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Show or Saturday, May 29, 1993 The Daily Herald P Poetic justice tickets driver for rhyme, reason been a big believer in poetic ;ustice. To me. happily ever a tier is the end of a tairv I'm- nev cr - tale rather than the beginning of lite. Still. every once in awhile there is justice in the world, and this witnessed it week. It occurred while I was drivI ing to work. While am neither the taste it driver nor the on the road. try to slowest keep up with traffic and lower my odds of a speeding ticket by maintaining the speed of the lest of the vehicular pack. Vet for some people, that is not enough. As I glanced in my rear window, I recognized a type of driver I often see on the stretch of road en route to mv job. He was the kind of human being who assumes the rest of us exist only to interfere with his progress. And yesterday he I first-han- d PnharlPnB y A ""' " '1 .iiMinr-"- ' 'inters " Yr IV-- - V ! V .'1 - Winters Tale 1 was behind me. Between home and my office are seven traffic lights. He pulled in back of my car at the first light When I saw him in my mirror. I kr.ew he was ""The Driver." It must have been the look in his eyes. I have seen that look in my husband's eyes when he hunts deer. It is a look that say s. '"I am man and Bambi must die." "The Driver" was looking at me as if I were Bam- bi from the instant the ieht turned green he was on my bumper. If he had been any closer he could have scraped off last year's campaign stickers. As soon as half a car length opened to my right, he changed lanes and took it, cutting off the other car w ithout a thought. I watched for about a mile as "The Driver" proceeded tozig ag until we got to the next s mi Ci un and mv lane, there he and as or, my runt, about one car r..-;behind me. His aggres sive maneuvers had gotten him nowhere. This same scene continued to play out for the next four lights. The light would turn green, the cars would begin to move, and "The Driver" would swerve throughout the traffic on his race to the next light. Due to the vagaries of fate (or the tact that quite a few cars would turn off the road in front of me), each time I approached the red light, there would be my hero, in the next lane, one car length behind me. School lessons tough when gays are subject By KEITH ERVIN Seattle Times SEATTLE issue of gays You thought the in the military was a thorny one'.' Try tr.ese questions on for size: Should public-schoo- l teachers he aii iwed to discuss homosexuali-!-- . i".sS'.Je ex education classes ' If a st ,.!,jnt newspaper gives the perspective- of gay students, must it .'iveeq .a spa. e to those who think homosexuality is dangerous or immoral -- - Should schooi administrators take spe. la! steps to ensure that gay or lesbian guest speakers don't make inappropriate comments'.' Is it proper tor school employees to refer students to lesbian and gay support groups.' Those issues have been raised in the Seattle-areHighline School District, where 400 people have signed a petition contending that children "should not be confronted with the topic of homosexualit' ' y w ithout the parent's consent. To those parents, it's a question of protecting their children from those who would promote homosexuality in the schools. To others, it's a question of academic freedom, press freedom and help for a student population at high risk of suicide and drug and alcohol abuse. Caught in the middle is the Hijrhline School Board, which has a asked the administration to report on parent complaints about: An English teacher's discussions of homosexuality. A controversial presentation about AIDS by a guest speaker. A student newspaper report on gay and lesbian students. All of the incidents occurred at Highline High School this school year. "This issue has been going on since I don't know when. We're getting pretty tired of it." said Highline principal Tom Sawyer, who declined further comment. It isn't just the parents group organized as Highline Parents for who are Responsible Education concerned. The Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education, organized in in opposition to distribution of condoms in Seattle schools, is holding a forum Thursday on this issue: "Are the 'positive aspects' of homosexuality being taught at y our child's public school?" The Highline protesters say they don't want to discriminate against gays, they just don't want the public schools encouraging students to engage in homosexual behavior. "As far as I'm concerned, what someone does in their bedroom isn't any of my business and it's not the government's." said Vic Santie. one of the concerned ( See par- - SCHOOL, Page B7) V, P I ' v VV A Th:s frustrating circumstance did not go unnoticed by my friend. "The Driver." As light number six turned yellow, he could clearly see it happening again, and apparently determined to prevent this gross humiliation, this embarrassment of having a woman keep up with him without even trying, he gunned his car and ran the light just as it went red. I can't say that I was all that disappointed to lose this maniac. After all. I was able to finish the rest of my drive without even once being run off the road. I even had a rather warm, fuzzy feeling the rest of the day as I would think about the look on his face when the lights on top of the police car flashed on as he ran that final light. Ah. maybe there is something to poetic justice, after all. r lv fj i l vvv , l , 'fe AP Photo Gay and lesbian supporters, right, face-of- counter demonstrators, left, during an April rally f Children heat up By DAVID FOSTER Associated Press Writer Whenever the debate over homosexuality grows tedious, opponent Lon Mabon knows gay-righ- ts a sure way to fire people up again. He talks about children. "It cuts it right to the bone," said Mabon. the architect of an anti-ga- y rights initiative rejected last year by Oregon voters. "You're saying. 