The Grab for Children

The well-being of young people has been on my mind a great deal. It’s no surprise . I’ve been working hard on my new book for LDS families to use with their kids age 10 and up, Chased by an Elephant , the gospel truth about today’s stampeding sexuality, which is in the final stage and will be in print before the month is out. As I’ve chosen every word and every sentence and every chapter, as I’ve gathered hundreds of references, as I’ve worked with experts and artists and editors, my anxious thoughts have been, parents have to know this, They have to teach it to their children. How will they know the truth in this bizarre, misguided world unless we teach them?

I was enjoying a Saturday off concerning the book, having left it in the hands of final proofreaders, when my husband Steve ran across the news that the annual “Queer Prom” was being held at the Salt Lake City Library at 8 p.m. that night, sponsored by the Utah [Gay] Pride Center. When he mentioned that 14 to 20- year-olds were the age group invited, he had my full attention. Since when are there dances, gay or straight, for both minors and adults? To make it worse, this was not a traditional prom. A traditional prom is based not on sexuality but on traditional gender roles, kids modeling male/female pairing off in a social setting. This particular dance was being held solely based not on nature and tradition but on the attendees’ anomalistic ideas about gender, sexuality, and sex. Images of 14, 15, and 16-year-olds flashed in my mind. Just kids. Immature, inexperienced, kids, not grown up by any stretch of the imagination.

First I called the Salt Lake City Library. No help at all. Then the police department to see if anything illegal was going on. (No, because there would be no alcohol.) It was Saturday so there was no one at the Mayor’s office. I left a message. Then I called the Gay Pride Center. I talked to a receptionist who said she wasn’t “at liberty” to discuss the prom. I asked her why she wasn’t allowed to express her opinion and she got flustered. The only option I was given was to leave a message on a machine. A while later, Lily Rodriguez, the HIV Prevention Coordinator, who told me she was heavily involved with the youth and youth programs at Utah Pride Center, called me back.

We here at SoL don’t usually engage homosexual activists, but the thought of minor teens being exposed to perverse adult sexuality filled me with righteous indignation. We had a lively discussion. I thought it was bizarre how she insisted the prom and their other youth programs there at the Center were not about sex or sexuality, but making friends, while at the same time she has no problem encouraging kids to embrace alternative sexual identities. (Is it possible that she might actually believe that a person’s sexual identity has nothing to do with his sexuality, as if being gay is like being left-handed. just a harmless niche to fit into? If so, she is delusional. Hello. It’s about sex. That’s all it’s about. Kids know it. Everybody knows it.) She got very upset when I mentioned that male homosexual behavior includes sodomy which the human body does not safely accommodate (condom or not), which causes all manner of chronic health problems and spreads diseases. Her prudish reaction seemed doubly strange since she is the HIV Prevention Counselor and ought to be an expert on this very topic. She finally lashed out that heterosexuals engage in sodomy, too, and I said that decent people certainly do not. (She really wasn’t comfortable with the distasteful word sodomy. I guess she prefers to call it anal sex.) Her main argument in favor of the Queer Prom was that “gay” kids get teased at school. She had countless “studies” off the top of her head to prove her point. I say, who needs studies to know that kids are teased in junior high for any and everything? One of my sons had thick glasses and got punched regularly. My other son was the target of a group of mean girls who sent him anonymous love letters, threatened with swirlies, told at a Church youth activity that he didn’t have the “equipment” to fill a jock strap, and one snowy day got brutally whitewashed by two bullies in the presence of his first girl friend. A daughter endured an 8th grade class the target of the some nasty boys’ endless lewd comments. And that’s just a few off the top of my head. Luckily, my kids didn’t know about Utah Pride Center youth programs where peer abuse is used as fuel for the homosexual agenda.

I asked Ms. Rodriguez if 14-year-olds might be dancing with 20-year-olds at the prom. She said, yes, that was a possibility, but that they had hired policemen and chaperones who made sure there was no “heavy making out.” (From this I gather that light making out between adults and children is acceptable.) She said they had never had any problems with minors being molested or seduced or leaving the dance with adults which left me wondering how she could know that with any certainty at all. Anybody minding the rest rooms?

Steve and I sent out a news release and took a drive to the Salt Lake City Library. No, protesting is not our style, we told the reporter from Channel 4 who called after we sent out the news release. (Maybe he was hoping to liven up his story.) It was an otherwise lovely evening and we sat a distance away on the amphitheater steps and observed for about an hour and a half. It looked to us like about 400 people attended the event.

