Well, that headline probably got your attention. Judith Reisman in a WorldNetDaily column today compared the two groups primarily because they both involve youth. In fact, the comparison, such that it is, ends there.
Naturally, GLSEN is none too happy being compared to Nazis. They issued a press release earlier today.
NEW YORK, April 1, 2009 – In a commentary called “GLSEN and the Hitler Youth,” World Net Daily columnist Judith Reisman today compared Day of Silence participants, GLSEN and students who participate in Gay-Straight Alliance student clubs to Hitler Youth. The column was featured on the wnd.com front page.
“Last week at our Lobby Day in Washington, DC, I saw students aglow with joy after having the opportunity to speak directly with their elected representatives and take part in our democratic processes,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard. “Today I read a commentary comparing those young people, as well as me and my staff, to Nazis. We can only hope this is some sort of sick April Fool’s joke.”
Reading the commentary, it does not seem like Reisman means for the reader to chuckle. Reisman makes sweeping unsubstantiated statements like this:
Under color of a ‘Safe Schools Movement’ battling alleged ‘bullying’ of so-called ‘gay’ children (K-12), some see GLSEN as a modern version of the Hitler Youth and as preparing the ground for a larger, sweeping, schoolroom Youth Brigade.
Who are the “some?” She no doubt does but writes in an indirect fashion, as if the outrageous connections should be clear to the informed reader. Reisman also misleads readers via combining her views with serious scholarship. Here she quotes Ronald Berger but makes it seem as though he is a WWII elder who is troubled by the NEA and that he assesses the NEA and GLSEN as being comparable groups to the Nazi’s National Socialist Teachers Association.
The similarities between Hitler’s National Socialist Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Rockefeller and Playboy funded National Education Association (NEA) and American Library Association (ALA) troubles some World War II elders. Like Hitler’s NSTA, our NEA also largely guides the “ideological indoctrination of teachers.” (Ronald J. Berger “Fathoming the Holocaust,” Aldine Transaction, 2002, p. 50) Moreover, NSTA, the NEA, GLSEN and the Hitler Youth all seek to sever schoolchildren from their parent’s religious and sexual training.
I checked the Berger reference. His quote there is referring to the NSTA and not NEA or GLSEN. Reisman makes it seem that Berger said the NEA indoctrinates teachers in a manner similar to the Nazi group. I have no love for the NEA but this is not an honest approach to commentary.
I was surprised by one thing: she did not reference Scott Lively’s Pink Swastika once. But with this op-ed, she may have out done him.
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