(AgapePress) - An Alabama lawmaker is encouraging members of the National Education Association in his state to consider leaving the union because of its liberal political activism. Meanwhile, delegates at the NEA's 2006 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, are preparing to vote on a resolution endorsing same-sex "marriage."

Alabama State Representative Gerald Allen, who sponsored the state's constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage, is denouncing the NEA proposal to amend the organization's diversity policy to endorse homosexual marriage. He has urged Alabama's 300 NEA delegates to either boycott the convention or vote against the resolution.

Allen says education leaders, not only in Alabama but across the U.S., "must take a stand and say [to the NEA leadership], 'If you're going to go in this direction and try to indoctrinate our children with this type of materials, then we're going to maybe form our own association.' That's one of the things I think needs to be looked at."

In fact, the state lawmaker says conservative teachers who have or are considering NEA membership should start looking for alternatives to that powerful union. "You've got this liberal agenda, with the NEA trying their very best to get the heart and souls and minds of our children and to indoctrinate them," he states.

Allen believes homosexual activists within the NEA have a long-term plan in mind for America's school children after they have been thoroughly indoctrinated with pro-homosexual ideas. "Once they grow up and become adults and policymakers themselves, then certainly they'll sponsor constitutional amendments and turn things around," he says.

The Alabama legislator suggests that those pushing pro-homosexual policy in the National Education Association want the next generation schooled in their ideology, because those children are society's future leaders and shapers, and these activists know it. "That's exactly what is on their minds," Allen says.

The NEA recently modified its proposal supporting homosexual marriage to focus on the seven states where civil unions or homosexual "marriages" are legal. However, recent reports affirm that both the original and the modified resolutions have been introduced for the delegates' consideration.

NEA Annual Meeting Marked by Emotion-Driven Debate
The original proposed amendment, designated B-8, was submitted by the NEA's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus but was later watered down by the educators union's Resolution Committee to endorse only same-sex unions in the seven U.S. states where such unions are currently legal. Now, however, the Resolutions Committee has decided that the original (B-8) and revised (B-10) amendments will both be voted on by the union's Representative Assembly. Critics of the original measure claim it endorses not only homosexual marriage but also polygamy.

Diane Lenning, a California delegate and former chair of the Republican Educators Caucus, says the resolution endorsing homosexual marriage across the board is being pushed by homosexual NEA members who are putting their own needs first. She says these pro-homosexual members have been "emotion-driven" and have not considered the total spectrum of the implications of their amendment.

"For instance," Lenning contends, the homosexual marriage proponents have not considered "the legality of some of these resolutions, the constitutionality of some of these, or ... whether it infringes on or violates the rights of others." She says she hopes these amendments, if they do not fail, will pass concurrently, so that the limiting effect of the revised resolution will prevail.

Feelings have run high throughout the debate over the resolutions, and Lenning notes that she was surprised by the comments NEA president Reg Weaver made to an audience that included many women teachers and retired educators. Delegates at the convention say Weaver at one point held up a copy of an American Family Association newsletter detailing the union's proposal to endorse same-sex marriage and called the AFA document "a crock of sh--."

Lenning says that kind of profane outburst "is not characteristic of our president," whom she describes as "a very nice, professional gentleman." Although she cannot say exactly what might have led to the national NEA leader's profane remarks, she asserts, "something must have really teed him off."

Reportedly, Weaver went on to say that he would not let "outside groups" dictate NEA policy. The union president insists that his organization does not take a position on homosexual marriage; however, the NEA's California affiliate, the California Teachers Association, overwhelmingly endorsed a homosexual marriage bill in its State Assembly last year.