Another Gay Rights Bill: “Dignity for All Students Act” of New York State, A1118.

Rabbi David Eidensohn

Press Release from National Non-Sectarian Council of Pro-Family Activists May 7, 2003

Rabbi David Eidensohn, director of the National Non-Sectarian Council of Pro-Family Activists, attacked the New York State Assembly for its Bill A1118, “Dignity for All Students Act,” because it would demonize biblical people and teach hate of the bible. It would also force all religious schools to teach that homosexuality, proscribed by the bible, is acceptable. The state would issue teaching materials, textbooks and other material about atypical sexual behavior and gender identification and force every child in New York State to study them and be influenced by gay values.

“The Bill is called ‘Dignity for All Students’ but does not teach dignity for religious students,” said Rabbi Eidensohn. “By teaching that anyone who proscribes c homosexuality is a hater, inciter and bigot, we replace discrimination against gays with discrimination against biblical and traditional family people. Why can we not have dignity for all people, even religious ones?” asked Rabbi Eidensohn.

Rabbi Eidensohn slammed the New York State legislature for presenting Gay Rights bills as exempting religious people and schools when in fact they are not exempted. New York State recently passed the SONDA bill, a Gay Rights bill presented as offering exemptions to religious organizations. And yet, many counsels for Senators and Assemblymen readily admitted that a gay could sue a religious organization and the exemption would not prevail in court. Furthermore, Rabbi Eidensohn charged, one who reads the bill carefully sees that although in the description of the bill much ado is made about exemptions for religious institutions, the bill itself states any exemption in a very ambiguous way, if at all. Furthermore, one who wades through the bill and the laws it supplants realizes that there is almost no exemption at all for religious organizations regarding discriminating against gays. This means the state lied to people when it told them that the SONDA bill exempted religious organizations.

Rabbi Eidensohn noted a similar trick was done with the Dignity for All Students Act, 1118, although in a less blatant manner. In Bill 1118, the Dignity Law, there are five sections. The main sections are two and three. Two contains a lengthy text to be added to the present law and ends with an exemption for religious schools. This exemption applies only to section two. Section three, however, does not exempt religious schools. One who is not an expert on reading bills, and most people are not, would see the exemption at the end of section two, and assume that the entire law contains an exemption for religious schools, which is not true. Section three, including the requirement for all schools in New York State to teach civility in terms of gay rights  does not exempt religious schools. Indeed, one who does not teach the courses on civility, in section 801 and 801-a of the Education Law, has an illegal school, and the parents who send a child to such a school might be arrested for encouraging truancy in their children.

“We have very little time to wake up,” said Rabbi Eidensohn. “The Supreme Court in Romers, 1996, already has described opposition to homosexuality, evidently biblically oriented, as “animus.” When we will realize that Gay Rights are Religious Wrongs, and that Civil Rights Laws for Gays will doom religious institutions?”

Every Gay Rights Bill, said Rabbi Eidensohn, provides more ammunition for legal terrorism, when the Gay Lobby, with its infinite resources in lawyers, sues small places of worship, schools and even private people for not conforming to the dictates of the Gay Lobby. “We must insist,” said Rabbi Eidensohn, “that every Gay Rights Bill contains clear and explicit exemptions for religious institutions. We must insist that Gay Rights Bills not teach hatred of biblical people. We must insist that Gay Rights Bills not teach that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. And after all that, we must realize that if we don’t defeat Gay Rights Bills, eventually, they will demonize and criminalize biblical and traditional family people.”

Rabbi Eidensohn noted that the Supreme Court has ruled limits on freedom of religion, assembly and speech, in accord with “compelling interests” of government. This means that when the state construes Gay Rights as a very important issue, it may refuse to respect religious rights, the right of assembly and speech that oppose Gay Rights. Just as one may not cry “fire” in a crowded theater, and thus the “compelling interests” of the state override one’s right to free speech, so one may not burn a cross with intent to indicate hate of a protected minority. By making homosexuals equal in status to blacks, women and disabled people, the state has proclaimed a “compelling interest” in the advance of homosexuals and others with atypical sexual orientations. Biblical people whose bible, speech and actions oppose homosexuality and other atypical sexual orientations and practices are thus in the position of opposing, because of religion, a “compelling interest of the state,” an untenable position. The Supreme Court in Bob Jones University v United States (May 24, 1983) ruled that a religious organization that discriminated against blacks would lose its tax exemption. Once the state proclaims homosexuals a protected minority just like blacks, will this not criminalize and demonize all biblical and traditional family people? Already in many countries a preacher who teaches the biblical proscription on homosexuality in his church can be arrested.

“The biblical and traditional family community is hiding its head in sand,” said Rabbi Eidensohn. “Surely, people think, this can’t be for real. Nobody is going to demonize or criminalize traditional family and the bible. But this is exactly what Gay Rights Bills are doing, and nobody notices, or nobody cares.

“The Gay Lobby thrives,” said Rabbi Eidensohn, “on the ignorance of the masses of Americans, who, like the hapless masses of Russia and Germany were too busy to confront a nasty and determined element determined to seize power and destroy its enemies. There is very little time left.”

Rabbi Eidensohn noted that nobody believed that gays could seize control of governmental public health and take AIDS and HIV off the list of state infectious diseases, but they did. Nobody believed that gays would seize control of the federal medical dollar to divert critical funds for research on cancer and heart disease to find a medicine for AIDS, but that is what happened. Nobody believed that gays would seize control of public schools and teach tiny tots about the glories of homosexuality, but they did. Nobody believed that gays could terrorize therapists into reversing a century of research and declare that homosexuality is not a disease, but they did. “Now the gays are confronting the churches and parents, and want to demonize and criminalize them,” said Rabbi Eidensohn. “Bill 1118 and other Gay Rights Laws strike at the very civil rights of religious people to assemble in church to worship, to speak biblical ideas against homosexuality, and to thrive in America. Family cannot survive when public schools brainwash a child to consider a parent who is against homosexuality as an inciter and a bigot.”

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