Nationwide Textbook Undermines Family Values
By Editorial Staff
Published June 1989
by Ray Kerrison/Columnist, New York Post
Human Events – May 13, 1989
One of the most distressing trends in modern life is the promotion of state-sponsored decadence, where taxpayer funds are used to subsidize activities once deemed immoral.
But not even I was prepared for the appalling things they are doing at Nassau Community College in the name of education.
This college, in Garden City, [Long Island, N.Y.], has a student enrollment of l8,000. State and county taxpayers subsidize it with more than $60 million a year. It has a course called “Family Life and Human Sexuality,” which 3,000 teenagers take each year. This course comes right out of a Times Square snakepit.
On the first day of class [last] spring, students were asked to get the signatures of anyone who has done any of the following: had intercourse with a prostitute, made love in the back seat of a car, seen their parents naked lately, used a condom, gone to a pornographic movie.
Later, they were invited to “try something,” such as taking a field trip. The students were told: “Try to do something that will challenge your mind, expand your intellectual horizons …”
Suggested field trips: Go to a nude beach, a gay bar, a divorce court, an abortion clinic. Also suggested: Interview a prostitute about her experiences.
So, if you see a bunch of college kids chasing a hooker down Eight Avenue, don’t be alarmed. It’s just some Nassau Community students challenging their minds and expanding their intellectual horizons.
A textbook for this class is titled Our Sexuality, which treats in graphic detail sexual intercourse, masturbation, wife-swapping, adultery, abortion, exotic practices.
It is big on vibrators. Samples: “Women tend to be greater enthusiasts of this technical advancement. If you want to use a vibrator for sexual pleasure, experimentation is in order. By placing it in different areas of the body or genitals, you can find what is particularly arousing.” The book describes all the vibrators available, those that may or may not require an electric outlet, how best to use them, where to buy them, etc.
It discusses swinging, wife-swapping and all kinds of sexual relationships, without condemning any of them.
It has a chapter titled “Nonconsensual Extra-marital Relationships.” It explains: “This form of behavior has been given many labels, including cheating, adultery, infidelity …”
Gee. I always thought adultery was an act forbidden by God in the Commandments handed to Moses. I never knew it was a label.
Nassau Community also has sex movies. You bet it has. One is called “Sexual Intercourse,” which depicts couples copulating in all sorts of exotic places, including a spinning bed. There are close-ups of male and female anatomies.
Prof. Joseph Dondero, who chairs the course, agreed that the course and films were “very graphic.” He said: “If you have a film about sexual intercourse, then you show people having intercourse, and that is as specific as you can get. No one is required to take the course. It’s an option. It is unquestionably one of the most popular courses on campus, and rarely do we get a complaint.”
Prof. Dondero said the course “describes various behaviors, but does not endorse any of them.”
Frank Russo, a Nassau resident and father of seven children, is very unhappy that his taxes support this stuff.
“Can anyone tell me what educational value there is in asking someone whether they have seen their parents naked lately?” he asked. “These people are using our tax money to destroy our values.”
Russo then made this devastating observation: “I never dreamed it possible that a college student could earn three credits by going to a porno movie, visiting a hooker, turning up at a gay bar. From an academic point of view, it’s a disgrace.”
In his article on how New York taxpayers are subsidizing a value-free sex education course at Nassau Community College, columnist Ray Kerrison notes that a central feature of the instruction is a textbook called Our Sexuality, put out by the Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co., Inc. According to the college, this controversial textbook is “the leading” one on human sexuality, having been adopted by over 200 schools and used by “more than 125,000 students.”
The authors are Robert Crooks, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, and Karla Baur, with a master’s degree in social works.
Kerrison points out that the text “treats in graphic detail sexual intercourse, masturbation, wife-swapping, adultery, abortion” and “discusses swinging … and all kinds of sexual relationships without condemning any of them.”
Indeed, we would go further, insisting the volume is more than “neutral” on the subject of various kinds of sexual behavior. From our reading, the book either implicitly or explicitly endorses homosexual and bisexual activity, blesses homosexual marriages, encourages “casual sex” to the extent of providing “guidelines” for such encounters and urges students to “set aside a block of time (at least one hour for the entire exercise)” for fondling genitals and masturbating.
It also suggests that marijuana usage is a safe and legitimate way of reducing sexual inhibitions, that “extramarital sex” can have a positive impact on people and their marriage, that children might be better raised in an “androgynous fashion” and that the U.S. should establish “a compulsory national sex education curriculum that is extended to all grade levels.”
Among the colleges which use this text, according to Nassau Community College authorities:
New York State: Adelphi University, College of Staten Island, Iona College, Jr. College of Albany, St. Francis College, Syracuse University, Borough of Manhattan CC, Columbia University, Lehman College, New York University, SUNY/ Cortland, Tompkins Cortland CC, Bronx CC, CUNY/York College, Jefferson CC, Orange Co. CC, SUNY/Buffalo.
Outside of New York State: Union Theological Seminary, VA; University of Arizona; Loyola Marymount U., CA; St. Joseph College, CT; University of Miami; Emory University, GA; University of Illinois; Christian Theologic Seminary, IN; **Central Baptist Theological Seminary, KS; University of North Carolina; University of Oregon.
Also: Temple University; University of Texas; University of Vermont; University of Wisconsin; Auburn University, AL; University of Arkansas; St. Mary’s College, CA; Miami Dade CC; University of Florida; University of Georgia; Purdue University, IN; Michigan State; University of Minnesota; Ohio State; Penn State; Our Lady of the Lake, TX; University of Utah; Washington State.
The rest of the list can be obtained from the publishing firm.
If you want to complain to the textbook company, write to your local university officials, as well as the Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co., Inc., 2727 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025.
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