Sigh.
I thought I was going to be able to skate past these sorts of issues and not have to deal with them at our high school. Nope.
My youngest (15) has an english teacher who is hell bent on injecting her own social / political agenda into the class.
The most recent one has an anti-war bend to it.
1) The class is currently reading a book by Tim O'Brien called "The Things They Carried". It is an explicit book on the Vietnam war, and is written with an intention to shock and sensationalize. The book is completely full of blasphemy, very harsh language, and explicit gore.
An example, from page 125, chapter titled "The Man I Killed" : "Oh man, you f-ing trashed the f-er. Look what you did, you laid him out like shredded f-ing wheat".
Another from page 69 chapter "How to Tell a True War Story" : "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful f-ing letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb c-- never writes back."
That's just a small example of a portion of the text of the book. There are also graphic details of the author telling about climbing up into a tree to peel off the intestines of one of his buddies who got killed by a booby trap. I also take extreme offense at the amount of blasphemy in this book. Anyone who has ever taken a behavior psych class knows all about desensitization, and I am not willing to allow my daughter to be desensitized to this sort of vulgar and offensive material.
I'm disappointed that a teacher in the school would pick a book such as this. I don't think that it is too much to ask that text books maintain a level of dignity that would be accepted in common conversation, broadcast over TV or radio, or acceptable to be read over the intercom at school. I am certain that if a person were to show up at a school board meeting and use this sort of language, they would be thrown out of the meeting. Why then, is this sort of thing required reading for our children?
2) Yesterday, the class watched a film on some sort of war topic. I was completely floored when my daughter told me that a portion of the movie showed a naked man, drinking beer and leaning against a post. She told me that there was nothing covering his genitals. I am confused and disappointed. At what point in public education did it become okay to show 15 year old girls video of naked men in class, under the supervision of their teacher? I can't begin to express to you how shocked I am. I thought that permission slips were required to be sent to parents when material of questionable nature might be the topic?
I've sent an email to the principal of the school, asking for an explanation and expressing my objection. Not sure how this is going to turn out.
Love to hear the reply
If you do not get a response to your e-mail in the next week that is satisfactory. My guess you will not receive a reply. Copy what you sent and a cover letter to the Superintendent of Schools, the school principle, and the teacher. All three registered mail with receipt required. Start looking for an attorney or a group that will run with this. This is not good but what is happening.
I can sympathize with the sentiment of sheltering your child from extreme gore and violence. I would love to know what bearing this has on English language or literature.
Nudity in a non sexual context I don't find obscene. There are hundreds art, science, and health education books and movies in almost every high school library. Flipping through an art book and seeing a picture of the nude "David" by Michelangelo shows all the same anatomy in the same context. I still remember national geographic movies in class of myriads of naked men and women in tribes and nobody raised a fuss or asked for our permission slips. Many of these can even be seen on television.
Did your daughter object? Did she find it offensive?
I'm not foolish enough to think that my 11 and 8 year old daughters haven't heard those words in school. I believe the 11 year old hears them daily. I would not be upset at either the book or the movie. It seems that the book would be more relevant in history, but than maybe it's being used as an example of a first person narrative or something.
I also wonder why you started with the principal and not the teacher.
I think it would be very effective to select a paragraph or two from the book to read at the school board meeting
Quote from: Windpower on November 01, 2011, 02:05:02 PM
I think it would be very effective to select a paragraph or two from the book to read at the school board meeting
Seems that would be the very most effective.
Board member's reactions oughta be priceless..............
My objection is that there should be a level of decency associated with any materials that are presented to children. The standard should be as such : if it is not fit to be printed and displayed in public on the marquee on the front of the school, it should not be forced upon them as required material.
Yes... my daughter was uncomfortable with both blasphemy and the nudity. I'm sure she hears worse at school, but she has the option to remove herself from the situation and not have her grade penalized.
I heard back from the principal, who said that she was going to look into the book and see if it is on the approved list. BTW, this is a book of fiction as well. Not like this is a historical novel.
I'm not sure if I will be more disappointed in the teacher straying outside of approved materials, or more disappointed to find that this is on the "approved" list.
I agree that reading a few passages at the next school board meeting, especially if you notify the local media what you plan in advance. Tell them to keep it quiet.
