By Fred Jackson, Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
May 23, 2001

(AgapePress) - A sell-out to liberals. That's how a growing number of pro-family groups now feel about President Bush's education bill.

Groups who worked hard to get George W. Bush into the White House are feeling betrayed these days. The focus of their anger is the President's education bill, which they say has been greatly watered down from the proposals he promised on the campaign trail.

The latest person to weigh in with criticism is Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. Weyrich says what Congress is looking at now is a Bush education bill that represents an appeasement to California Democrat and education guru George Miller. Weyrich, who describes Miller as being "to the left of Ted Kennedy on education," says the Bush Administration basically went to Miller and told him to come up with a version which would keep the left wing happy. He tells WorldNetDaily that what is left on the table now is nothing more than an "old-fashioned, big-government, big-spending liberal piece of legislation."

According to Weyrich, Bush has "caved in" to the wishes of Democrats.

"[President Bush] seems obsessed with getting a bi-partisan piece of legislation, regardless of what's in the legislation," he says. "So we're getting a bill that could easily have been passed by Bill Clinton and Democratic Congress, and [Bush is] celebrating it as a bi-partisan victory. You can get that kind of bi-partisanship anytime you want."

The conservative leader says Bush's obsession with bi-partisanship has resulted in Congress now debating an education bill devoid of conservative principles -- and perhaps unlikely to get the support of the President's own party members.

"Conservatives have tried to plead with the President to stick to his principles. The original bill that he outlined was a pretty good bill. If he had stuck with the original bill, we'd have had something we could all have supported," Weyrich says. "But instead, he's walked away from most of the original principles, and we're going to get a 'turkey' of a bill ... that abandons most conservative principles. And a lot of the Republicans [in Congress] are going to be forced to vote against it."

Things such as a voucher system to get kids out of failing public schools have all been stripped away from the original bill. And as James Dobson of Focus on the Family has pointed out, this bill actually increases the federal government's power over education, instead of giving greater control to local school boards -- something else Bush promised during the election campaign. Dobson has gone on record as saying, "There is nothing in this education bill that will please pro-family people."

Groups opposing passage of the education bill as it currently stands include Weyrich's and Dobson's organizations as well as Eagle Forum and the Traditional Values Coalition.

Hate Crime Wording in Bill
One pro-family leader in Virginia is suggesting the education bill in its current form will make schools "bully pulpits" for homosexual activists. Joe Glover is president of the Family Policy Network, based in Forest, Virginia. Like Dobson, Glover believes the bill decreases the autonomy of local and state education officials -- but he also believes the bill funds "heavy-handed 'values' education programs on issues like the acceptance of homosexuality."

In a commentary published on his organization's website, Glover points out the House version of the education bill contains wording on school crime prevention that is taken directly from the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, and includes crimes committed against victims on the basis of their "sexual orientation." Glover contends such wording in the education bill would provide a platform for homosexual activists to implement curriculum that gives children "the mistaken impression that certain people are naturally 'oriented' " toward such activities as homosexuality and cross-dressing.

"On this basis," Glover writes, "children are taught to believe that people who engage in acts of sexual perversion are acting quite naturally." The pro-family activist calls inclusion of the hate crimes language in the education bill the "latest, cunning attempt" by advocates of homosexuality to "brainwash children into believing homosexuality is normal."

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