The following personal testimony with an introduction/update from the parent who provided it, provides another clear example of the anti-parents’ rights, anti-Christian bias seen in many DCF cases, and the continued very strong promotion of all things LGBT.
by Diane Splitz
Our son’s guidance counselor once told my husband and me that we were one of the most child-centered families she ever had the pleasure of working with in her thirty years in the public schools. That was before we learned that our values clashed with those being imposed on our children behind our backs.
When guidance counselors and administrators usurped our rights as parents and shamelessly defended their ability to do so, I started researching the matter. That is when I came across an organization called MassResistance, which has been tirelessly working to expose this issue for many years, first making national news in 2000 with their exposure of “Fistgate,” when children as young as 12 years old were taught how to engage in dangerous sexual practices by state employees.
I called Brian Camenker at MassResistance and shared my story. “Can they really do this to us?” I asked him. “No,” he told me, “but they do it anyways.”
Two years ago, Mr. Camenker asked me to tell our story at a MassResistance banquet. The personal testimony I shared at the event is as follows:
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
My name is Diane Splitz and I’m here to share a story with you about how my husband and I had our parental rights usurped by guidance counselors at our children’s high school. Parents have the legal right to rear their children without interference from the government, including government run public schools, but more and more, schools are violating such laws without regret and without consequence. Here is our story.
At the age of 16, when our son told the adjustment counselor at Upper Cape Tech that he thought he was gay, she referred him to the Cape and Islands Gay Straight Youth Alliance (CIGSYA) without our knowledge or consent. She did not know that our son was receiving counseling from a therapist for negative childhood experiences that are known to cause sexual identity issues in adolescence.
At CIGSYA our son was told that he was born gay, could never change, and that anyone who didn’t embrace his sexual identity was a hater and a homophobe, including his family. Our son’s life and identity were closely tied to his family and his church. Those who encouraged him to abandon his family and faith caused extensive confusion, pain and stress on an already emotionally fragile teenager. This was not only a critical time in his social and emotional development, but it was also at a time when he was learning how to drive, preparing to graduate from high school, and selecting a college. Trying to help him through these coming-of-age responsibilities was exceptionally challenging with people undermining our authority and questioning our ability as parents.
At CIGSYA he was provided with sexually provocative and anti-Christian literature. When I asked the Upper Cape Tech adjustment counselor what gave her the right to refer our 16-year-old son to an outside organization without our knowledge or consent, she stated that she didn’t “refer” him, but merely gave him a business card.
The school administrators defended her actions and when I asked them what law allowed them to refer students to outside organizations, the principal said he believed that there were some recent case laws that established precedence allowing them to do so. Through my own research, however, I found numerous Supreme Court cases spanning decades declaring it unconstitutional to interfere with the fundamental rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.
When I further addressed this with the principal and superintendent, I was referred to the Massachusetts Department of Education [DOE]. Their attorneys refused to answer my questions over the phone and ignored my certified letter.
Seeing links to the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) on the DOE website, I attended their conference that spring where teachers were given instructions on how to insert LGBT topics into every subject starting in kindergarten, and on how to deal with religious and conservative parents who found the materials they were teaching their children to be objectionable. Strategies such as shaming, ignoring, stonewalling and sending them up the chain of command were discussed. The goal is to frustrate concerned parents in their efforts so they will eventually give up. After learning these tactics, we role played for practice.
Students at the event, age 14 and up, were offered condoms and lubricants used to engage in sodomy and they were given, among other things, instructions on how to threaten schools with lawsuits in order to force them to promote their agenda. This is how activist counselors and teachers get away with imposing their agenda on our children and why administrators are willing to throw kids like our son under the bus rather than doing what is right and honorable to protect them.
There are alternative beliefs on how children develop a homosexual identity that contradict the “born that way” theory. In fact, current science clearly indicates that they are not born that way, but it is pretty clear that a balanced presentation is not offered in the public schools. In fact, schools are actively involved in the indoctrination of student in LGBT ideology and in demonizing people with opposing views.
In grade school our son was socially immature and small for his age. There were students who bullied him on a regular basis and called him such things as “loser,” “freak,” “fagot” and “gay,” helping to shape his identity and his opinion of himself.
When we had him tested in sixth grade, he was testing well above grade level in most subjects and at a college level in math. We moved him to a private Christian school at that time because the public school administrators refused to challenge him academically and failed to protect him from his tormentors.
By high school he was of average height and he attended the local technical school where he was in the IT program and was finally surrounded by students who were his intellectual peers. He was an advanced learner in high school until he “came out,” then almost flunked 11th grade and had to attend summer school. He was also in the hospital four times threatening to commit suicide.
His long-time therapist, his educational advocate and another therapist working with us at the time wanted a comprehensive psychological evaluation to determine how suicidal he was and to address the irrational thoughts and behaviors he was exhibiting that were out of character for him.
We were struggling financially, however, because of the time he spent in private school, which wasn’t in our budget, and because of all of the medical bills that were pouring in. The team suggested that we have the school hire and pay for the evaluator, since our son’s issues were affecting his ability to perform in school. The head guidance counselor agreed to arrange it. She had the contact information of our son’s long-time therapist and his educational advocate, since he was on a 504 Education Plan and they both attended his planning meetings at school each year. I also provided her with the contact information of the other therapist who had requested the evaluation.
We later received the psychologist’s report from the school. Normally, an evaluation involves input from parents and from the professionals requesting the evaluation, but the psychologist provided by the school only spoke with our son and to the guidance counselors who had already exposed their biases. The report accused us of socially isolated and emotionally abandoning our son, among other things. When I provided it to his two therapists and the educational advocate, they were shocked and one of the therapists, who knew the psychologist that had performed the evaluation for approximately thirty years, said to me, “his worldview is all over that report.”
Our legal right to have this untrue and slanderous report removed from our son’s permanent school records was stated in the Student Handbook. When the school refused to follow the law, however, we instructed them in writing to concern themselves only with educational and college planning matters and to refer all of our son’s personal matters to his long-time therapist, the one our pediatrician had referred us to in order to deal with the effects of his negative childhood experiences years earlier.
One Friday morning, however, after a family argument, a guidance counselor illegally drove to our neighborhood, picked up our son and drove him to school. We later learned that his emotional state that morning was brought on as the result of a romantic breakup. The boy he essentially “came out” for had ended the relationship. The therapists had warned us that when this happened, it would be devastating for him and they feared what he might do.
I dropped my daughter off at school later that morning and went to the guidance office to tell them my son would not be in, and then I intended to go and look for him. I found him there. After spending the rest of the school day in the office, essentially being interrogated, with my husband on and off the phone all day while trying to deal also with a crisis at work, the adjustment counselor, who we later learned was also the LGBT Liaison at the school, told me that I needed to agree to allow him to cool off at a friend’s house over the weekend and agree to family counseling through the Department of Children and Families (DCF) or they were going to “put him in the system.”
We had a long argument about the incompetent parents they wanted him to stay with and I insisted that we did not need additional counseling through DCF because we already had a team of professionals working with our family. After being threatened and pressured, however, I finally agreed to her terms only to prevent DCF from taking custody of our son.
The following Monday, a DCF supervisor came to our house, called us “unaccepting parents” in front of our son, told us he wasn’t staying there despite our objections and then returned him to the home of his friend where he had stayed over the weekend. She did so despite our concerns about the parents who failed to provide rules, boundaries or discipline for their own children.
Our son was returned home to us a few weeks later, once the social worker assigned to our case, at my insistence, contacted the team of professionals working with our son and they demanded that she do so. When she closed our case a short time later, she came to our home and told our son that not only did we not abuse or neglect him, which are the only legal reasons a child can be removed from his parents, but that she found that we loved him very much, something that she didn’t see a lot of in her job.
When we later received a letter from DCF indicating that they closed our case because we “no longer needed their services,” I called the social worker and demanded a letter stating that we were innocent. That is when she told me that we were never accused of anything, that it was her understanding that our son was removed from our home at our request and brought to stay with family friends with our permission.
Subsequently, we obtained our records and filed a complaint against the DCF supervisor, but the agency failed to follow its own policies and procedures, refused to conduct a thorough and proper investigation despite the insistence of our attorney, and denied us the hearing we were entitled to. We also submitted a parental rights bill with the help of our state representative, met with the DCF commissioner and chief of staff, which he also arranged, and submitted a lengthy testimony including over twenty exhibits to a team of State House leaders who are investigating abuses by the Massachusetts DCF against families.
It is unlikely that anyone who violated our rights as parents and harmed our son in countless ways will ever be held accountable because of the influence LGBT activists have in our government schools, state agencies and in the political arena. It is looking like we will never get justice for what they did to our family.
Also, the chairwomen of the Joint Committee on Education are holding our parental rights bill in committee and have no intention bringing it before the general assembly for a discussion or vote. If passed, no school personnel would be allowed to refer any student under the age of 18 to any person or organization outside of school, such as Planned Parenthood or a Gay Straight Alliance club, without a parent or guardian’s knowledge and consent, but there are those in power who just do not want us to have control over our own children. Such a bill will never become law as long as such individuals remain in office.
The LGBT activist community is highly motivated, well organized, and well-funded. Unless we fight back against this agenda with equal force, we will never stand a chance of defending our rights, preserving our religious liberties and protecting our families. If we do fight, however, we can win because we have truth, science and Almighty God on our side.
Twelve apostles once spread the Christian faith against all odds throughout a very corrupt society. Through boldly proclaiming the gospel, living by example and even enduring persecution, they succeeded. The Pilgrims escaped tyranny and suffered unbelievable hardships to live according to their beliefs. The Founding Fathers, along with an army of farmers and merchants, conquered the most powerful army in the world because they were fighting for freedom and liberty, which they believed were their unalienable rights given to them by their Creator.
We have the ability to re-establish our Judeo-Christian heritage. Everything is possible with God and history confirms this. We must act to stop those who are trying to use our children to “transform” this country into a secular nation through manipulation and lies. Our children don’t even understand the treasures they are willingly giving up because they are trusting deceivers. They are making personal decisions that have serious consequences and they grow up and vote according to what their teachers have taught them. In the words of Jesus Christ, “Every student, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher, (Luke 6:40).” Who are the people educating our children and what are their motives? We can continue to ignore what is happening in the public schools and remain silent as more students embrace a moral-free society where there is no real understanding of right and wrong, or we can take back control of the education of our own children and raise them according to our values and beliefs.
A new bill, known as HD 3366 An Act relative to parental consent has been submitted to the Massachusetts Legislature for the current legislative session. If passed, the law would prevent any school personnel from referring any student under the age of 18 to individuals or organizations outside of school without parental consent, and would also require parents to provide prior written consent before their children could participate in research surveys, many of which ask sexually provocative and personally invasive questions. For more information on these topics, visit www.massresistance.org. ¨