Squirl, your intellect is showing but there is a great deal of difference between creative art and dramatic shock video of a naked soldier that adds little to the plot or a porn star wiggling her assets on screen. Everything is in the perspective.
Ajax, sure they hear those words non stop, but unless you're a new wave soccer mom, the kids know they're gonna get a hide tanning if they repeat them in polite company.
Give em Hell Shooter! c*
when I was in 7th grade we watched romeo and Juliet, it contained nudity and intention.
other than the occasional uncomfortable giggle in the class, we were all pretty well prepared for what we seen.
If you look the book up on amazon you'll see it appears to be widely used
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618706410/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0BQ9E4P3QZ0VG21E1ABR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O'Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.
Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.
Quote from: astidham on November 01, 2011, 09:26:32 PM
when I was in 7th grade we watched romeo and Juliet, it contained nudity and intention.
other than the occasional uncomfortable giggle in the class, we were all pretty well prepared for what we seen.
Yes and we also read Beowulf which is about as racy and violent as it gets....but again it's how it's seen in the minds of adolescents.
Classic literature is different than modern smut or even thought provoking fiction.
Listen to a choir sing the Hymn Gloria.
I also have a remix of it that even though it has the same lyrics, it's as dark and sinister sounding as you can imagine.
It's important that the kids learn what war is really about. God knows, there's been enough nonsense written about the moral victories in war when the simple truth is...the toughest most violent...win.
Men are trained to take orders, to kill the enemy without hesitation, to stand their ground until told to do otherwise, to not think and never volunteer.
Then when they come home, they're expected to unlearn those things and live with the baggage they gathered during that tour.
That's important, but just how much of that can that be shoved down a 14 or 16 year old's throat who still can't fathom what it may be like. There is a tremendous amount of growing between 14 and 18 and I think educators are neglecting the basics in order to program the kids a long time before they're ready.
Quote from: peternap on November 01, 2011, 10:36:27 PM
......That's important, but just how much of that can that be shoved down a 14 or 16 year old's throat who still can't fathom what it may be like. There is a tremendous amount of growing between 14 and 18 and I think educators are neglecting the basics in order to program the kids a long time before they're ready.
That's it in a nut shell. Well stated.
"
Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. "
Who are these guys?Some fights aren't worth a raised eyebrow, some are generated by boredom.....this one, however, risks most the marbles.
Aim true, Shooter.
Keep yer powder dry
I agree that your daughter should be able to make the decision as to what she finds objectionable and excuse herself from it without repercussions.
If it is on an approved list, you will have a much harder uphill battle. It most likely would have gone through a higher up bureaucratic entity than even the principle of one school, and you will be fighting an entity which may have broader community support.
It's refreshing to see differing positions on a controversial topic without personal attacks. Way to go guys! I guess I'm too used to reading the local news comments. :(
My eldest is only 4, so I can't say for sure how I would react. It is my hope that we as parents can supervise our childeren's first exposure to the less savory aspects of society. Then, when she encounters it on her own, it won't be as shocking, she'll already have a context for it, and probably her own thoughts, ideas, and decisions about it. But then I'm full of all kinds of ideas about the parent I want to be, and I'm already missing the mark. So, we'll see...
Fight the good fight, Shooter. Stand up for your right to be your child's parent.
PapaBear
So, what's your end game?
To keep your child from reading this, or to keep all children from reading this?
And I'm still wondering why you didn't just start with the teacher.
This is a new teacher for our family, and we have known the principal for 5 years and have found her to be reasonable. I am trying to see if I have a legal leg to stand on first. If I go to the teacher and gripe, this teacher has a rep for retaliation. In my letter to the principal, I asked to keep this confidential and to not act until we get some background information.
How about they read a history book about Vietnam instead? In history class? This book is written for shock value to make a point that US soldiers do reprehensible things. There are not a lot of good Americans in this book. One section of the book describes a US GI that straps a puppy to a claymore and detonates the trigger.
What is the literary point in that? This class is a sophomore level class to teach kids the basics of understanding a novel. Why can't this can't be done without vulgar language, blasphemy, tremendous gore, and portraying most of the U.S. soldiers as hedonistic savages? If this book were a film, it would not get less than an R rating. This is not appropriate material for 15 year old children.
