have had the same courage if he was to be sent to central lock up in Boston for the night. Those hard streets of Lexington. I wonder if officer Ham is still on the job up there. He had a great time busting my balls one time.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

6. LOL-my cousins are from Lexington

it is a quiet little town. I still go out to farm stands there in the Summer time. It's a liberal litle town too. I bet Parker is in for a lot of harassment...

[stellanoir]

7. all I can think about

when I read stuff like this is of the Simpsons' episode when Maude Flanders is away at Bible camp, "to learn to be more judgemental."

Frigging hypocrits.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. Hypocrisy is what they're all about

[rodeodance]

12. something seems strange--as all parents can opt their kids out. Why

did the school just tell them this? why the 2 hour lapse?



.....Yesterday, Parker was arraigned in Concord District Court on one count of trespassing, and a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. Bail was set at $1,000, and Parker was freed after being ordered to stay off Lexington school property. He is due back in court June 1.

Parker and his wife, Tonia, 34, who was also in court yesterday, said the dispute arose because they asked school officials to notify them about classroom discussions about same-sex marriage and what they called other adult themes. They also wanted the option to exclude their boy, now 6, from those talks.

Parker said he met with school officials to gain those assurances and then refused to leave until he got them. Parker stayed at Estabrook School for more than two hours, according to Superintendent William J. Hurley, as officials and Lexington police urged him to leave. Finally, they arrested him for trespassing.

Parker, who refused to bail himself out of jail Wednesday night, said he spent the night in custody to prove a point......

[beam me up scottie]

10. OH THE HORROR!

From article:
"A handful of supporters of the Parker family appeared at the courthouse yesterday, including Brian Camenker, director of Article 8 Alliance."

Here's the book from the Article 8 Alliance website:



with this comment:

Text: "A family can be made up in many different ways." (Note how they place the same-sex partners among the regular families, interracial family, to reinforce in the child's mind that homosexual relationships are no different.)

and another picture:


with this comment:

"Text: "Laura and Kyle live with their two moms, Joyce and Emily, and a poodle named Daisy. It takes all four of them to give Daisy her bath." The book uses subtle but powerful emotions to normalize homosexual relationships in the minds of the young children."

I'd post more but I have to go throw up now. Here's the url for those with strong stomachs:

http://www.article8.org/

[sui generis]

15. just goddamn them to hell

it IS hatred - because there are children who have gay parents (some of them real christians), and you want your "christian" brat to act out against them.

These people need to get a real cause and a life of their own. Didn't their wonderful heterosexual perfect parents ever tell them to sweep their own damn doorstep before they start sweeping others'?

Mine did, and I actually think I turned out pretty damn normal. What I learned from my parents:

1. Find someone you love and want to live with for the rest of your life.

2. Then do it.

3. Be good.

What does any of that have to do with what sex they happen to be?

[beam me up scottie]

21. Your parents were very wise.

Love can be so hard to find in this world, how dare anyone believe they have the right to define or deny it?

Making a scene, getting arrested and then having a press conference because someone offered your child literature on tolerance is obscene.

It speaks volumes about these parents and their supporters.

[Ian David]

18. Who's in a family?

Who's in a Family? (paperback)
$6.01 - BestPrices.com: 3.9 / 5 Add to list

... parents, and so on. Colored pencil illustrations accompany the text. - Who's in a Family? paperback is written by Robert Skutch
$5.79 - Overstock.com: 3.7 / 5
$7.95 - Barnes & Noble.com: 4.0 / 5
Compare 13 items priced from $5.57 - $10.00 »

More:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q='Who's+In+a+Family%3F%22+by+Robert+Skutch&num=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=off&sa=N&tab=ff&oi=froogler

[beam me up scottie]

23. The publisher actually defined families

much more accurately than those nazi's:

"An open-minded look at a wide variety of families. Who s in a family? Why, the people who love you the most!"

Not exactly what I'd call evil or diabolical.

[Ian David]

25. Love is a code-word for "gay" according to Dobson

And "Tolerance" is a code-word for "anal sex."

Next, "Critical Thinking" will be a code-word for "Atheism."

