Rod Dreher has a very interesting column that mentions a very interesting new book.

Dreher, a recounts a blog debate on the subject of gay marriage and how he and his oppopent talked right past each other. He has since come to realize that "traditionalists" in this country are losing this argument because its terms of debate have shifted beneath them.

A new book called "The Tyranny of Liberalism" explains this phenomenom.

Dreher writes that despite the book's "red-meat title" it is a very thoughtful analysis of how liberalism "has become an immensely powerful social reality," one so dominant "that it has become invisible."

Kalb writes:

"To oppose it in any basic way is to act incomprehensibly, in a way explicable, it is thought, only by reference to irrationality, ignorance or evil. The whole of the nonliberal past is comprehensively blackened. Traditional ways are presented as the simple negation of unquestionable goods liberalism favors."

From the column:

Chief among those goods is the defining idea of modern liberalism, which Kalb calls "equal freedom." That is, liberalism's social goal is to maximize both equality and freedom. How does it propose to do that in a world that is to some degree both unequal and unfree? Through social engineering.

Read the whole thing.

But it reminded of something the my 16-year-old daughter told me about a recent lesson taught in her "health class."

It had to do with a quiz of student attitudes toward homosexuality. One of the questions asked of the teenagers was "Would you let a gay person babysit your children?"

My daughter, being the sophisticated and well-brought young lady that she is, answered in the affirmative. But some of her classmates said no, they wouldn't. And my daughter, and the majority of other students in the class, expressed her disdain for that opinion.

The most interesting thing to me, of course, was that this subject would be raised and this question would be asked in a public high school "health class."

To me it was obvious that the question has nothing to do with health and everything to do with attempting to make sure students know the correct (that is, school-approved) attitude to have when it comes to gay babysitters.

When I asked my daughter later the context in which this all came up, she explained that the class had watched the movie "Philadelphia" and then been asked a series of questions to test their "homophobia."

More and more these days, it seems schools are using Hollywood films to get certain lessons across to students.

The film "Philadelphia" was made not so much to entertain audiences but to "educate" them. To imbue to them the proper attitudes toward the HIV-positive (sympathy) and gay people in general (they're just like "us.")

In the film, Tom Hanks, a gay lawyer, is fired by his law firm because he has AIDS. He sues.

Having watched the movie, a more interesting question to the students might have been "Would you let a person who was HIV-positive babysit your children?" (And how would you feel about being charged with discrimination if you didn't?)

But that's not the sort of question that would get the desired answer now is it?

I am told that the teacher of this class simply asked the questions without giving her opinion one way or another. Nonetheless, her views on the matter were quite clear to the children. The obvious goal was to "teach" the teenagers the correct attitudes to have toward homosexuality; not just tolerance but acceptence. However, it went deeper than that. It was also important for the majority of students to have (and show) disdain for the attitudes of peers who are less accepting and less enthusiastically supportive of the idea of gay babysitters for their (future) children.

What could be a clearer case of liberal social engineering?

It is, of course, fun to imagine some kid standing up and asking his or her teacher "What business is it of yours, my attitude toward gay babysitters?"

But that, of course, didn't happen.

More on this later.