We are not talking about "Catcher in the Rye". This book steps way over the line.
Apparently I am not alone. http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/book-banners-finding-power-in-numbers-28097/
I am considering contacting other parents. I think we have a pretty strong representation of LDS families at this high school, and I suspect that they will have similar objections.
This teacher seems to place indoctrination over education. She is determined to interject her social and political views into the classroom. I am not willing to enter into a conversation with someone such as that.... I know exactly how much she will be receptive to input. Zero. In checking her out on Ratemyteachers.com, others have had issues with her too. Indications are that she does not like boys, and there are complaints about her bringing her politics into the classroom.
Got a call from the school principal a few minutes ago. She told me that she has a meeting set up with the teacher today after school, and that this is just "one more thing" to add to the list of topics to discuss. It sounded as though my complaint is not the only one, nor is this the only topic.
I hope that goes well.
The problem is right here in the abstract:
The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army.
It is fiction used to push a political agenda.
sounds like American literature as taught in English comp to me.
Quote from: NM_Shooter on November 02, 2011, 09:15:38 AM
This teacher seems to place indoctrination over education. She is determined to interject her social and political views into the classroom. I am not willing to enter into a conversation with someone such as that.... I know exactly how much she will be receptive to input. Zero. In checking her out on Ratemyteachers.com, others have had issues with her too. Indications are that she does not like boys, and there are complaints about her bringing her politics into the classroom.
And you know this from speaking to her? No, you don't. You're off the deep end before you've even talked to her.
You know what? I've got a clothes iron in my new hidden ironing board. I've never burned my hand on it. But I know that if I plug that sucker in, turn it up, lay it on my hand, I will get a burn. I've gotten burned by other clothes irons. I don't need to get burned by every one to know exactly how that feels.
I recognize a clothes iron when I see one.
There is also a parent teacher conflict here as well, that is said without prejudice. I'd ask for an alternative assignment or preferrably a reassignment to another teacher.
I guess another literary work came to mind;
Well Scout, there are words that you might use out on the ball field that you should not use at the dining room table.
I wouldn't feel comfortable asking a child to read that and would have some serious reservations about someone who required a child to read it.
Reminds me of an incident that we encountered with the public school system some years ago when my daughter was in 7th grade. There was a sex education class that was to be taught and included in the ah, curriculum, was a lesson on how to place a condom on a banana. Since the class was not mandatory, I happily sent in a note, asking to exclude my daughter. She had asked to be excluded as well as all of the other girls in the class because, even weeks before the class, the boys had already started with the lewd comments. Now, boys have been known to do this from time to time.
Thinking the matter to be closed, I was wrong. I received a tersely worded reply that stated, and I paraphrase "We highly encourage you to be more progressive in your thinking and we really want your daughter to be involved in the class. Let us know if this is still a problem." I did so in another note and thought the matter closed, but this was not to be. I received another, similar note so I went to the school and asked to speak to the teacher. I was not allowed to and after some wrangling, spoke to the vice principal, who attempted to lecture me on my lack of progressive thinking. I told her that what we taught our daughter about sex was our business and not to bother us again with anymore tersely worded notes.
Now, I was not about to back down, but it does give you pause. How many parents had neither the time, inclination or backbone to stand up to these folks? And, who gave them the authority to teach this stuff in the first place? My point is that the public schools have gotten so far afield from their core mission of educating our children to compete in the global marketplace that I fear it will take decades to catch up. Teaching them how to wrap a banana with a condom is not something that I agree with. What think you?
Woods, I'm with you.
Maybe when that becomes a critical employment skill or a component on the ACTs, I'll change my mind. I'm also not a progressive thinker when it comes to alternative lifestyles. I don't give a crap if Bobby has two moms. Just don't tell my kid that is a normal family unit (and don't be surprised if Bobby turns up bewildered, a cross dresser by the time of 12, and confused and angered by his own anatomy). I don't care what folks do at their house. Keep it out of the schools. That goes for political agendas (both sides of the aisles).
How about we stick to "hardcore" math, science, writing skills instead?
Can you imagine seeing this in school when us boomers were kids?
Quote from: NM_Shooter on November 03, 2011, 07:36:22 PM
I don't give a crap if Bobby has two moms. Just don't tell my kid that is a normal family unit (and don't be surprised if Bobby turns up bewildered, a cross dresser by the time of 12, and confused and angered by his own anatomy).
