OPINION:
There is a maxim among Catholics, sometimes ascribed to Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, that if you turn a child over to the Catholic Church for the first seven years of the child’s life, that child is a Catholic for life. Even without engaging in an extensive analysis, there appears to be a certain amount of truth to this maxim.
Children are very impressionable, and the younger they are, the more impressionable they seem to be. We all remember and feel a profound attachment to the practices, both religious and secular, of our parents and grandparents to which we were initially exposed as young children. In a fundamentally irrational but highly impressionable manner, the melodies, poems and sayings we heard in our youth and the rituals in which we participated as children remain anchors throughout our lives. We often repeat those rituals ourselves, and we find comfort when others engage in them.
It is, therefore, readily understandable that all true believers seek to impose their “true beliefs” on the youngest among us. Anyone who believes he is possessed of a truth, whether he believes that this truth has been divinely divulged, is a seemingly scientific revelation or is a reflection of common sense, tends to have the desire to convince others of that truth. What better way to persuade than through the indoctrination of the young?
Every faith and every philosophic tendency will see its adherents seek to bring the youngest into its fold. The family unit is usually the primary focus of such efforts. Legitimately, parents will endeavor to have their children learn the tenets of their religion and similar traditions and may even seek to persuade the young to adopt their political positions. The desire to have the next generation carry on the familial beliefs, whether of faith or other matters, is a powerful impetus in the education of children.
History is also replete, however, with less legitimate efforts to persuade individuals, children and adults, to become followers of a religion or another set of beliefs through coercion. Through the ages, we have encountered examples of institutions and individuals seeking to impose their philosophies on the unwilling or the unaware. In the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon to find clergy forcing groups who did not share the majority faith to sit through sermons intended to convert them. Conquering Europeans frequently sought to impose the predominant Christian faith on native populations, whether in Africa, the Americas or parts of Asia. Their methods were often not so much intended to persuade as to coerce into adherence.
To this day, there are parts of the world where individuals of all ages who do not adhere to a majority point of view are persecuted and can even be put to death by reason of their beliefs or their refusal to believe. Whether by reason of their “heretical” views or of their renunciation of certain views, in many parts of the globe, an individual’s beliefs can still be a matter that could result in a violent death.
With our firmly ensconced Bill of Rights, which, since the 18th century, has been a barrier to government imposition of any single set of religious or other faith beliefs, Americans have been generally immune from this kind of coercive conduct — until now.
We are now observing an unmitigated and unlimited attempt, both in the public and the private sectors, to influence and infuse our children with a philosophy that has all the attributes of a state-sponsored religion. For reasons that are difficult to evaluate rationally, our children in schools across the nation are being subjected by teachers and administrators to attempts to convince them that gender is fluid and that gender changes are not only possible but even desirable. Long-held traditional values, including traditional marriage, are being demeaned and marginalized.
The enthusiasm with which teachers of children as young as 5 years old (alas, I have observed this with one of my own grandchildren) are attempting to indoctrinate their charges has all of the fervor that was reserved for proselytizing clergy in ages past. The attempt to alter our children’s perspectives is nothing less than an exercise in proselytizing. And just as our Constitution protects each of us from the imposition of a government religious belief, so should we and our children be insulated from those who seek to impose their quasi-religious lifestyle perspective, especially in public and quasi-public places such as schools.
Despite our great constitutional protections, the exponents of wokeist policies have created their own belief system and rituals, which they seek to project in public arenas, such as schools and government agencies, as they attempt to cajole, persuade and convert. And now these advocates have targeted our young. For example, drag queen performances, part of the ritual portion of the new gender religion, have been increasingly found in the educational institutions of our children, in schools public and private, libraries and theaters.
If this approach continues, the wokeists will have their seven years with our children and then those children will be converts for life to ideas that are, for so many of us, inimical to the virtues and ideals we hold dear. Resistance to this campaign of indoctrination must begin now and must be pursued with unflinching diligence.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. His book, “Lobbying for Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” was published by HUC Press in 2022.
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