Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 60

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Popular Culture Review
every culture’s most renown citizens; in 21st century America, gay citizens are
demanding equal rights, including the civil right to a civil marriage. Those
factual social and cultural realities could initiate discussions and incite critical
thinking. History, political science, human development, gender studies,
religious studies, American studies, social science, and civics: the topics could
be discussed in many different academic venues.
But Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family are opposed to critical
thinking and discussion of social and cultural realities and are especially
opposed to young people talking about their differences and learning to respect
each other’s position, even if they don’t agree. FOF mounted a vigorous
campaign against the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network: discussion
groups in high schools aimed at bringing students together to talk about their
differences and their beliefs and, hopefully, understand their similarities and
each other a little better. Focus on the Family’s continued opposition to this
bedrock practice of a civil society is evident in an article offered on their web
site (July 17, 2004):
Citizen Magazine
Indoctrinate”
Feature—“Never
Too
Young
to
The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network has
teamed up with the National Education Association to plant its
pro-homosexuality message in every American classroom.
http://www.family.org/cforum/citizenmag/features/a00l3413
.cfm - 30.4KB - Highlight - Focus on the Family
If they’re successful, public schools teach students to think critically
and independently. That’s what Dobson, Louis Sheldon of Traditional Values
Coalition, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson et al may fear the most: younger
generations who think critically and independently, who examine the paradigms
that have lead us to where we are and decide if that’s where they want to be. Not
surprisingly, in every poll conducted by social scientists, major newspapers, and
network news agencies, people under 30 years of age generally support equal
rights for gay Americans. For example, a nationwide poll conducted by The New
York Times and CBS News and reported by Katherine Q. Seelye and Janet Elder
in The Times on December 21, 2003, found that, “The most positive feelings
toward gay people were registered among respondents under 30.” Similar
findings occurred in the nonpartisan Field Poll, released May 2004, that also
reported voters ages 18 to 34 overwhelmingly thought gay marriage should be
legalized.