Bobby's two moms came from the same "normal family unit" you have. So is that what produces the two moms? If so, then maybe you should reconsider your stance rather than worry about your grandkids bewildered cross dressers angered at their own anatomy.
Quote from: NM_Shooter on November 03, 2011, 07:36:22 PM
Can you imagine seeing this in school when us boomers were kids?
Oh it'd have gone over well in my high school. [rofl2]
800 students about 30% Mennonite, 30% Southern Baptist, 30% Farm Kids and ten percent rural town.
There were no Orientals, 4 Blacks that we didn't know we were supposed to hate and gay meant someone was happy.
Yep, it'd have been well accepted ::)
Quote from: Squirl on November 03, 2011, 08:21:33 PM
Bobby's two moms came from the same "normal family unit"
Really?
And just how did you find that bit of scientific trivia Squirl?
This is probably going to produce another stream of "Hate Speech" protests to John, but I am not any more privy to the cause of Bobby's two Mom's, than I am to what makes a Child Molester, Mass murderer, Necrophelliac or connoisseur of snuff films....but I do know that Bobby's two Mom's do NOT constitute a normal family unit!
I do know that a child being loved and cared for by two adults, who may even be members, or loved ones of members of people of this board falls into both the normal and family category to me.
And yes peter, equating causation of homosexuality with causation murder and rape is pretty crappy. If you know that off the bat, why write it?
Quote from: Squirl on November 03, 2011, 09:47:26 PM
And yes peter, equating causation of homosexuality with causation murder and rape is pretty crappy. If you know that off the bat, why write it?
Because it's true!
Just because I know you're going to snipe about it doesn't change the fact that is neither normal or healthy.
Equating those things is easy. It's all perversion and unacceptable.
Now what goes on between two people is their business. That doesn't mean that I or anyone else has to ,or should expose their children to it or in any way indicate to them that it's an alternate lifestyle or anything other than abnormal and immoral.
Quote from: Squirl on November 03, 2011, 08:21:33 PM
Bobby's two moms came from the same "normal family unit" you have. So is that what produces the two moms? If so, then maybe you should reconsider your stance rather than worry about your grandkids bewildered cross dressers angered at their own anatomy.
Hey... I said I didn't care. I just don't want it taught as normal. What's next? Bubba and his wife-sheep?
(oh.... and I don't have grandkids yet)
Well, crap. I just burned my thumb on that iron, while I was banding veneer on a bathroom vanity. I'm going to have to find a new analogy. Rats.
(Let's keep the fact that I borrowed my wife's new iron for this chore to ourselves, eh?)
Quote from: NM_Shooter on November 03, 2011, 10:17:39 PM
Well, crap. I just burned my thumb on that iron, while I was banding veneer on a bathroom vanity. I'm going to have to find a new analogy. Rats.
(Let's keep the fact that I borrowed my wife's new iron for this chore to ourselves, eh?)
I'm glad you burned your thumb! :-\
When I read that I nearly choked on my Genuine Artificial, Sugar Free, Orange Drink. :o
Quote from: peternap on November 03, 2011, 10:04:58 PM
Equating those things is easy. It's all perversion and unacceptable.
Equating that an entire segment of the American population is inherently as evil as child rapists and murders is abhorrent. Are there any other segments you believe are also inherently on par with the greatest evils of humanity that we normally lock away for life or put to death? Races? Religions?
Quote from: peternap on November 03, 2011, 10:04:58 PM
Because it's true!
Just because I know you're going to snipe about it doesn't change the fact that is neither normal or healthy.
Equating those things is easy. It's all perversion and unacceptable.
Now what goes on between two people is their business. That doesn't mean that I or anyone else has to ,or should expose their children to it or in any way indicate to them that it's an alternate lifestyle or anything other than abnormal and immoral.
Boy, you guys continue to amaze me.
It's gotta be solely due to longevity of membership, culminating in knowing each other pretty darn well, in order to banter like this.
...and it's a great, however volatile, subject.
I, a relative newbie, have some scattered/random thoughts that should cast me into some sort of category;
Squirl
I think you have a solid point.
I see you have strong conviction in making a distinct separation between outright immoral acts like murder from those of a personal belief, or way of life.