'Do I want my children influenced toward homosexuality'1 Do I want it taught to them1' All the peripheral arguments start to fade, as the reality of the right and wrong of it hits again." Of course, gay activists differ with Mabon over the right and wrong of it. but on this much they agree: Beneath nearly every issue lurks the volatile question of "What about the chilgay-righ- ts dren?" When gay activists urge an end to the military ban on gays, their conservative Christian opponents ask whether the Boy Scouts will be next. When gay protections are proposed, opponents argue that schools and day care centers may be forced to hire homosexual pedophiles. Often the debate is no further than the local school board, as a growing number of communities wrangle over what to say about homosexuality in school programs on sex education. AIDS prevention and multiculturalism. Gay activists say putting an end to requires teaching tolerance as early as elementary school. But efforts to do that have provoked a backlash from the religious right, which says "tolerance" is code for attempts to recruit children into homosexuality. A confrontation is building. Religious-right groups nationwide have begun focusing on grassroots politics, often starting at local school boards, and opposition to gay rights has become one of their biggest rally ing cries. Gay and lesbian activists, mean civil-righ- ts g sitions that put us openly in asso- ciation with children and youth." said Suzanne Pharr, a organizer for The Women's Project in Little Rock, Ark. The debate erupted recently in New York City, where May 4 school-boarelections continued a controversy begun last fall by a proposed "Children of the Rainbow" curriculum. The curriculum, championed by Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez to promote multiculturalism, required that tolerance of gay-righ- debate gay-righ- ts while, are starting to fight back despite widespread uneasiness, among both straight and gay populations, when children and sexuality are mentioned in the same sentence. "Lesbians and gay men must develop the courage to confront this artificially constructed taboo head-o- n by taking responsible po- ts d gays and lesbians be taught as early as first grade. One passage told teachers not to assume someone's sexual orientation or to speak of lesbians and gays as "they" or the "other." The curriculum's optional reading list included "Daddy's Room- mate" and "Heather Has Two Mommies." children's books that have been the subject of censorship battles in at least five other cities because they depict homosexual parents. When a neighborhood school board in Queens rejected the curriculum. Fernandez suspended the entire board. Parents nearly came to blows, and Fernandez received death threats. Opponents of the curriculum mailed thousands of letters to parents warning that would be taught about the "homosexual lifestyle, including oral and anal sex." The curriculum was withdrawn for revision, and Fernandez' contract, due to expire in June, was not renewed. least 50 were backed by conservative Christian groups, school officials estimated. Five openly gay or lesbian candidates also ran; results are expected early this week. e atJill Harris, a those was lesbian one of torney, candidates. During the campaign, she tried to play down her sexual orientation, saying she ran for school board because she feared the religious right was going to public-defens- take over. care about what happens to the kids in this city The fact that I'm a lesbian is just one thing that's true about me." she said. By gaining public office, gays and lesbians can erase stereotypes and ease people's fears, she said. "We do the work. We're not there to push some homosexual agenit "I . da." Dolores Ayling disputed that. As executive director of the Brooklyn-based Concerned Parents for Educational Accountability, she helped several conservative Christian candidates. Ayling considers the Rainbow curriculum an effort to persuade society not just to tolerate homosexuality but to condone it. And that, she says, tramples the rights of parents who want to teach their children that homosexuality is wrong. "Taking over my child's mind school-boar- in Logan. d is not a civil right," she said. "Am I supposed to say 'OK. anything goes, teach whatever you want?' There's got to be a line drawn somewhere." One of the religious right's arthat gays try to recruit guments children into homosexuality draws a quick rebuttal from They cite studies showing that the most common sexual abusers of children are heterosexual men. Pedophiles, even those who molest boys, are rarely homosexual in their adult relationships. But even if parents get past the But the controversy lived on in a fear that their child will be molestraucous campaign for the city's ed or seduced by