Politicians react to the pressure: MA House Ways & Means Committee cuts out entire $850,000 from homosexual programs in schools from FY 2010 budget!
Homosexual lobby scrambling
April 17, 2009
Your phone calls & emails - and months of general pressure - have paid off! This shows the power of activism, even here in Massachusetts!
Gov. Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Legislature have reacted to your outrage. On Wednesday April 15, the Massachusetts House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee released its version of the FY2010 state budget. To the shock of the homosexual lobby, the entire $850,000 that was funded this past year for homosexual programs in the public schools is gone! This follows several months of phone calls, emails, personal conversations and even calls to talk radio by angry parents.
NOTE: After this was posted on Friday, the House web site revealed that budget amendments have been filed to restore the $850,000 funding to the House budget. In this economic and political climate we don't believe these amendments have a chance of passing -- or else they would have been in the original budget. But we will get on this immediately.
The budget goes to the Senate after it leaves the House. This represents the first time since the early 1990's (the Weld administration) that no state funds were specifically earmarked for homosexual activism in the schools.
The Governor's budget recommendations had been released earlier and also eliminated that funding. But those were just recommendations. Everyone had been waiting to see what the House Ways and Means Committee would do. Despite pressure from the homosexual lobby, they didn't put it back in.
The combination of the huge state budget deficits and enflamed outrage by parents over such an enormous amount of money being used for such offensive purpose proved to be too much. Although the money could still find its way back in when the Senate releases its version - and the homosexual lobby will attempt to do that - this is a huge victory for the pro-family cause.
Stunned reaction by homosexual activists
The homosexual lobby seems to have been taken by surprise. And they are vowing to push hard to get their money back. According to their recent statement, they will be using the emotional (and Orwellian) cry of "student safety."
This was printed in the homosexual newspaper Bay Windows this week:
In a statement to Bay Windows, the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth said it believes House Ways and Means has eliminated all the funding for LGBT youth programs, which were funded at $850,000 in the FY 09 budget.
"We are currently still determining the impact, but it seems that funding for GLBT youth both from the Department of Public Health and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has been completely eliminated," said the statement. "The commission plans to quickly work with our legislators to restore as much of the funding as we can. GLBT youth continue to have pressing health and safety needs, particularly youth of color and transgender youth.
Read entire article here
Funding hardcore homosexual activism targeting schoolchildren
This $850,000 has been every parent's nightmare. This money is put in control of the Mass. Commission for Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth, which includes the most radical groups and individuals in the state. The two main leaders have been a woman with a beard and sideburns and a man who cross-dresses. They see their next frontier as the transgender movement, which they promote heavily in addition to homosexuality and bisexuality. They set up homosexual clubs in high schools and middle schools, fund and put on homosexual programs and assemblies. They organize homosexual curriculum in the elementary schools. They often work directly with kids, with no outside supervision. Furthermore, they intimidate and threaten school officials who balk at allowing their activities. They also put on extra-curricular activities off-campus, such as the "Youth Pride" march and the "transgender prom", alone with kids.
Governor's budget recommendations were a good sign
Each year the Governor makes budget recommendations, then the actual budget proposal is then made by the House, and then passed on to the Senate. Finally, the Governor can sign it or veto portions of it.
On January 28, the Governor released his FY 2010 budget recommendations (see link below). Although these are just "recommendations" to the Legislature, and are largely political in nature, virtually all of the homosexual-related (and other "human service items") in the budget were cut, along with many other things. The Governor obviously assumed that the more political Legislature would decide what to put back in, and thus take the pressure off the Governor.
This is a great turn of events! But it was assumed that the homosexual lobby (and the other special-interest groups) would hammer the House to get their money back in. Thus, there were lots of special-interest "lobby days" in February and March, as the House Ways and Means Committee made these decisions.
But obviously our flood of calls and emails, etc., had an effect! When the House budget came out this week, they put a LOT of stuff back in, but not this.
Here's our analysis of the budget items
used to funnel money to homosexual programs
into the schools
We're also keeping our eye on one other budget item
There's also a "domestic violence and sexual assault" item (analyzed in the link above) in the budget that merits scrutiny (#4513-1130 currently budgeted for $4,058,264 in the House version). This past year it was over $6 million.The Governor had downsized that whole item to $0.
This item includes (among several other things) the phrase "statewide suicide and violence prevention outreach to gay and lesbian youth" but it does not have a specific earmarked dollar amount. In the past little if any of actual money got diverted to the homosexual school programs from this item. This year the homosexual lobby doesn't also think that much, if any, of it could actually be diverted to their purposes. But we'll keep an eye on it.
Our work's not done on this! We must keep it stopped!
The budget is now at the Senate Ways and Means Committee, then goes to the full Senate. This could be trouble. As you may recall, last year the House budgeted $750,000 for the homosexual programs, and the Senate RAISED it to $850,000!
Here's how that happened: After lots of pressure, the Senate Ways and Means Committee lowered the amount by $200,000 -- to $550.000. But then when it got to the full Senate, pro-homosexual Senate President Therese Murray, along with now-disgraced former Sen. Diane Wilkerson, slithered an amendment through to raise it to $850,000! Unfortunately, not one Senator spoke out in opposition to this.
DON'T let that happen this time. Call the Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and tell him to KEEP the state funding for homosexual programs in our public schools OUT of the 2010 budget! Make sure they get the message this time!
Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth)
Phone: 617-722-1500
Email: Therese.Murray@state.ma.us
Senate Ways & Means Chairman Steven Panagiotakos (D-Lowell)
Phone: 617-722-1630
Email: Steven.Panagiotakos@state.ma.us
We must keep fighting
This fight isn't over yet. We must continue to keep up the pressure! If we DON'T do it, it won't happen!
And there are a lot of other battles looming before us. There are necessary pro-family bills that be passed and bad bills that must be stopped. But this is a great victory. Let's make it stay that way.
We have always believed that to be effective, a pro-family political organization must be willing to tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is, and not be afraid to be a confrontational when necessary. These are very important issues! We must keep in mind that these politicians work for us, not the special interests. All of our successes have come from that approach.
We'll keep you up to date on this.