The societal grey area is in one's moral stance based on upbringing or studied convictions.
Thing is, some have such a strong belief in these areas that they hold them in regard with as much potency as the accepted obvious evils.
It gives one pause to consider where our society is going.
Are we being more 'open' and moving forward, away from puritanical dictates, or sliding down the moral banister?
How would the Sodomites have handled this?
OK, tongue back outta cheek.......(and not that cheek!!)
Erosion starts with the edges, almost imperceptible.
I applaud those like NM Shooter that stand, and I mean stand, for their convictions.
Holding fast, and shoring up the edges, guarding today's grey areas, of which in their mind is not grey at all.
Raising children is hard, really really hard. The odds are stacked against parents. It's a daily fight, but with kid gloves, and tenderness within the home sanctuary, and dogged determination in a society that is nothing less than a war zone.
OK, the random interlude is over.
Shooter, you are on to something. When we as as society say that anything goes and "who are you to judge?" we are heading down a very slippery slope. Since the issue of homosexual marriage has come up, let me weigh in. I say, that if any individual state wants to allow this, then simply enact the requisite law or hold a referendum for the people to decide. I'm a firm believer of state's rights, so let them decide. However, this issue has been mostly decided by judges and that has caused much unnecessary strife. The reason for this is that most states will not allow homosexual marriage, hence the issue being decided by judges as an end-around. Before the hue and cry of "human rights" is brought to bear on me, let me pose this question. "If homosexual marriage is to be allowed and championed, then why not plural marriage or any other variation?" Is this not a human right? Why can't four men marry one woman or vice versa?
No one said anything about homosexual marriage. So far this was only calling homosexuality abnormal, implying children raised by homosexual parents leads to them being 12 year old cross dressers, and equivocating homosexuality at the same level as raping children and executable offenses.
Gay marriage is mild in comparison to the views expressed so far.
Quote from: Squirl on November 04, 2011, 11:22:11 AM
No one said anything about homosexual marriage. So far this was only calling homosexuality abnormal, implying children raised by homosexual parents leads to them being 12 year old cross dressers, and equivocating homosexuality at the same level as raping children and executable offenses.
I didn't imply anything. I merely stated the facts. However, this is way off of my thread topic so I'll be done with this last post :
http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/10/lesbian-couple-gives-son-hormone-therapysays-he-is-transgender-child/
Demonizing homosexuals is just another way to divide and distract the people. When some are unequal, we all are unequal.
It's sad that some in our society want to continue to treat some people as less than others simply for being different.
Comparing homosexuality to pedophelia, mass murderers, rapists? :(
You'd be singing a different tune if one of your beloved children turned out to be gay and was mistreated by someone who shares your current views on the matter.
I don't think that anyone here said anything about it being OK to harm someone because of their sexual preference, and I don't think you could even infer that from what they have said. Simply put, they don't want it being pushed as normative behavior. Neither do I.
As to the book your daughter was required to read, Shooter, I had to read it in college for a literature class. It was awful. I quit reading part of the way through it and just made up stuff on the tests and essays about it, and passed all of them with an A. Yes, I was very offended by it, by the vulgarity and the blasphemy. There is no way that high school kids should be asked to process this. I wasn't ready for it as a college senior, and still am not as a 35 year old mother of four. I doubt when I'm a grandma that I'll find it a necessity for being American....
Of course, my college writing professors like to write words like "preachy" and "didactic" on stuff I wrote. I'm pretty certain that at least one of them didn't even know what didactic mean, but just liked to say it. I thought the crap they wrote was "preachy and didactic" too, but just from a completely different worldview. Stick to your guns and help your daughter to stand up for herself.... seems like these days it isn't deemed "literature" unless it is crass, godless, vulgar, and depressing.
Quote from: Squirl on November 04, 2011, 11:22:11 AM
No one said anything about homosexual marriage. So far this was only calling homosexuality abnormal, implying children raised by homosexual parents leads to them being 12 year old cross dressers, and equivocating homosexuality at the same level as raping children and executable offenses.
Gay marriage is mild in comparison to the views expressed so far.
