Teaching Respect

Howard Rosenberg’s column on the documentary “It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School” has given me reason 1,692 on why I don’t have a TV in my house and reason 4,395 on why my four children go to parochial school (“Debating Gay Issues in School and on the Air,” April 2).

Teaching about homosexuality has no place on TV or in school. My children need no education on gays, gay sex or for that matter sex in general. They don’t need any education on homosexuality to know that anti-gay violence is wrong, or that teasing a child with two moms is wrong. They have a solid grounding in religion and know that there is no excuse for bad behavior. None. Not because someone is a different color, a different religion or because someone “walks funny.”

The average public school in the United States is incapable of teaching my children how to read and write well, but this documentary has found six “very creative teachers” who are providing classroom lessons about gays to students. How about using that creativity to give our children the academic skills they need? How about using that creativity to teach our children that all people are to be treated with respect?

ANNE YENNY

Monrovia

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Christian evangelist D. James Kennedy labels as “child abuse” the remarkable film “It’s Elementary.”

The only child abuse, however, comes from Kennedy himself, and the other so-called religious and community leaders Rosenberg cites. Since approximately 10% of our children are or will be gay, Kennedy would condemn these kids to lives of shame, while increasing the likelihood that they will become victims of violence. He would condemn the other 90% to lives filled with intolerance and hatred.

Kennedy’s irresponsible and dangerous bluster should infuriate every parent in America.

DANIEL SLOSBERG

Los Angeles