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Jul 28, 2011
California school children will learn about the gay civil rights movement in their social studies lessons under legislation signed in July by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The school children may also learn a few lessons about politics and right-wing ballot campaigns.
Within days of Brown signing the bill, the anti-gay Capital Resource Institute announced plans to pursue a referendum to repeal the measure, the first in the nation to add lessons about gays and lesbians to classes in public schools.
“History should be honest,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books.”
California Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill’s author, hailed the bill-signing as a step toward teaching tolerance. Supporters say the bill will teach students to be more accepting of gays and lesbians in light of the bullying that happens to gay students.
“We are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT Americans,” Leno said in a statement.
California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor. The state legislature over the years also has prescribed specific lessons about the Irish potato famine and the Holocaust, among other topics.
The new law, SB48, requires the California Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other teaching materials that cover the contributions and roles of sexual minorities, as soon as the 2013-14 school year.
The legislation leaves it to local school boards to decide how to implement the requirement. It does not specify a grade level for the instruction to begin.
The bill was supported by such gay rights organizations as Equality California and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.
Teacher groups also said the bill would help students prepare for a diverse and evolving society.
“There is no room for discrimination of any kind in our classrooms, our communities or our state,” said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association.
Republican lawmakers who opposed the bill had called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived bill. Some complained that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality.
Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a conservative family group, said that under the new law parents will have no choice but to take their children out of public school and homeschool them to avoid what he said was “immoral indoctrination.” The new law applies only to public schools, not private schools or families who homeschool.
“Jerry Brown has trampled the parental rights of the overwhelming majority of California fathers and mothers who don’t want their children to be sexually brainwashed at school,” Thomasson said. “This new law will prohibit textbooks and teachers from telling children the facts that homosexuality is neither healthy nor biological.”