Homosexuality is abnormal by definition:
ab·nor·mal [ab-nawr-muhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.
not normal, average, typical, or usual; deviating from a standard: abnormal powers of concentration; an abnormal amount of snow; abnormal behavior.
studies show that about 10% of the population is homosexual, which means that 90% are not. One can easily conclude that the 90% are showing average, typical or
normal behavior, while the 10% are abnormal.
Don't misconstrue this to mean that I believe gays are more likely to molest kids or what not. I have gay friends, and really don't care who one sleeps with. However its disingenuous to teach our children that homosexuality is "normal" because its not. Its a genetic fluke.
I believe we should get the government out of the marriage business altogether, but barring that solution let gay marriage pass, they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us. ;D
Quote from: Grimjack on November 05, 2011, 08:10:03 AM
I believe we should get the government out of the marriage business altogether, but barring that solution let gay marriage pass, they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us. ;D
Whether in agreement or not, that's pretty darn funny
Shooter, that article that you linked to was really disturbing. It made me remember the Eugenics movement of not too long ago. You know ""the applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations.[2] Historically, many of the practitioners of eugenics viewed eugenics as a science, not necessarily restricted to human populations; this embraced the views of Darwin and Social Darwinism."
I'm not trying to equate these two women's motives to the folks who embraced eugenics, but the result will be the same - attempting to play God, or for you folks who don't believe in a God, attempting to change the human race, one person at a time. That society now not only allows, but sometimes champions this is a bit disturbing at the least. Again, I believe that these types of social engineering feats, taken one at a time will only lead to more dangerous and disturbing attempts to create a certain type of person from a child.
On the subject of Eugenics...
Regardless of your position on abortion, one thing is clear to me: it has nothing to do with women's rights. It is social engineering at its finest.
According to Margaret Sanger, a member of both the American Eugenics Society and the English Eugenics Society (and founder of Planned Parenthood, the United States' largest abortion provider):
"Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly ... Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to maintenance of those who should never have been born."
There have been 50 million abortions since Roe vs Wade passed in 1973. Excluding immigration, the US has a negative birth rate.
I'd offer that no matter one's position, excluding a choice would be social engineering. The argument would be whether you think this is a positive form of social engineering.
The rate of births in the US is roughly 14 per 1000 population per year, a positive number.
The rate of deaths is roughly 8 per 1000 population per year.
Subtracting deaths from births yields a positive increase of 6 people per 1000 per year, then add immigration.
The fertility rate needed to sustain a population is 2.1. The current rate in the US, excluding immigration, is 1.8. In the 1960's, it averaged 3.2. Including the massive influx of immigrants over the last 10 years, the rate is barely at 2.1.
The total fertility rate in the United States after World War II peaked at about 3.8 children per woman in the late 1950s and by 1999 was at 2 children. This means that an imaginary woman (defined in the introduction) who fast-forwarded through her life in the late 1950s would have been expected to have about four children, whereas an imaginary woman who fast-forwarded through her life in 1999 would have been expected to have only about two children in her lifetime. The fertility rate of the total U.S. population is at around the replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman. However, the fertility of the population of the United States is below replacement among those native born, and above replacement among immigrant families, most of whom come to the U.S. from countries with higher fertility than that of the U.S.
Quote from: Homegrown Tomatoes on November 04, 2011, 10:29:48 PM
I don't think that anyone here said anything about it being OK to harm someone because of their sexual preference, and I don't think you could even infer that from what they have said. Simply put, they don't want it being pushed as normative behavior. Neither do I.
I've been hunting so I missed most of this. That's fine because Squirl's starting on race and religion now...which means his argument just dropped below the horizon.
Just to satisfy him though..
No Squirl, I don't hate people for their race or religion, nor do I hate homosexuals.
I don't hate crack addicts either but they shouldn't be raising children.
The fact that two homosexuals may Provide a loving home for the child is irrelevant. It's still an immoral, unnatural atmosphere.
You're an intelligent person and know good and well that most Pedophiles profess to love children also. They are also homosexuals for the most part.
That's pretty much my last word on the subject. If you can scramble it to show I hate Jews and Blacks, or that I'm calling for the execution of all homosexuals....have at it.
Now as to your question about what if it was my child.
I'd still love him/her because it was my child. I'd be defensive but I wouldn't ever consider him or her a fit parent and if someone else suggested they were not fit, I'd keep quiet because he would be right.