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Not so, says Cecilia Cummings, senior vice president of communications and community relations for the school system.

“There’s a real misconception that the corridors of the school district are going to look like a gay pride parade, and that is not what is happening,” Cummings said. “The district is not hosting any activities.”

At most, the city’s 35 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, which meet after school, were permitted to recognize the month with special activities, she said.

For the first time, this year ninth-grade students will read a collection of short stories titled, “Am I Blue?” which is about people who have been affected by the coming-out experiences of youth.

“But this has nothing to do with Gay and Lesbian history month,” Cummings said.

She confirmed that her office has received more than 100 complaints from parents about the inclusion of gay and lesbian history in the schools’ calendar.

“There have been a lot of people who don’t agree,” she said. “I don’t know where this is going to land.”

Thomas O’Brien, Ph.D, Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, says the controversy shows parents the importance of a Catholic education.

“Catholic schools support parents in their primary duty to teach truth regarding God’s intended purpose for man and woman,” O’Brien said. “Parents need to know that Catholic schools are a beam of light shining the darkness of this world.

“Just as, by nature, we desire to do what is best for the ones we love, so too we speak the truth for the greater good - eternal life with God,” he said.

Parents of city school children may only hope for better results than those of other school districts across the nation that have adopted similar policies.

For instance, until two parent groups hired Liberty Counsel lawyers to stop it, a Maryland school district curriculum was about to teach 8th- and 10th-graders that Jesus condoned homosexuality because He never mentioned it by name, that Christians often use the Bible to justify hatred and that being homosexual is similar to being left-handed.

Meanwhile, a legal battle has been raging in Massachusetts for several years over a school that teaches about homosexuality to kindergartners without parental permission. Homosexual activists filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, claiming they have the right to teach their doctrine to grade-school students regardless of the students’ religious beliefs and without their parents consent.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger recently vetoed several bills that would have changed school textbooks to require positive portrayals of transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality.

And in Kentucky’s Boyd County school district, all students and faculty are under a court order to attend diversity sessions that normalize homosexuality, after the school lost a court battle to prevent a student homosexual rights group from forming on campus.

Some of the fuel behind the movement is coming from what many believe is an overly cozy alliance between the National Education Association (NEA) and gay activist organizations, such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the nation’s leading pro-homosexuality education group.

“GLSEN is very closely aligned with the Gay-Lesbian caucus inside the NEA,” said Jeralee Smith, a California school teacher and the outgoing chair of the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators Caucus.

“When the NEA’s Gay Lesbian Caucus started, I’m sure they wanted to see a gay president in charge of the NEA,” Smith said. “Well, that happened when Bob Chase became president. Chase was outed as a gay man by the Washington Blade around the end of his term as NEA president.

“It was during Bob Chase’s presidency that the Sexual Orientation Task Force was initiated, giving a whole arm of NEA leadership to gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (GLBT) causes,” Smith said. “In 2002, a 60-page document detailing NEA’s support of GLBT causes was adopted by the NEA executive committee, and handed to NEA delegates as a report which, technically, didn’t even require a vote.”

Since that time, pro-homosexuality curricula have been steadily creeping into schools across the country, says Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).

“Programs like this are in all 50 states, and probably in every major county in the country,” Griggs said. “These programs are not just out to indoctrinate students. We’re dealing with people who are telling students they’re born gay, and you can’t change. And none of the information being provided to students comes from the federal government or other verifiable sources. None.”

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