The Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins writes about Anthony Esolen’s article on “Bullying Prevention” in Public Schools:
My favorite writer, Anthony Esolen, Professor of English at Providence College in Rhode Island, has written yet another incisive and illuminating article, this time on the dishonest exploitation of school bullying prevention efforts for the purposes of normalizing homosexuality. His piece, titled “Pulpit for Bullies” exposes the ugly tactics of the left, made all the more offensive because they’re employed in our schools against conservative teens:
[A]ny disapproval of the homosexual life is to be construed as homophobic, without regard to reasons or persons….The message may be unfolded thus: If you do not wear this shirt, or if you do not approve of the life it celebrates, you are evil. You’re a bully.
The occasion of Dr. Esolen’s piece is a court decision on the case of a Michigan student who was publicly berated and denied his constitutional right to freedom of speech by his economics teacher for expressing his beliefs about homosexuality on yet another purported “bullying prevention” day (it would be more accurate to refer to these as homosexuality celebration days).
It is our hope that Professor Esolen’s piece will be read in its entirety and widely circulated. Conservatives need to stop allowing the name-calling of the left to silence them. The ultimate goal of liberals is not to end bullying, which is a goal all decent people share. The ultimate goal is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs or the creation of a social, political, and legal climate that makes expressing them too costly. Redefining bullying and calling conservatives ugly names is merely a tactic in their larger unholy war.
