Teacher suspended for article on gay animals

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/afbad9f0557d.jpg[/atsimg]

High school teacher assigns scientific article on homosexuality in the animal kingdom and is suspended. People ... science might be inconvenient but it is true.

Science illiteracy, it seems, has worked its way up to the administrative level at one public high school in Illinois.

Dan Delong, a teacher at Southwestern High School, offered an optional reading assignment last week for his students — an article written by well-known science blogger Jonah Lehrer entitled the "The Gay Animal Kingdom" published in Seed Magazine.

The article discusses the challenges facing Darwin's theory of sexual selection, as more and more research is documenting the prevalence of homosexuality in over 450 vertebrate species. In some cases, like male big horn sheep, homosexuality is the norm.

(read full article here)
www.mnn.com...

For a long time we have felt free, but as people are running from the center with new ideas and new thoughts, they realize that there is actually a fence all around us. We thought we were in an open grass field but turns out we were in a farm.

For a long time we have felt free, but as people are running from the center with new ideas and new thoughts, they realize that there is actually a fence all around us. We thought we were in an open grass field but turns out we were in a farm.

Good.
Very Good.
They dont need to be teaching these kids about gay animal sex.
Hell, I dont even remember my teachers telling us about Animal sex period besides the usual "this species lays eggs, these speicies mate and have babies". Not once do I remember them getting into the act itself.
Something tells me though, that this teacher is up to more than teaching kids about gay animal sex.

I think it's apalling that the teacher was temporarily suspended. He was apparently teaching a valid and factual facet of the animal kingdom -- including, but far from humans alone.

Scientists have observed homosexual behavior in 1,500 animal species, said Bøckman. Take, for instance, bonobos, one of our closest relatives and perhaps the most well-known homosexual animals. “They’re known to be rampantly bisexual,” he said. Killer whales, bottlenose dolphins, West Indian manatees, and giraffes have all-male orgies. Among black-headed gulls, scientists estimate that one in ten pairs is comprised of two females. Same-sex penguin couples have been known to have long relationships and raise chicks.

source

So WHO does this threaten?? What other facets of animal sociology should be surpressed? Should the term "animal husbandry" be changed to reflect somthing that doesn't make anyone squirm?

OR, should our kids be learning something of the real world, real animal behaviors, and how it relates to the human species?

Tough call? It shouldn't be, IMO. What is, IS. Pretending that human beings are the only species on Earth that engage in homosexual behavior is contrary to the factual evidence.

We can fool our kids with Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but we have to lie to them about the animal kingdom? Something wrong there.

Maybe it's just my twisted sense of humor, but I got a kick out of the youtube linked in the OP: Squirrel Threesome

I say anything that makes kids want to read is good! Of course anything that hints of the forbidden will get their attention, so let them read about this aspect of biology. It wasn't until I was an adult and I found out about the parts that they left out of history that I began to be interested in it. If they had left some of the juicy bits in the text books, I bet attention and grades would have been much higher!

The kids probably don't even understand their own sexuality, let alone that of animals.

It is in nature and therefore it is not so foreign. What a shame they punish a teacher over this.

There is a thread about homosexualilty taking place in nature that is on ATS. Maybe I can find it.

I remember because it was a good thread , though one of the posters wrote something about how gay someone's dog was; about how it was the most gay dog ever
though the funniest parts were the descriptions of the dogs behavior and the why and how it was so gay.

The poster was being serious and funny and it's the funniest thing I've ever read on the ATS.

Anybody remember this?

I couldn't stop laughing. Sorry if I got off topic. It still makes me laugh thinking of it

Originally posted by argentus

Maybe it's just my twisted sense of humor, but I got a kick out of the youtube linked in the OP: Squirrel Threesome

argentus,

I got a kick out of the video too....I was debating whether to add it in the OP or not...

I don't think it was what the assignment was, but perhaps it was how he was teaching it. What I mean is maybe he used this as a chance to throw in "Hey kids, it's okay to be gay", because it could conflict with the views of the students or their parents.

Originally posted by Common Good
Good.
Very Good.
They dont need to be teaching these kids about gay animal sex.
Hell, I dont even remember my teachers telling us about Animal sex period besides the usual "this species lays eggs, these speicies mate and have babies". Not once do I remember them getting into the act itself.
Something tells me though, that this teacher is up to more than teaching kids about gay animal sex.