The first thing we noticed was that in the big courtyard outside the entrance the kids were being asked by several, well-distributed ,official-looking adults with badges and clip boards to fill out a lengthy survey. At this point they were not asked their age, nor did they show identification. Many of them sat down and poured over the survey for up to an hour before going into the building. More on that later. The next thing we noticed was that there were indeed many very young teens attending the dance. We saw what looked like same sex junior high kids holding hands and skipping to the entrance, taking photos of each other with their cell phones. It seemed to us that the youngest kids were dressed most normally, and that the older the attendees looked, the more outrageously they dressed. A masquerade ball comes to mind. We saw one male adult attendee milling around and introducing himself where the kids were filling out their surveys. He wore 6-inch platform women’s strappy heels, a spaghetti-strap short black flowy dress, continually adjusted his falsies and flourished a big Japanese fan. He was one of several very old looking 20-year-olds, more like 30. (I asked a young girl who was sitting next to her emaciated friend who was dressed like Minnie Mouse, complete with mouse ears – how’s that . . . a girl in Mickey Mouse ears and a man in drag at the same dance?) what the survey was about and she answered matter-of-factly with a sweet young voice and smile, “It’s just asking about our schools and discrimination and stuff.” Steve and I realized that this dance was not just to provide “a safe place to make friends” as Ms. Rodriguez indicated. It was to gather sexuality-based data from trusting kids in order to support and further their agenda.

We asked for a survey and brought one home. On the front page it explains that the survey is about finding out “how common offensive and hate-based language” and “other types of harrassment” are at their school. It gives them the name of a worker who is present at the dance whom they can talk to privately about “their experiences in school, particularly experience of feeling unsafe or being harrassed.” Ms. Rodrigez failed to mention this 15-page survey that asked underage kids explicit questions about sexuality, leading them to label themselves some alternative sexual orientation. They were to circle one of these seven (!) choices: “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, Questioning, Straight/Heterosexual, and Other.”

Other? They may mean transgender or transexual, but what about orientations toward bestiality and pedophelia ? If an attendee put one or more of those down on the blank line provided next to “Other, please write in your response” would the Center treat those sexual orientations with tolerance and respect, too? (Ms. Rodrigues did admit to me that she believes in some degree of right and wrong. Evidently, the Utah Pride Center is the new moral authority for human sex and sexuality.)

The survey also asked explicit questions about the attendees’ sexual behaviors:

“In the past six months, have you had anal sex without a condom?”
“In the past six months, have you had vaginal sex without a condom (or other safer sex barrier)?” “In the past six months, have you had oral sex without a condom or dental dam?”

(You may wonder if they ever tell kids that sex is actually only safe between a faithful married husband and wife. The answer is undoubtedly no.)

The last page informs the kids that they have become activists: “YOU ARE FABULOUS! From this survey, we will combine everyone’s answers and share the information with important organizations, including schools. This will help bring more support to LGBTQ youth in Utah. By participating in this survey you have helped to strengthen support to LGBTQ youth! Thank you!”
It seems Ms. Rodriguez misrepresented this event, and we found this out without even going inside the building.

The reporter from Channel 4, with a quizzical, rather condescending look on his face, asked us why we were so concerned about something that was legal. My answer was that there are plenty of things our society allows that are not good or right or healthy, such as adultery, pornography, needless abortion, publicizing one’s perverse sexual orientation, and exposing children to sexual material, propaganda, and adults who feel few or no limitations on their sexual behavior. And people are free to stand against them. In fact, we are obligated.

In my conversation with Lily Rodriguez she added that the Center also welcomes what they call “questioning” youth, those who are uncertain about their sexual preferences. I asked her if the adult “counselors” (she told me she works with youth every day) ever mention to a “questioning” young person that they may not be “gay” at all, (just young, bored, hormonal, confused, preoccupied, addicted to porn, depressed, rejected, heartbroken, sexually abused, etc.) and she changed the subject. Well, I’m questioning Utah Pride Center. It’s about time somebody questioned this problematic organization. What business do these sexual activists have messing with young kids? And the hackneyed answer, “parents aren’t doing their job” is no defense. There is no excuse for sexual activists exploiting other people’s children. It’s just none of their business.

Queer Prom, a place to find new friends? Perhaps, but its main purposes are to further the activist agenda by suggesting and gathering self-serving information to fuel propaganda and support legislation, by throwing kids together with adult gays, and by encouraging younger and younger kids to experiment, label themselves something other than heterosexual, and become activists themselves.

