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Tuesday October 12, 2010


NY Gov. Candidate Paladino Blasts Gay Propaganda in Schools

By Kathleen Gilbert

NEW YORK, October 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino stirred up controversy this week after vowing to protect schoolchildren from homosexualist propaganda in schools, and affirming that homosexuality is not “an equally valid or successful option.”

Paladino gave the remarks in an address to Orthodox Jewish leaders on Sunday.

“We must stop pandering the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives. I didn’t march in the gay pride parade this year, my opponent did,” said Paladino, referring to Democrat gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. “And that’s not the example that we should be showing our children, and certainly not in our schools.”

“And don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexuals in any way, that would be a dastardly lie,” he continued. “My approach is live and let live. I just think that my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.”

The Republican candidate has said that he would veto a law recognizing same-sex “marriage” should the state legislature pass it, but would accommodate the will of the people were the question put to a referendum.

Other sections of the speech, which Paladino omitted, caused a media stir when the remarks were circulated prior to his appearance. According to the transcript, Paladino was to say: “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual. That is not how God created us.” Paladino later said that the statements were “unacceptable” and that he had crossed them out. He also asked “forgiveness” for what he called “my poorly chosen words.

“I am neither perfect, nor a career politician. I have made mistakes in this campaign,” Paladino said in an email released by his campaign.

“I ask you for forgiveness on my poorly chosen words and the publication by others not involved with our campaign of unredacted script that did not reflect my oral statement or match my personal feelings.”

Cuomo’s campaign immediately released a statement accusing Paladino of “stunning homophobia and a glaring disregard for basic equality.” A spokesman for Paladino told the New York Times that the candidate was “simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic,” and that “the majority of New Yorkers agree with him.”

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America and a top conservative leader in New York, said he had “some input” in the controversial speech, although he did not write it. “I stand ready to defend the content of it,” Levin told the New York Times.

Paladino’s remarks may be encouraging to pro-family New Yorkers who have heard what damage the homosexual agenda has done to parents’ rights in nearby states that have adopted same-sex “marriage.” A prominent example occurred in Massachusetts two years ago, when a federal court ruled that parents could not remove children from classes teaching homosexualist material.

David and Tonia Parker began fighting the curriculum at Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Mass. in 2005, when they learned that their child’s kindergarten class had handed out a book that portrayed gay or lesbian couples with children as a normal family. Parker’s requests that the school give him notice before his child was exposed to such material fell on deaf ears.

The Parkers in 2006 sued the town of Lexington and the school system, joined by Rob and Robin Wirthlin, whose second-grader was read the homosexual love story “King & King” in class. A federal court ruled that the parents had no right to know or opt children out of such curricula, a decision upheld by an appeals court and left intact by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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