Calif. legislator backs down on pro-homosexual bill

Under pressure, senator pulls amendment requiring school texts to note deviant sexual orientation of historical figures

By Stephen James

A bill in the California legislature that would, in part, amend the state education code to require school textbooks to teach children the sexual orientation of some historical figures was recently modified to remove the controversial provision, according to the bill’s principal author, state senator Sheila Kuehl.

Apparently the first of its kind in the nation, SB. 1437 would have required “the inclusion of age-appropriate instruction in social sciences on the roles and contributions” of people who “are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to the economic, political and social development of California and the United States,” according to the bill’s text. Depending on the definition of “age appropriate,” the new curriculum could have been taught in kindergarten through 12th-grade classes, and would potentially have had ramifications beyond California due to the state’s influence with national textbook publishers.

The bill was opposed by pro- family and religious organizations, including the California Catholic Conference.
In a letter to legislators, conference executive director Ned Dolejsi warned that the measure would undermine the rights of parents to transmit their religious and moral beliefs to their children, result in more parents choosing to opt-out their student from a social-science or history class they find morally objectionable and compel some parents to withdraw their children from public schools for alternative schooling.

“Our opposition to it is that it represents an unnecessary and radical revision of the state’s core curriculum to serve a limited special agenda,” Dolejsi told Our Sunday Visitor. “It’s a concern to us from the standpoint of the general issue that textbooks don’t need to be altered to be politically correct.”

Illegal procedure

The measure also represented an attempted end run around the standard government curriculum revision process, normally administered by the state’s Board of Education and Department of Education.

Curriculum and textbook modifications are normally implemented beginning with a curriculum framework committee at the Department of Education, which proposes changes or additions, and then puts out a draft document to receive public comment. A final version is then forwarded to the state board of education, which makes the ultimate decision whether to include the change in books.

“We have a process,” said Dolejsi. “The state has academic people looking at the appropriate criteria for inclusion of different aspects in the social studies and historical curriculum for the state of California and apparently the legislature now wants to step in and once again micro- manage that process.”
Tom Adams, executive director of curriculum frameworks and instructional resources for the California Department of Education, said that curriculum changes mandated by the legislature are rare, the last one having been in l997 when a requirement for mandatory education on the Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 was legislated into the state education code.

Adams confirmed that California textbook content can impact other states as well. “California itself is 10 percent to 12 percent of the national market on instructional materials, we’re one of the biggies in the process,” he said. “So that’s why when [California] says ‘this must be in textbooks it’s going to affect all the books in this state and it may have a spillover effect into other states.”

Curriculum control

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had similar concerns that the legislature was attempting to shortcut the textbook content- revision process, said deputy press secretary Sabrina Lockhart.

“We’re nationally recognized for our approach to selecting curriculum standards,” Lockhart told Our Sunday Visitor. “And the governor has vetoed similar bills because we’re considered a national model because we have a very balanced approach to teaching social studies and history, and there is a curriculum commission that sets and reviews textbook standards before they go to the state school board for adoption. The governor wants to make sure that everybody’s voice is heard and that we don’t single out one segment of a population.”

Lockhart said Schwarzenegger didn’t take a formal position on the bill, but in May the governor’s director of communications told the media that Schwarzenegger would veto the bill if it reached his desk because school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of sexual orientation, and that the legislature was attempting to micromanage curriculum.

Kuehi, recognized as the state first openly gay legislator, evidently got the message and has removed the most controversial section of the two-part bill — which includes a separate component amending the education code to prohibit school instruction, instructional material or ‘activities that reflect adversely on persons because of their sexual orientation. “There was a lot of push back, mostly from the administration,” Kuehi told OSV. “So we thought ‘well, we would at least like to salvage the antidiscrimination part.’ It was a two-section bill and now it’s a one-section bill.”

The bill is being watched with interest by Mary Grayson, a Catholic mom in Windsor, Calif. Grayson previously battled the administration at her daughter’s school when they held a “diversity day” that included a skit by a group of gay teens. Grayson said that experience showed her that there is a none-too-subtle agenda by the homosexual community to indoctrinate children to accept the gay lifestyle as normal.

“That they can put this into history books is even scarier because children begin learning and taking history lessons at an early age,” she said. “l believe that what they’re trying to do is to mold those minds and to have children grow up saying there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality.”

‘Outing’

Our heroes? According to the office of California Sen. Sheila Kuehl, here are a few historical persons who might have been identified in K-12 textbooks as having lesbian, homosexual, bisexual or transgender orientation under an amendment (now withdrawn) to S. B. 1437:

• Langston Hughes, 20th-century poet, playwright and author. “In addition to his analysis and reflections on race and politics, scholars and biographers also agree on the marked influence of Hughes’ gay identity on his writing in works such as the short story ‘Blessed Assurance,’ ” according to an information sheet released by the office.
• • Susan B. Anthony, 19^th century leader of the women’s civil rights movement. Anthony, the office said, “chose to live her life with an unusual measure of independence, eschewing marriage for long-term relationships with women.”
• Katharine Lee Bates, author and lyricist for “America the Beautiful.” She had a domestic arrangement with another woman, leading some to presume a lesbian relationship.
• Harvey Milk, gay- rights activist and city supervisor of San Francisco. The first openly homosexual elected official of any major U.S. city, Milk was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978.

- Stephen James writes from California Copyright @ AUGUST 13, 2006 OUR SUNDAY VISITOR