I think teaching it is fine, treating our kids like babies and nuns leads for social fairy tales
that no longer serve the planet.

I think that there is another issue here going on, and that is on how politicalized the scientific community has become. If you consider that those who challenge ideas, no matter how unpopular they are, tend to get the raw end of the stick, it tends to show the true nature of science today. Kind of reminds me of several other issues, like when Gallieo challenged the scientific thought of the day and was imprisoned for it, those who dare to suggest that climate change may not be so severe are pretty much threatened, and even those who would suggest that there is an alternative theory to the origine of life are terminated from their jobs for daring to mention or think outside of the box. I would like to know what the teacher was teaching when pointing out the article to his students and the context of the lesson, before passing judgement.

see, My problem is, are they really gay or acting out on hormones attempting to mate with anything in their path. Like with dogs, if there is a female in heat some where in the neighborhood and can't get to her, they will attempt to mate with just about anything, Male dogs included, but its because of the pheromones the female dog is releasing. Now if you put a non neutered sexually healthy male dog, next to a female in heat and he refused touch her, then a few days later with out a female in heat for miles around, and attempted to mate with a male dog, then maybe you might have something.
The only species that I feel you can use to clearly demonstrate homosexuality in nature are the ones who mate for life.

Personally though, as long as what the teacher was teaching wasn't crude, I think its ok, for high school, but if it was elementary school, then yeah I would agree the the suspension.

The "Gay animal" propaganda is just another self interest. All it demonstrates is that a dominant karma (a perversion that is needing to be expressed and exhausted) manifests irregardless of the species involved. The spirit has the primal karma not the body. The spirit will manifest them in whatever form it is currently occupying. Is does not demonstrate some aspect of nature itself. Nature provides the creational impulse to all living things. Creation, sustaining and destruction are the natural cycle. The impulse is misdirect in those with this particular malady at that time. Incarnations later, when the karma passes such an inclination will naturally appear foreign and abhorrent.

The presence of same-sex sexual behaviour was not scientifically observed on a large scale until recent times. Homosexual behaviour does occur in the animal kingdom outside humans, especially in social species, particularly in marine birds and mammals, monkeys, and the great apes. Homosexual behaviour has been observed among 1,500 species, and in 500 of those it is well documented.

Source

Originally posted by ReelView
Is does not demonstrate some aspect of nature itself.

Separating nature from the animal kingdom, including humans, makes it into an abstract, arbitrary and meaningless concept.

The FACT is that this IS a feature of nature, expressed in thousands of species of animals.


I don't think this guy should have been suspended at all. This is science, it's relevant to modern politics, and it's relevant to millions of peoples' lives and freedoms. And no, that doesn't mean the freedom to have sex in front of you, though you see this kind of stuff all the time on TV anyway between straight couples which is hypocritical.

So he got suspended for teaching something CONTRADICTORY to Darwin's theory of sexual selection!!! How ironic!! Man, are fundies fundamentally silly or what??

Best,
Skunknuts

Originally posted by ReelView
The "Gay animal" propaganda is just another self interest. All it demonstrates is that a dominant karma (a perversion that is needing to be expressed and exhausted) manifests irregardless of the species involved. The spirit has the primal karma not the body. The spirit will manifest them in whatever form it is currently occupying. Is does not demonstrate some aspect of nature itself. Nature provides the creational impulse to all living things. Creation, sustaining and destruction are the natural cycle. The impulse is misdirect in those with this particular malady at that time. Incarnations later, when the karma passes such an inclination will naturally appear foreign and abhorrent.

This spirit sounds like another way to describe the infinite realities nature conjures up.
You break it down enough and reality is just countless collection of configurations.
We are the ones that define, nature has no say in it, not in an active understandable sense.
It is just my opinion that trying to shelter kids from information is silly, however this may have been a politicization on the teachers behalf. By pointing this out the teacher has explained that homosexuality is not a natural oddity, it is an occurrence in nature.

To me taking offense with nature, human or not, is a futile undertaking, it is something to understand and except, not deny or suppress. I'm not one for sheltering or feeding of rainbows.

reply to post by skunknuts


I dont know whats funnier, this article, or the fact that you added me as a foe because of my response. haha.
Either way, my opinion still stands.
I will have fun debating you in the future.

[edit on 28-12-2009 by IntastellaBurst]