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Former Leader of Nation’s Largest Teachers Union Called Contender for Top ‘Gay’ Activist Job 8/20/2003 Robert Chase, who presided over unprecedented homosexual activism at the National Education Association (NEA) during his two terms as NEA president, is being considered for the presidency of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest homosexual pressure group, according to the Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper.
Interest in Chase as a possible “gay” leader was revealed only after he relinquished his second term as the leader of the 2.6-million member teachers union, the most powerful lobbying force in education. In August 2002, Chicago teacher Reginald Weaver became NEA president.
The Washington Blade reported in its August 8 edition about the HRC job that, “One name that has surfaced in activist circles is Robert Chase, the gay former president of the National Education Association.” HRC President Elizabeth Birch has said she is stepping down at the end of this year.
Chase, who declined to be interviewed by Culture & Family Report, said through an NEA executive staff member that “he is not a candidate for the [HRC] position.” The staffer was later asked to inquire of Mr. Chase whether the Blade’s assertion that Mr. Chase is openly “gay” was true. The staffer did not return the second call as of press time.
During Chase’s tenure, the NEA passed resolutions urging schools to adopt pro-homosexuality programs and materials. In 2000, the NEA co-sponsored the showing at the White House of the homosexual propaganda film, That’s a Family, which was made by two lesbian activists and promotes homosexual parenting.
A former middle-school social studies teacher, Chase became vice president in 1979 of the NEA Connecticut affiliate, and vice president of the NEA from 1989 until 1996, when he was elected to the first of his two, three-year terms as NEA president.
“Bob has been a very strong asset for this caucus and for glbt issues in NEA,” reported Connections, the newsletter of the NEA Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transgender Caucus, in its September 2002 edition.
On October 7, 2000, Chase gave a plenary address to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s annual conference in Arlington, Illinois, in which he lambasted conservatives. “The NEA does not have what the right wing has branded a ‘radical pro-homosexual agenda’, we have a radical pro-civil rights agenda, a radical human rights agenda – the agenda of promoting equal respect, dignity and educational opportunities for all,” he said. GLSEN advocates pro-homosexual messages in public schools, beginning in kindergarten.
“Under Bob Chase’s leadership, the NEA effectively became a driving engine for promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren. When we are told that someone’s ‘sexual orientation’ is of no consequence, we need to remind them of this,” said Robert Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute. “There are jobs in which someone’s sexual propensities probably don’t impact the work environment much, unless they engage in activism or inappropriate behavior. But Bob Chase’s tenure at NEA is living proof that homosexual activists are taking direct aim at our children, and that so-called ‘sexual orientation’ is crucial when it comes to school leadership.”
In July 2001, Chase denounced as “demagoguery” a pro-family rally and press conference in Los Angeles outside the NEA convention. Hundreds of parents and teachers had gathered to urge the NEA delegates not to pass a resolution that would have urged teachers to integrate pro-homosexual materials into every subject, beginning with kindergarten and extending through senior year in high school. In the face of the protest and media coverage, delegates decided to table the measure and form a task force to study it.
In addition to promoting homosexuality among schoolchildren, the NEA discriminates against the ex-gay movement. When Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) applied for booth space at the 2002 NEA national convention in Washington, D.C., its $550 application check had already been cashed when they were suddenly told the event was “sold out.” PFOX has filed a discrimination complaint with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights. This year, the NEA told PFOX directly that the organization was not welcome at the national convention, which was held the first week in July in New Orleans, Regina Griggs, PFOX’s executive director, told Culture & Family Report.
“They literally have silenced ex-gay schoolteachers and members of their own unions, as well as our organization,” Griggs told CNSNews.com on July 31.
Sissy Jochman, a spokeswoman for the Conservative Educators Caucus, gave a speech in New Orleans in which she asked the NEA delegates to consider seeking counseling toward healthy gender identity for children who exhibit same-sex attraction.
“When I read my speech, you could not believe the thunderous roar of people not even wanting to consider it,” Jochman told Family News in Focus. “There might have been 100 people out of 9,400 or so delegates that wanted to debate it.”
According to a 1997 Eagle Forum report, “Gay and lesbian activists may have become the most influential single group within the NEA convention.” During the ’97 convention, the activists changed their demand from “tolerance” to “acceptance.”
According to one handout distributed during the convention, “Diversity is the word and acceptance is the order.”
According to the NEA-GLBTC website, pro-homosexuality NEA resolutions include:
Student Sexual Orientation - calls for school districts to provide counseling for students struggling with their sexual/gender orientation.
“Under Chase’s leadership, the NEA has also promoted homosexuality in the Democratic Party,” Knight said. “Observers at the last two party conventions reported that NEA-affiliated delegates, many of them wearing homosexual pins and hats, made up a quarter of the delegates, and threw their weight around effectively.
“The nation’s public school system is in the grip of a powerful, politically active homosexual lobby. Bob Chase is only the poster child for a much larger problem,” Knight said. |
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