[beam me up scottie]

27. Isn't that the guy who said

that they have a "homosexual detector" on their staff?

[Ian David]

22. Did Carmenker have permission to post those copyrighted images on his page

Hmm??

There are seven pages from the book re-produced there.
http://www.article8.org/docs/news_events/parker/diversity_book.htm

[beam me up scottie]

24. I have to leave work early,

I might just do some research today...

Thanks for bringing that up, I was so busy dry-heaving I didn't notice!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

13. Search of David Parker's political contributions

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=NJ&last=Parker&first=David

Not sure WHICH David Parker he is-I'm sure a DUer will find out where he's originally from in NJ.

[Ian David]

20. There's a David L. Parker in Lexington

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=David+Parker%2C+Lexington%2C+MA

Actually, it looks like there are a couple of David L. Parkers in Lexington, Mass.

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Parker%2C+David&txtState=MA&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&txt2000=Y&Order=N


Parker, David L
Lexington,MA 02420
FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI LLP
7/26/2004
$2,000
Kerry, John

PARKER, DAVID L
LEXINGTON,MA 02420
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS HQ INC./CEO
10/23/2004
$500
DNC Services Corp


And back in New Jersey:

Search Criteria:
Donor name: Parker, David
Donor State: NJ
Cycle(s) selected: 2004, 2002, 2000

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Parker%2C+David&txtState=NJ&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&txt2000=Y&Order=N

[Kathy in Cambridge]

26. Read the article. He just relocated from NJ end of last year.

So I searched NJ, and found Alan Keyes conributions.

[Rockholm]

14. Naturally Brian Camenker's name pops up!

When I saw this stroy in The Globe this morning, I KNEW his hands were all over this.
Damn, the people just sit and wait and hope for SOMETHING to get them riled up. I wouldn't be suprised if this isn't some sort of set-up.
The beautiful thing is that this is Massachusetts and as Kathy pointed out, Lexington especially will not put up with this kind of crap. This is just the kind of article that I hope is all over the news because it just exposes the fundie-freaks for what they are. INTOLERANT HATEMONGERS.

[Rockholm]

16. Mitt Romney is An Ass.....

''Schools under our parental-notification law are required to inform parents . . . of matters relating to human sexuality that may be taught in the classroom and to allow that child to be out of the classroom for that period of the education."

Uh, Mitt, nobody was teaching SEXUALITY. It was about different FAMILIES. There was NO SEX INVOLVED. Maybe in your head people were fucking their brains out, but the fact it was a harmless little cartoon book.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

19. The fundies are obsessed with SEX

it's just so bizarre...

[sui generis]

28. they are obsessed with anything that gives happiness or

pleasure. Their sad worlds are full of misery and fear and they don't want anyone else's world to be any different. That's why they're always running around paranoid and outraged with their hair on fire over the most insignificant unimportant things.

Even if they could stamp out every bit of what they think of as evil, they would still be miserable and unhappy.

[merbex]

29. My oldest daughter is a sophmore in High School. There is

a small but vocal group of "Christian" kids who all attend the same far right extremist fundie church in town. She says they are constantly, CONSTANTLY, (get it, constanttly?)talking about the homosexual agenda in school. About 3or 4 of these kids are in a schedule which matches my daughter's(Orchestra,French, etc)so she is around them a lot.

She asked them once why they are so concerned with gays and same sex families;there are a few kids who do come from same sex families in school.

Their answer: it's wrong. Why is it wrong? The Bible says so.She then asked, even if that is so, which she doesn't believe,how does their sexuality or anyone's sexuality directly affect them?

They just don't like it.

Would it surprise you to learn their parents pull them from sex ed class?

But they always want to know what was discussed in class

[Kathy in Cambridge]

30. Is this in Lexington?

I can imagine the fundies would feel really outnumbered there. Lexington Christian Academy is a fundie school, I think.

[merbex]

31. Hingham High School n/t

[paineinthearse]

32. I was doing some googling on the Article 8 Aliance and came across

massnews.com

Lots of wacko stuff. Going to start a new thread in Mass forum if you want to add info.

[paineinthearse]

33. agape press coverage

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/282005a.asp

Report: Christian Parent Arrested After Being Denied Say-So in Son's Education

By Jody Brown
April 28, 2005

(AgapePress) - A Massachusetts group battling judicial activism and the advancing homosexual agenda in their state is reporting that the father of a kindergarten student was arrested on Wednesday during a scheduled meeting with the principal of his son's school. Since January, the father of the six-year-old had been attempting to get his son opted-out from discussions portraying homosexuality as acceptable.

According to reports by the Article 8 Alliance, David Parker and his wife Tonia had been in e-mail contact with Joni Jay, principal of Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington regarding material brought home by their son from school. The "Diversity Book Bag" included a book titled Who's in a Family, which portrays same-sex parent families as morally equivalent to traditional families. The Parkers, over the course of several e-mails with Principal Jay, attempted to make it clear they wanted their son removed from the classroom any time discussions or displays dealt with homosexuality -- and they sought a commitment from the principal that their desires would be accommodated.

"You are not permitted to infringe upon our religious beliefs and parental rights or obviate our freedom of choice, to exclude our son from material that would expose him to beliefs contrary to the Word of God in our Christian faith," the Parkers wrote in a March 4 e-mail to Jay.

After attending an "anti-bias meeting" in early April, David Parker again requested a meeting with Jay, which occurred yesterday (Wednesday, April 27). Article 8 Alliance reports that during that meeting, Mr. Parker reiterated his demands: that the school inform him when the topic of homosexuality was to be discussed with his son, and that the school permit his son not be included in those discussions. Parker's requests were reportedly denied by the principal, the director of education, and the superintendent.

more.....

[Lexingtonian]

34. Welllll....

Sorry to drop in so late. There's some serious eye-rolling going on around town, but I haven't found anyone yet who has any sort of revealing details.

There's a bit of history in that the town's school system has been something of a kook magnet ever since at least the days I was in it, decades ago. This Parker fellow and his family seem to fit something of a standard profile, really- reactionary, righteous, patriarchal and clannish, looking for a fight against a world that offends him/them.

I'm sure these kinds of people plague other school systems. My guess is the demographic mix- the full political and ethnic spectrum of the Boston area- and priorities set in this town government are just exactly such in Lexington that neither side gets out of the way of a fight. These people wouldn't even try to pull this crap in Brookline or Newton, on the one hand, and the school administrations in most of the other suburbs can't afford to fight all the reactionary cranks that would come out of the woodwork, on the other hand, and have to try hard to avoid provoking them. I'm not calling it a virtue, by any means, just an accident that there's a school admin that really is wary but over time has learned it has enough town support and town pride on its side not to take this treatment as shit lying down, and there are just enough conservative-looking townfolk for these troublemaker parents to feel emboldened and starting to imagine that enough of the town feels as reactionary they do after a year or two or three.

We had a problem with some fundie Catholics trying to put up a creche on the Green during the winter holidays just a few years ago. It was sort of the same thing- they knew it was illegal, they knew that the town would tolerate it for a while and then act to get rid of it, it happened that way, and they pretended to martyrdom and persecution to the newspapers and courts until the court appeals ran out. They ignored offers to let the creche be put up in front of minor town offices, i.e. the police station, if I remember correctly. It petered out into some of them putting up a creche or two along major commuter streets on private property.

[paineinthearse]

35. Greater Boston Monday

Received by email.

This week on Greater Boston:

Monday, May 2
Lexington parents David and Tonia Parker talk about their dispute with the Lexington schools about classroom discussions on same-sex marriage, and why David was arrested for pulling his six year-old son out of class.

[Rockholm]

36. Guess Emily Rooney can trash gays again.

Too bad I have a town meeting to go to.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

37. She trashes gays?

if this program turns ugly, I may have to call WGBH.

[Rockholm]

38. Check This Out (from Bay Windows)

http://www.baywindows.com/news/2005/04/28/OpinionColumns/Media.Watch-942166.shtml

She was extremely supportive during the marriage battle.

[paineinthearse]

39. David Parker is on Faux now

11:45AM