Let me introduce myself. My name is Kent Francis and I currently live in West Jordan, Utah. I grew up in the Bay Area of California and graduated with a Masters Degree in Cybernetics from San Jose State. I worked for IBM and Control Data for 18 years and in 1984 established my own computer software company. I have 5 children (the youngest is now 28 and so the fight has moved on to others). I offer my experiences in the hope that they may be useful to you in your attempt to teach your children proper principles, and your fight to protect them from people in the world who might do them harm. Sixteen years ago I wrote the following letter to all my children's teachers as a result of the pervasive influence of Humanism in their schools, and the destructive techniques that were being used to destroy the value system that we had tried so very hard to teach them.
Dear Teacher,
When we lived in California and Connecticut we were exposed to a new religion called Humanism. I say "Religion" because on at least two occasions the Supreme Court of the United States has judged it as such. It has a "Manifesto" I and II (what we would call "Articles of Faith" which states that there is no such thing as "God", the soul, or immortal salvation, and that the "Judeo-Christian" religions and ethic systems are obstacles to human progress. In the areas of sexuality, they believe that intolerant attitudes cultivated by orthodox religions unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. Mankind is the result of animal evolution and the ethic system which serves him best is one created by the principles of "scientific method"; there is no right or wrong, life is situational.
In order to spread the concepts of their religion, they have turned to the secular channels of information; especially the educational system. Their champions are well known. John Dewey and Horace Mann, the "fathers" of modern education, B.F. Skinner of operant conditioning fame, J.L. Moreno who designed socioprogams, role playing and psychodrama, Maslow who created the Third Force Psychology, Dr. Carl Rogers of sensitivity training fame, Dr. Lester Kirkendall of SIECUS, Dr. Albert Ellis a leading champion of pre-marital sex, Dr. William Glasser of Reality Therapy and "Schools Without Failure" programs, Jerome Bruner author of the M:ACOS program, and Louis Raths and Dr. Sidney Simon - designers and promoters of Values Clarification and Values Changing curriculum. Lately the darling of educational circles is Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard and the Center for Moral Education who calls for "cognitive moral development".
Because our children couldn't cope with the "brainwashing", we gave up our career and retreated to the religious and conservative Utah, only to find that the local emphasis on education had allowed this atheistic religion and its values modification techniques to ingratiate itself with many of the unsuspecting educators. We were, however, pleased to learn that the Utah education code 53-14-4 and 10 specifically prohibits the teaching of atheistic religion and requires teachers to teach honesty, morality, courtesy, obedience to law, respect for parents and homes, respect for the constitutions of the US and Utah, the value of honest labor, and upright citizenship.
Also it states that "the importance and necessity of good manners, truthfulness, temperance, purity, patriotism and industry shall be given as instruction in connection with regular schoolwork". In addition the Hatch amendment to the US educational code specifically prohibits the use of these psychological testing techniques and practices without the express written permission of parents.
Because you might not be aware of these things being a part of the curriculum or teaching materials you are using, we would welcome an opportunity to discuss them with you at your convenience. In the meantime, please do not expose our children to psychodramas, role playing, the values clarification program where they are asked to write journals which are made public, or class discussions on the values of our home and family. Especially to be avoided are moral dilemmas on who is to be chosen in life or death situations (10 people in a life boat with only room for 5...), advocacy of the new morality, and the supposed "rights" of students to govern their own lives without the interference of parents or other authority figures. My children are generally depressed and distressed by the whole tone of this religion, which dwells in excruciating detail on the dark side of life. Often in the name of examining the great questions of life, they emphasize inhumanity, immorality, deviation, death, disease and disfigurement. Although life is not easy, its more positive aspects have much to recommend them.
We appreciate your dedication to the teaching of our children, and honor you for your choice of profession. If you would like to discuss our children or any of these things we have mentioned, please give us a call.
Sincerely,
Kent Francis
++++++++++++++++
Although I had been exposed to Humanism in college (along with many other challenges to my ethics system), I dismissed it as a harmless exposure to "other" systems of thought which broadened my view of the world. It was not until we saw the advanced stages of its re-educational techniques in the lives of our children in Connecticut that we became really alarmed.
