ChildCare Action Project:
Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
I Now Pronounce You Husband & Husband, Maybe Wife & Wife...
At Seven Years Old
From The WIRE - News from the Associated Press (AP), November 18, 1997, Todd Spangler. A story comes to us from Dover, Delaware: 2nd Grade Wedding Causes Hullabaloo. The story is about second grade students getting married in-class. That kids pretend to get married as a classroom activity sounds like fun, right? A fine afternoon activity at any American elementary school, right? Wrong!!! At least not the way it was staged in at least one of Mrs. Ede Outten's classroom sessions at Star Hill Elementary. Her version of the mock marriage ceremony was between same-sex participants! And that this same-sex mock marriage in a public school falls concurrent with the recent acceleration of the homosexual agenda to get laws passed to permit same-sex marriage indeed makes me question the motives.
I chose not to transcribe the story verbatim from the AP posting as I usually do in this special folder. The title of the story and the discussion above is revealing enough. I have rather prepared a commentary on the presents of the story and have several questions about the possible motives of this yet another act of what I see as value and morality modification and as promotion of acceptance of homosexuality in public schools.
Thomas A. Carder
President
ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
I Now Pronounce You Husband & Husband, Maybe Wife & Wife...
at Seven Years Old
By Thomas A. Carder
President
ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
Ede Outten, a teacher at Star Hill Elementary outside Dover, Delaware paired 2nd grade students to stage mock marriage ceremonies. Sounds like loads of fun -- boys and girls pairing off to pretend to get married. Lots of little girls like to pretend to get married to boys their own age. Even my five-year old daughter wants to marry James, a wise and older man of six when she grows up, probably because of the wholesome and Biblically righteous love she sees between my wife and I. But the bizarre twist in what I believe to be a play from Hell staged at Star Hill Elementary School was that the marriage partners were same-sex participants.
Outten paired boys with boys and girls with girls to stage a "wedding of friends" calling it "a creative way to get pupils to promise to care for each other as friends." Outten told a school curriculum panel (which voted 9-2 to not change the class) the "lesson went along with readings from Carry, Go, Bring and Come - a story about a West Indian wedding." She also had the kids exchange vows, "friendship" vows. Outten appears to have compared the mock marriages to the love expressed by the children's character, Barney(tm) which boasts "I love you...you love me." Gimme a break! By my love for Christ I love every one of you and care for each of you, but it's not the kind of love that makes me want to go pick out curtains!
As related by AP, one mother stated she was going to home-school her son, ostensibly as the result of Outten's class. Another mother said she watched her daughter participate and had no problems as her daughter exchanged vows with another girl. While one comment said a father told his son he did not have to participate if doing so made the son uncomfortable, another comment was "This ceremony was about friendship and friendship only." Also related by AP was that 350 signatures were given in support of Outten and that "some of the 150 people at the public meeting voiced doubts..."
I have great suspicions in what might be the motives behind this mockery of the continuity of God's Law which clearly and repeatedly requires that marriage is between a husband and his wife: that the husband is a man and the wife is a woman -- no other combinations are permitted.
I wonder...
- if the participants were asked to kiss each other as is done in traditional marriages/weddings?
- what was the wording of the vows exchanged?
- if this was truly just an exchange of friendship vows, why was the ceremony staged as a wedding with vows?
- if this were not yet another attempt of homosexualists to expose yet younger kids to homosexuality, why was it presented in an elementary school filled with very young kids rather than a college filled with adults?
- if this were truly not a promotion of homosexuality and homosexual marriage, and if this were truly not homosexual orientation, then why were the marriage partners of the same sex?
- whether this will serve as fuel for a goal of the homosexual agenda to lower the age of consent?
I feel it appropriate to remind all who read this commentary that while we are indeed charged by God's Word to hate homosexuality, we are likewise charged to love the homosexual. Although humanly it seems impossible to separate the two, let us do our best to fight homosexuality, not the homsexual. S/he as much as anyone needs our love as Christ loves us -- ALL of us. We all stand as equals at the foot of the Cross. We each have the same "chance" at salvation through faith that by His Birth, Death, and Resurrection -- through His precious Blood -- He brought fulfillment of prophecy and a path to Salvation. We have His Word on it! We are also charged to bring to as many as possible to the Truth and Light of the Gospel of Jesus. And in that Truth and Light, there is no room for homosexuality but there is as much room for the homosexual as there is for you or I.
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Thomas A. Carder
President
ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)
©1997 ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP)