Thursday, November 29, 2012

School Locks Up 'Roughhouser'


Solitary confinement comes to your local school - 
Concerns that schools are becoming more and more like prisons have been bolstered by the revelation that numerous school districts are using “isolation booths” to place unruly children in solitary confinement as a punishment for bad behavior.

The controversy erupted after concerned mother Ana Bate found out from her son that Mint Valley Elementary School in Longview, Washington was using a padded isolation chamber to deal with students with “behavioral disabilities”. Bate obtained photos of the isolation box and posted them on Facebook, prompting outrage and interest from local media.

The school claims the isolation box is a “therapeutic booth” and that only children with special needs and parental permission are placed inside. However, Candace Dawson told KATU.com that her son was put inside the booth without her permission.
But this is just for a short amount of time, right?
Bate’s son told his mother he was “distraught” at being forced to sit near the booth for 4 hours as a punishment for “roughhousing” on the playground. During that time, he said he saw several other children being placed inside, suggesting the use of the box is commonplace and not in extreme circumstances as the law in Oregon and Washington mandates.
If your children are still in 'public school', why?



want to fight homosexual feelings on religious or moral grounds and will only lead to more unregulated efforts.
Ms. Speier was joined by two people who said they underwent “gay conversion quackery” and advocates for groups that oppose such therapies, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“I’m telling my story to put an end to this sham,” said Jerry Spencer, 23.
He said he was forced by his conservative Catholic parents to undergo conversion therapy from age 14 to almost 20.
The therapy, which he said was like torture at times, didn


Read more: Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/28/lawmaker-targets-gay-conversion-therapies/#ixzz2DdaOnjAV
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

want to fight homosexual feelings on religious or moral grounds and will only lead to more unregulated efforts.
Ms. Speier was joined by two people who said they underwent “gay conversion quackery” and advocates for groups that oppose such therapies, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“I’m telling my story to put an end to this sham,” said Jerry Spencer, 23.
He said he was forced by his conservative Catholic parents to undergo conversion therapy from age 14 to almost 20.
The therapy, which he said was like torture at times, didn


Read more: Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/28/lawmaker-targets-gay-conversion-therapies/#ixzz2DdaOnjAV
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
In the latest attack on therapies aimed at helping gay patients who want to become heterosexual, a congresswoman from California said Wednesday that she was introducing a resolution calling on Congress to denounce the practice.
Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat, is proposing the resolution as two lawsuits move through federal court challenging a new California law to ban minors from receiving “sexual-orientation change efforts” under any circumstance.
In a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday, Ms. Speier said she was introducing her Stop Harming Our Kids resolution to “bring us some reality checks” about sexuality.
“Let’s get this straight,” she said. “Being gay, lesbian [or] transgender is not a disease to be cured or a mental health issue to be treated.”
Therapies aimed at helping someone go from gay to straight are “discredited” and “ineffective,” and minors should not be subjected to them, she said.
She added that she will investigate whether taxpayer funds in Medicaid or Tricare, the Pentagon’s health care system, have been used to reimburse therapists offering such counseling.
Practitioners of so-called “sexual reparative therapies” defend the practice, as do some conservative religious organizations, saying efforts to curb their work violate their right to freedom of religion and speech. Many of the most invasive practices once employed have been stopped, they say, and they argue that a blanket ban will hurt young people who want to fight homosexual feelings on religious or moral grounds and will only lead to more unregulated efforts.
Ms. Speier was joined by two people who said they underwent “gay conversion quackery” and advocates for groups that oppose such therapies, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“I’m telling my story to put an end to this sham,” said Jerry Spencer, 23.
He said he was forced by his conservative Catholic parents to undergo conversion therapy from age 14 to almost 20.
The therapy, which he said was like torture at times, didn’t work because “being gay is simply who we are.”
Sheldon Bruck said he underwent therapy for several weeks at Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing to escape his same-sex attractions. Instead, he said, the therapy led him to depression, anxiety and estrangement from his family, especially his mother.
Mr. Bruck is one of six plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in New Jersey against the program. The complaint, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and colleagues, alleges that officials at the organization engaged in consumer fraud by charging people for deceptive, false and fraudulent conversion-therapy services.
In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed first-in-the-nation legislation to prevent minors from receiving sexual-orientation change therapy even if the children or their parents want it.
In his signing statement, Mr. Brown said the therapies “have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”


Read more: Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/28/lawmaker-targets-gay-conversion-therapies/#ixzz2DdaCYTFB
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
In the latest attack on therapies aimed at helping gay patients who want to become heterosexual, a congresswoman from California said Wednesday that she was introducing a resolution calling on Congress to denounce the practice.
Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat, is proposing the resolution as two lawsuits move through federal court challenging a new California law to ban minors from receiving “sexual-orientation change efforts” under any circumstance.
In a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday, Ms. Speier said she was introducing her Stop Harming Our Kids resolution to “bring us some reality checks” about sexuality.
“Let’s get this straight,” she said. “Being gay, lesbian [or] transgender is not a disease to be cured or a mental health issue to be treated.”
Therapies aimed at helping someone go from gay to straight are “discredited” and “ineffective,” and minors should not be subjected to them, she said.
She added that she will investigate whether taxpayer funds in Medicaid or Tricare, the Pentagon’s health care system, have been used to reimburse therapists offering such counseling.
Practitioners of so-called “sexual reparative therapies” defend the practice, as do some conservative religious organizations, saying efforts to curb their work violate their right to freedom of religion and speech. Many of the most invasive practices once employed have been stopped, they say, and they argue that a blanket ban will hurt young people who want to fight homosexual feelings on religious or moral grounds and will only lead to more unregulated efforts.
Ms. Speier was joined by two people who said they underwent “gay conversion quackery” and advocates for groups that oppose such therapies, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“I’m telling my story to put an end to this sham,” said Jerry Spencer, 23.
He said he was forced by his conservative Catholic parents to undergo conversion therapy from age 14 to almost 20.
The therapy, which he said was like torture at times, didn’t work because “being gay is simply who we are.”
Sheldon Bruck said he underwent therapy for several weeks at Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing to escape his same-sex attractions. Instead, he said, the therapy led him to depression, anxiety and estrangement from his family, especially his mother.
Mr. Bruck is one of six plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in New Jersey against the program. The complaint, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and colleagues, alleges that officials at the organization engaged in consumer fraud by charging people for deceptive, false and fraudulent conversion-therapy services.
In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed first-in-the-nation legislation to prevent minors from receiving sexual-orientation change therapy even if the children or their parents want it.
In his signing statement, Mr. Brown said the therapies “have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.”


Read more: Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/28/lawmaker-targets-gay-conversion-therapies/#ixzz2DdaCYTFB
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
In the latest attack on therapies aimed at helping gay patients who want to become heterosexual, a congresswoman from California said Wednesday that she was introducing a resolution calling on Congress to denounce the practice.
Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat, is proposing the resolution as two lawsuits move through federal court challenging a new California law to ban minors from receiving “sexual-orientation change efforts” under any circumstance.
In a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday, Ms. Speier said she was introducing her Stop Harming Our Kids resolution to “bring us some reality checks” about sexuality.
“Let’s get this straight,” she said. “Being gay, lesbian [or] transgender is not a disease to be cured or a mental health issue to be treated.”
Therapies aimed at helping someone go from gay to straight are “discredited” and “ineffective,” and minors should not be subjected to them, she said.


Read more: Congress implored to denounce sexual-orientation therapy - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/28/lawmaker-targets-gay-conversion-therapies/#ixzz2Dda32xVL
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

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