One evening we were having a family meeting to assign jobs for the coming week. My 8 year old offered us the following dialogue. "I don't have to do what you say. I am my own person. I have rights too. If you beat me, I'll tell the school and they'll arrest you for child abuse. I have friends who will take care of me. I don't have to believe all this stupid stuff you tell us; you can't make me go to church..." and so on for 5 minutes; he only slowed down when his sisters started to cry. We just sat there with our mouths open. Then next morning on Donahue we saw a teenager spout almost the same speech and learned for the first time that there was a national problem much larger than what we thought was a local problem with our son.
Naturally, we got involved. At school we found the teachers using a "Values Clarification" manual and every class meeting daily in a "Magic Circle" group encounter therapy program to help the children "clarify their values". When we discussed the program with the administration we were told that most parents were not giving their children the proper training in ethics, and so the school had taken upon itself the role of instructing the children in a "universal set" of values. They had to do this in self defense since the schools were full of drugs, vandalism, and violence. They felt that if they started in Kindergarten with an "ethics reeducation" program, they could solve these destructive social problems they were seeing. We attended some of the sessions and we were shocked at what we saw. Children arriving at their own ethics system after being exposed to a catalogue of all the ills "caused" by the Judeo-Christian ethics system. What was this new system? Situational ethics. Everyone decides what is right for them. To help sensitize the children to the "modern world", homosexuals of both sexes were invited to present their alternate life styles. Abortion and Euthanasia were discussed and the children were asked to make life and death decisions. Witchcraft and "ecological science" were offered as alternatives to structured religion. Hypnotism was used in 3rd grade art classes to "liberate" the children's creativity. The Junior Great Books program was used to supplement their reading program. Who could object to "Great Books" and classics like "Little Red Riding Hood"? Everyone! when you realized that the stories had been re-written so that they discussed alternate life styles and children's rights. "The woodsman cut some faggots. Look up in your dictionary the meaning of the word. Why do people use that term to describe other people? and so on..."
We got our neighbors together, we found there were people all over the U.S. fighting the same problem we were seeing. We educated ourselves through books and outside speakers. We thought we were making some progress in city-wide PTA to do something about the problem when Connecticut passed an Academic Freedom Law. Non-Professionals (i.e. parents) were no longer allowed to interfere in the choice of curriculum or the hiring of teachers; we were shut out. We found out that most of our neighbors agreed with the schools; we were trouble makers (the administrators even had a manual on how to handle irate parents) and education of children should be left to the professionals. We gave up our career and moved back to the West where we could be among people who shared our ethical and religious beliefs.
The first day of school in Utah, my high school student brought me her English writing assignment. They had discussed the following situation: You and your best friend are hiking in the mountains and she falls over the cliff. You climb down and find that her back is broken. She realizes that she will be an invalid the rest of her life and begs you as her friend to push her on over the cliff. What do you do? The kids in the class said they would push her over the cliff. Isn't that murder my confused daughter asked me? At school we found that the teacher had spent the summer in Connecticut with Lawrence Kohlberg learning the latest "educational" techniques. We decided that the problem had gotten here before us; but we felt that we could probably have an influence here so we went to work. We found that the teacher felt that she had a moral obligation to disobey the law if she disagreed with it. We were teaching our children that they had an obligation to obey the law and use their rights to change it through constitutional means if they disagreed. When the teacher was unwilling to see our viewpoint we found that she transferred our student to another English class.
We drafted the above letter to all the teachers, and got to work. We met with the school board and asked that another program of reading supplement be chosen rather than the "Junior Great Books" which was also in place here. After some highly publicized debate the board agreed and the program was replaced. We talked to the teachers and pointed out the problems of their using the "national" values clarification manual. They agreed with us and stopped using the manual. We found that there were groups involved in trying to influence the legislature at a state level and got involved. Luckily, the state education code had provisions that prohibited the teaching of "atheistic religion" and mandated the teaching of positive values. We read all the text books being used in our educational system and made recommendation to the appropriate state educational committees on the least objectionable. We found out that in order to change the establishment, you cannot appeal to emotionalism; you have to understand the law, demonstrate where the program is not in conformance, and then work hard to change it or make it better.
Ron Scott wrote:
So for the moment I will abide your claims above. Meantime, please answer the key question I asked earlier: Give us specific examples of > ... how secular humanism and athiesm are bigger threats to us today than they were, say, a couple of hundred years ago.< Church membership is up. Ditto church attendance. Ditto people who identify themselves as a member of a church.
Ron
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