Mother's Day Memorial
By Bonnie Chernin Rogoff
Rightgrrl Contributor
Founder, Jews For Life
May 12, 2001
It all began with Anita Bryant.
No, no…I'm not talking about Mother's Day. I'm talking about the subservience of the American establishment, Moral Majority and traditional families to the whims and demands of the immoral subculture.
If you recall, in the late 1970's Miss Bryant dared to challenge an ordinance in Dade County that strengthened homosexual rights. Her anti-gay crusade prompted the Florida Orange growers to oust Miss Bryant from the popular juice commercials, under pressure from the gay rights lobby. It was a move that lent power to the national homosexual movement, and the Christian right. It also destroyed Miss Bryant's career.
That's all behind us now. Unless, of course, you happen to be a straight mother whose child is enrolled in a prestigious Jewish Day school in New York.
In this week's New York Post, columnist Andrea Peyser writes an exclusive eye-opening report about a Reform Jewish school in Manhattan whose administrators decided that Mother's Day, happily celebrated each year by the children in school, was an option. Under pressure by a pair of homosexual parents to abandon the holiday, neither Mother's Day nor Father's Day will be celebrated at the Rodeph Sholom Day School. Why? Because their children's feelings may be hurt, as well as the feelings of other children who are not part of a traditional family unit.
Now, all children in that school will be punished, and unable to create artistic and colorful Mother's Day cards on the school premises. Nor will they be permitted to create gifts for Dad. And you thought only prayer was banned in school.
Read a portion of what Cindi Samson, director of the school's lower elementary division, wrote in a letter to parents:
"At this time, these holidays are not needed to enhance our writing and arts programs. Second, families in our society are now diverse and varied. We are a school with many different family makeups, and we need to recognize the emotional well-being of all the children in our school…the recognition of these holidays in a social setting may not be a positive experience for all children."
She's right. Perhaps it would be a more positive experience for children if we establish a holiday for divorced parents, abusive parents and deadbeat dads.
Strangely enough, this ban on Mother's and Father's day will only affect the school children four years old and up. I can't imagine why. For the sake of consistency, why not begin the homosexual propaganda campaign at age one? How about starting in the womb?
Homosexuals make up at most - and this is generous - about 10% of the population. How long are the remaining 90% going to allow this type of manipulation to go on? How long will parents sit idly by and allow their moral principles to be dictated by immoral Principals in experimental schools?
Don't even think of asking parents on the left coast. On May 7, in an article entitled "New pro-homosexual regulations drafted," reporter Julie Foster of World Net Daily reported that the California Department of Education will be implementing a new standardized curriculum that will affect all public school students:
"Under the recommendations, which will soon be adopted by the California Department of Education as administrative regulations to be followed in every K-12 public school, all curriculum in the state will be changed to include alternative sexual lifestyles. In other words, literature, math word problems, health and social studies classes, as well as other subjects, will be tailored to positively portray homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism."
You may ask: what does this California statute have to do with Mother's Day? The answer is, everything and anything. It is another exercise in judicial power being used to restrain parental authority; a government attempt to take over parent's rights to raise their children with the morals and religious values they hold dear. In California, parents will have their work cut out for them.
By the way, the two women credited and celebrated as the founders of Mother's Day (Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe) were both feminists in their time. Julia Ward Howe was a poet, pacifist and suffragette. Anna Jarvis worked to have a national day in honor of her own mother, Anna Reese Jarvis, whose lifelong activism began before the Civil War.
It was strong, independent feminists who organized a movement to establish Mother's Day, for they recognized the importance of motherhood. If present day trends continue, the contemporary sisterhood may one day end a cherished institution. With a chip on their shoulders, they and the gay rights activists continue to chip away at the family tradition. They only recognize the importance of themselves.
We certainly have come a long way, baby. I wonder if Anita Bryant is still beautiful. I wonder if she can still belt out a tune.
So, to all you traditionalists out there: Happy Mother's Day, wherever you may find it. To all you mothers out there, I hope your day is happy, wherever you may find your children.
Copyright 2001 by Bonnie Chernin Rogoff. Not to be reproduced in any fashion, in whole or in part, without written consent from the author. All rights reserved.