Topic: WorldNetDaily
Here's the lead of a March 8 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh:
What if homosexuals staged a huge promotion of that sexual lifestyle choice, and no one came to see it? That's exactly what a coalition of organizations is proposing for April 25, this year's "Day of Silence," which is sponsored in public schools across the nation to promote homosexuality.
Unruh makes assumptions for which he offers no supporting evidence -- that homosexuality is a "sexual lifestyle choice," ad that the "Day of Silence" event "promote[s] homosexuality." Unruh is indulging in the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy, assuming that anything that does not criticize homosexuality "promote[s]" it.
The article also presents Unruh's usual lack of balance, quoting only conservative critics of the "Day of Silence" who make similarly unsupported claims:
- "'Day of Silence' is about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality."
- "[Under such indoctrination,] we are creating barbarians. Parents want something other than barbarians living down the street."
- "Our schools are supposed to be places of learning, not places of political indoctrination. It is the height of impropriety and cynicism for 'gay' activists and school officials to use children as pawns in their attempt to further a highly controversial and polarizing political agenda."
Unruh does not offer support for these statments either, nor does he allow anyone to respond to them.
Unruh indulges further in the fallacy -- and heavily distorts the truth -- when he repeats a pair of old distortions:
A parent in Massachusetts was jailed when he objected to his kindergarten son being presented with a public school district book advocating homosexuality, and in California, lawmakers have written a law requiring teachers to present only positive representations of such alternative lifestyle choices.
As we noted, the book in question did not "advocate homosexuality"; it merely noted that homosexuals exist. Further, the father, David Parker, was not "jailed" for objecting to the book; he was arrested and, because he refused to bail himself out, spent one night in jail for trespassing after he refused to leave his child's school until they agreed to his demand that he be allowed to opt out his child from discussions of same-sex marriage.
Also, as we've detailed, the California law does not mandate "only positive representations" of homosexuality; it adds sexual orientation to the state's anti-discrimination laws as they apply to schools and requires that schools don't present material that "promotes a discriminatory bias" against those groups covered under the anti-discrimination clause.
