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 Boston Globe Worried About Parents in Town of Harvard Mentions MassNews and Fistgate II
The Boston Globe cited an article from Massachusetts News last month in a front page “Education” story about the advocacy of homosexuality to middle school children. It was writing about the town of Harvard which had a teacher, Kathleen Doherty, relate at Fistgate II on March 24 that she was planning on incorporating “gay rights” into her history class this spring. She wanted to encourage other teachers to do the same in their schools. She also said she was concerned how parents and students would react in her school. It appeared to many observers that there must be parents in Harvard who are upset with the advocacy of homosexuality but are hesitant to speak out for fear of causing problems for their children. Why else, they questioned, would the Globe be writing now about how normal and good the gay agenda is? Doherty’s agenda compares the homosexual experience to that of blacks and other civil rights movements. The title of her workshop at Fistgate II was, “Gay Rights 101: Incorporating the Basics of the Gay Rights Movement Into Your U.S. History Curriculum.” She had already taught the subject to the Gay/Straight Alliance at her school, of which she is the adviser. She told the teachers at Fistgate that she is not homosexual. Other than Doherty, the Globe quoted only teachers from Newton and Cambridge which are notorious for their advocacy of the homosexual agenda. The article mentioned “anecdotal evidence from across the region” but it continually cited teachers from only Newton and Cambridge. The article mentioned MassNews with the following, “When it became known Doherty was planning to teach a lesson on gay rights, Harvard parents, indeed the whole town, were warned through a mass mailing of the Massachusetts News. ‘A number of students brought the newspaper in to show me and ask what it was all about,’ Doherty recalled. ‘But in a way, that article set up an ideal environment for me to teach the lesson because students were extremely curious and, I think, a little disappointed that it didn’t end up being nearly as racy as they had been prepared for.’” That was all the Globe said about the reaction from the town although it is obvious that there must have been more people who were “curious” than a few students in Doherty’s class. The paper quoted Brian Camenker of the Parents Rights Coalition as saying, “This is not real history, like World War II, and it is not a civil rights issue like race, which is not a behavior. All that’s happening here is that we’re seeing an effort to legitimize an unnatural choice to children.” When she appeared before Fistgate II, Doherty said this is a “struggle” that is comparable to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus. |
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