a homosexual neighborhood school boards. Of adult, divisive questions remain: 543 candidates for 288 seats, at Can children (not to mention first-grade- adults) learn to be tolerant even if they don't approve of gays and lesbians? Or would society's greater tolerance of homosexuality-binterpreted by children as tacit approval, and would that in turn encourage more youths to become gay0 More to the point for parents, would it encourage THEIR child to become gay 0 "I don't think there's a parent alive who wants their child to be gay ," said Arthur Kropp. director of People For The American Way . a liberal constitutional watchdog group. "Why would you want your child to be somebody that so many people hate, because of nothing more than sexual orientation?" opponents key in on such parental concerns, despite scientific evidence that homosexuality is at least partly determined by genetics. Mabon's group, the Oregon Citizens Alliance, plans to try again in November 1994 with another ballot initiative called the "Minority Status and Child Protection Gay-righ- ts Act." of last failed initiative requiring year's Oregon schools to teach that homosexuality is "abnormal, wrong, has unnatural, and perverse" been toned down. The new measure would prohibit teaching that homosexuality is the social equivalent of minorities based on race or The extreme language religion. What hasn't changed. Mabon said, is his concern for the minds ano'txtdies of children. He considers the nurture-vs-natur- e question irrelevant. "Some folks are born with a predisposition toward alcoholism, but if a person doesn't drink there's no chance of becoming an alcoholic. If someone has a predisposition to homosexuality, that doesn't mean they have to give in to it," Mabon said. "If you started at the kindergarten level teaching that homosexuality is normal, good and accepta- (See CHILDREN, Page B7) Amusement park visit amuses everyone except mom By TERYL ZARNOW Orange County Register When a dog chases its tail, we think it is crazy . When a pig rolls in the slime, we call it a filthy animal, and when a rabbit digs a tunnel, we don't understand the attraction. Human beings, on the other hand, go to amusement parks. We spend vast quantities of money, stand in endless lines for a ride, and turn at a scream with delight when our stomachs threaten to exit through our throats. We sure know how to have fun. two-minut- all right. e I thought about this during a recent Saturday at Knott's Berry Farm while I flogged my legs to keep walking a few hours more to justify the price of admission for our family of five. We were there, of course, for the children. It was their treat. (Actually, it was ray husband's treat. He paid for everything because I make it a practice to leave my wallet at home whenever possible.) And the kids had a wonderful time. (Of course our son didn't quite understand why we wouldn't let him try to shoot a basketball into a net half its circumference for only S2 per shot, since they had really neat prizes). Nearlv all parents, inevitably. find themselves at a park like this along with 3 million other parents who all thought this particular day would be cooler and less crowded than it actually was. Last year we went to Sea World, where it began to pour 20 minutes after our arrival. And although fish are perfectly comfortable in the water, we were not. (It was. however, cooler and less crowded than we had been worried it might be.) And I thought of all this also at Knott's Berry Farm. I was riding on the top of the stagecoach, squished on the edge of a seat for three, next to two of the widest people I have ever seen. To tell the truth, however, it's not the parks I mind so much as the roller coasters inside them. Roller coasters are my Maginot Line. I have dug myself in and I refuse to cross their threshold. I have a theory that two fewer people get off each roller coaster than got on. I hate those rides, which my husband failed to believe until he dragged me against my will onto one at Walt Disney World. Once. Of my three children, one inherited my good sense, one has a attitude, and one loves them. "I think I made a mistake," said at the pinnacle of my the log ride, seconds before she plunged down the water chute. "I is the ride for me." One son and I make no such mistakes. We adhere to the seatbelt rule. Any ride that requires a seat belt goes too fast for us. My second son. by contrast, wants to be splashed most, twirled fastest, and has to ride everything tw ice Inevitably, of course, this means we must split up. Some of us are on the ride and some of us must wait which leads to the "meet you later" routine. Ever since the San Diego Zoo I live in fear of this. One child balked on a visit there against taking the Skyride across the zoo. "We'll meet you at the other end." I blithely said, not realizing don't think this I an entire tropical rain forest would lie between them and us. More than an hour later we were finally reunited. At Knott's we all met up at Camp Snoopy. My husband and I figured this baby stuff would be the easiest point from which to wrest the children away. We were wrong, of course. They had to try everything "just one more time," until finally we insisted no more times. As we carried the cry ing from the he told us: "You never let park, me do anything!" That's how I knew we'd had another successful v isit. |