As Tammy Bruce (a self-determined lesbian herself) said, “I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today.” (The Death of Right and Wrong, 2003).

Watch for my new book!

-Stephen & Janice Graham

Following is the news release we sent out.

Both Adults and Children Invited to Attend “Queer Prom” at Salt Lake City Library

Standard of Liberty
Contact: Stephen Graham, 801-830-8418, www.standardofliberty.org

Standard of Liberty (SoL) has learned that the Salt Lake City has authorized a “Queer Prom” held at the Salt Lake City Library, and has done so for several years. This year’s prom is being held tonight (April 10, 2010), from 8 p.m. to midnight. Young people ages 14 to 20 are invited. The theme, chosen by the youth organizers at the Utah Pride Center is “I’m Coming Out.” The main concern SoL has is with the age range. While 18 to 20-year-olds are legally adults, 14, 15, 16, and 17-year-olds are minors. The prom puts vulnerable children into a romantic pairing-off situation on equal footing with adults.

Lily Rodriguez at Utah Pride Center assured Janice Graham of the Standard of Liberty that hired policemen and adult chaperones would be making sure there was no “heavy making out.” When asked if a 14-year-old could possibly be dancing with a 20-year-old, she replied in the affirmative, adding that the atmosphere was only “social” and not sexual.

Because traditional high school dances and proms are understood as events which place opposite sexes in a somewhat romantic setting, SoL cannot help wondering why Rodriguez insisted that youth come to the Queer Prom to make friends rather than to experience physical attraction. If so, why have a dance where couples pair off and engage in full body contact, as in, dance?

Rodriguez did admit to Graham that it was possible that 20-year-olds would dance with 14-year-olds at the prom. This situation points out the danger of a great difference in maturity, and possibly sexual experience, between ninth graders and adults of college age.

SoL calculates that, with homosexuals estimated at 2 per cent of the population, homosexual child sexual abuse is 23 times more prevalent than heterosexual child sexual abuse (see traditionalvalues.org/urban/one.php (Freund, K. “Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality,” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 1984; 10:193-200)). SoL is concerned with the often sexually preoccupied and predatory nature of homosexual behavior, for instance, older males initiating younger males, another term for which could be pedophelia.

SoL submits that there is no such thing as a “gay” child or teen, and that organizations like Utah Gay Pride purposely targets confused and vulnerable youth and encourages them to label themselves the fabricated “gay” identity. The use of same-sex pornography is often involved in this decision. Rodriguez’s only defending argument was that “gay” teens are bullied and rejected., causing suicidality. Graham’s reply was that many children are teased and rejected by their peers for countless reasons, but healthy children do not become suicidal merely because they are not accepted by everybody. They keep working at growing up and dealing with real life. Dr. A. Dean Byrd points out, “Studies repeatedly demonstrate that each year a young person postpones labeling themselves as “homosexual” reduces the likelihood of suicidal attempts by 20 %. (Remafedi, J. A. Farrow, R.W. Deisher, “Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth,” Pediatrics, 87, 1991: 869-875.)

Whether this were a gay or straight prom, it seems grossly irresponsible of the city of Salt Lake and of Utah Pride Center to allow and organize events that throw children with adults together as equally mature in an obviously romantic setting. Rodriguez assured Graham that minors and adults leaving the dance together has never been a problem, but SoL wonders how she can accurately make this statement.

SoL notes from their web site that Utah Gay Pride Center has many planned events for 14 to 20-year-olds, including movie nights, ice cream parties, barbecues, and tubing where they “learn how to be healthy and powerful young gay/bi men by talking about safe sex and healthy relationships.” It sounds to SoL like the Center is promoting sexual behavior for young teens, not just dancing.

SoL concedes that perhaps Rodriquez, along with many others, is an unwitting product of indoctrination (for the most part she conversed in memorized talking points), buying into the gay victim mentality which she has been taught trumps all sense of propriety.

SoL believes that gay-affirming groups and organizations that target minors are at the worst, predatory, and at the least, misguided.

–Stephen Graham

Standard of Liberty is an LDS-oriented educational foundation which exists to raise awareness of radical sexual movements overrunning America's Christian-moral-cultural life and to inspire the public will, families, and individuals to counteract these trends.
Please note: Our view of homosexuality and the like does not include rejection or condemnation of individuals, nor is it about acceptance and praise for unnatural and unhealthy sexual identification and behaviors. We promote hope and help in preventing, understanding, and overcoming sexual problems.

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