No, it’s not Gay Issues Week on TheStateOf . . . it just turned out this way.
California lawmakers have been debating this very issue. It would require textbooks to include “the contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to the total development of California and the United States.”
Here is another article on the subject.
TheStateOf . . . Kids. (Justin) No. The mind of a child is like putty. It can be shaped and formed, for better or worse, by the influence and behavior of adults. It is without question that exposing children to sex too early in life is detrimental and leads to various emotional disturbances–that’s why Sex Ed isn’t taught until junior high. Molestation, pornography and premature sex have destroyed the lives of countless people. In that vein, I oppose references to any person’s sexuality in school textbooks. For example, there is no need for a child to learn that Martin Luther King Jr had extramarital affairs or that James Baldwin was bisexual. Highlighting “gay achievement” or learning “gay history” is a backhanded way of exposing children to potentially harmful sexual concepts that they are not ready to learn. What the goal is–I don’t know. If the real issue is tolerance, that can be taught in different ways. Even if taught to older kids, I reject the notion that somehow gay sex should be treated exactly the same as heterosexual sex. Even gay folks would admit that being gay is a special issue that must be handled with great sensitivity by teachers.
The State of . . . the truth. (rich) I guess I totally misread the article and thought it was focused on telling kids the truth about the sexual orientation of historical figures. I didn’t see that they were going to be teaching how to have gay sex. I guess the textbook would read: “James Baldwin, writer of Go Tell it on the Mountain, enjoyed having sex with both men and women. In the former case, he would insert peg D into slot A. In the latter, he would insert peg D into slit V. And he also wrote Notes on a Native Son.” As for the California bill, I disagree that there should be “Moments in gay history” sections in the textbook. If the historical person happens to be gay then I see nothing wrong with textbooks mentioning it. Despite the particulars of the California bill, I don’t think that the achievements of Baldwin or King will be diminished by teaching students what their sexual preference happened to be. Gay historical figures are not historical because they are gay. They are historical for plenty of other reasons. And with Baldwin, we knew in high school that dude was bisexual by just reading his words on the page. Actually, we just thought he was gay since we didn’t know anything about bisexuality in Memphis.
Isn’t there a war on or something?
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