Today marks the “Day of Silence” in thousands of America’s middle schools, high schools, and colleges, where countless students take a vow of silence in a show of solidarity with lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights. How did we get to this point? The following explanation is an excerpt from my book, “Failure: What Christian Parents Need to Know About American Education.”

Why is it that children who grew up in the church their entire lives, went to Sunday school, participated in youth activities, and even went on mission trips could be found on Facebook with the red and pink equal sign as their profile pictures, showing their support for gay marriage? They didn’t learn to support homosexuality at home, and they didn’t learn it at church. So, where did they come up with the idea that all love is the same love and we have no right to define what marriage is for someone else? Where else would they learn it, except among their pro-homosexual, “tolerant” friends and peers at a place where the educational authorities (teachers and/or textbook writers) belittle Christian teachings on homosexuality?

The evidence is all around us, being promoted in school districts across the country, whether in California, New York, Texas, Tennessee, or anywhere else. Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, was quoted in 2002 as saying, “If most parents understood the depth of the homosexual agenda in the schools,” he argued, “there would be a revolution.” Notice again that he said that in 2002. Since then we’ve seen homosexuality absolutely take over the television, music, and movie industries, gain legalization of gay marriage in a number of states, and receive full support from the President. To think that things have improved over that time in a system that needed revolution all the way back then would be naïve. They were effective then, and they’re becoming even more effective today. Basically, they’ve won the terminology battle by changing long-held definitions of common words.

First, they’ve sexualized the definition of love. Because our culture has abandoned the biblical worldview, God’s definition of love, that of choosing to put the needs of another above yourself, has been ignored in favor of a feeling you get from someone else that makes you happy or satisfies a need that you have. That’s why people think they can fall in and out of love. That’s why we have songs like “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring lesbian singer Mary Lambert, which promote the idea that there is no choice involved in deciding your sexual orientation. The equation is pretty simple. Love is the greatest force in the universe, because it is the greatest reflection we have of God’s very nature. Society has exchanged that sacrificial love for self-seeking, lustful, unbiblical love. A society filled with people who love themselves will reap greater and greater negative consequences with each passing generation.

Second, they’ve verbally rewired genetics and the very idea of birth by claiming that homosexuality is a part of a person’s personality as soon as they are born. By eliminating God’s role in everything from the creation to today’s culture the homosexual agenda has been able to perpetuate the beliefs that people are born with certain sexual orientations and that it would be wrong to go against their desires. For years they searched for scientific backing for the idea of a gay gene, but it was never found. That didn’t matter, though. Now they go with the entirely subjective and unscientific defense that they can only remember feeling attraction to the same sex, so it must be natural and right for them. That doesn’t just go for homosexuality. Their next frontier is transgendered tolerance, the idea that a man can be born into a woman’s body or vice-versa.

Where do the schools factor in with all of this? They are the breeding ground for this indoctrination against the strict biblical standards of sexuality. How else would we explain the fact that tolerance, acceptance, and embracement of homosexuality grow statistically with each passing generation?

That’s where the third redefined term comes into play: bullying. If you’re a parent or even someone who has paid attention to public service announcements, billboards, and commercials, you’ve probably noticed that in the last few years a concerted effort has been made to speak out against bullying. Your children have very likely attended classes or school assemblies focusing on the importance of stopping bullying. Nobody is actually FOR bullying, right? That’s exactly what they’re banking on.

Enter Kevin Jennings, the man appointed by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to run the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings, an openly homosexual man who founded the aforementioned Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), has made it his goal to win the terminology war. He has pushed hard against bullying and wants all schools to be “safe schools,” which sound like great agendas to pursue. However, his real meaning comes out when he’s not campaigning for public favor and support. Humanevents.com reported on Jennings’ history of involvement in pushing homosexuality in schools when he was appointed to his Federal position in 2009, showing his true agenda.

In a 1995 speech, Jennings admitted that the rhetoric about “safety” was a political device, saying that it “threw our opponents on the defensive, and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling.” In a 1997 speech he embraced the idea of actively “promoting” homosexuality, looking forward to a day when “people, when they would hear that someone was promoting homosexuality, would say, ‘Yeah, who cares?’” And an unsigned article on the GLSEN website in 2000 declared, “The pursuit of safety and affirmation are one and the same goal.”

Though the quote is a bit lengthy, it seems necessary to share the entirety of what Jennings said about winning the terminology battle in that speech.

“If the Radical Right can succeed in portraying us as preying on children, we will lose. Their language — “promoting homosexuality” is one example — is laced with subtle and not-so- subtle innuendo that we are “after their kids.” We must learn from the abortion struggle, where the clever claiming of the term “pro-life” allowed those who opposed abortion on demand to frame the issue to their advantage, to make sure that we do not allow ourselves to be painted into a corner before the debate even begins.

“In Massachusetts the effective reframing of this issue was the key to the success of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. We immediately seized upon the opponent’s calling card–safety–and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students’ safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common. Titling our report ‘Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth,’ we automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling from day one.

“Finding the effective frame for your community is the key to victory. It must be linked to universal values that everyone in the community has in common. In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame and say, ‘Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves’: this allowed us to set the terms for debate.

Bullying, then, is just the education world’s version of what we know as “hate speech,” and as we can see from that quote, their goal of seeing “Who cares?” as a response to homosexuality has been accomplished. Though he stepped down from his role in the Department of Education in 2011, Jennings still works through GLSEN to promote homosexual-friendly safe schools and is still closely connected to Arne Duncan. Both began their work together when they were involved in Chicago’s education administration, and they’re using the same techniques that they used to successfully develop gay friendly schools then. For reasons of space and decency I won’t go into all of the details available on Jennings’ work in the last two decades, but suffice it to say that he has long been effective at presenting one side of the education world to the public and saving his true agenda for homosexual conferences. It’s in those situations where he brags about his escapades and involvement in aiding young homosexuals, and it’s for that kind of work that the National Education Association presented him the Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights. He’s boldly homosexual, he’s shockingly anti-Christian, and he’s incredibly effective.

The scariest part of all is that these radical developments that Planned Parenthood and GLSEN are trying to force on every school across the nation merely build on what the teachers’ unions, states, districts, and individual schools have been doing for years. This perversion of textbooks and courses didn’t begin with Kevin Jennings’ rise to prominence in the 1990s, nor did it begin with Planned Parenthood’s growing reach over the last decade.

For more info about “Failure,” or to order a copy, visit the book’s page by clicking the tab at the top of the page.

By Jack Wilkie