California to Require Gay History in Schools

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I didn't work for a black man once because of Black History Month. And that man taught me how to hit and steal!

As any good knothole baseball coach would.

This is not about portraying gays and lesbians as nice people, it's about teaching actual history. Most people who are not gay and those who are gay and haven't gone out of their way to learn it aren't even aware of it. Things and people like Harvey Milk, Stonewall, AIDS in the 80s and how it heavily impacted gay men and the whole process of destigmatizing the disease, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". The things that happened in gay history also affected the straight world, just like the civil rights movement in Black History affected non-Blacks. If people didn't think that talking about "gay stuff" was somehow sanctioning it, legislatures wouldn't need to pass laws requiring teachers to talk about it. You know there are people who will purposefully glance over anything to do with "gay stuff" just because they think homosexuality is wrong. And if you didn't know it, I'm here in the Bible Belt to tell you it's the case.

Actually, I read the article again and see that they just want to sprinkle facts about the LG movement into history. I have no problem with that. For some reason I was assuming that they wanted a whole class devoted to it.

I'm a Californian and I think it's lame to have a month or set-aside for every little thing but all the parties and festivals are sure fun - and the food... I don't like the way some of this stuff takes students away from their basic studies. More and more young people are leaving high school without having learned to read or figure.

I can see this turning into a really good college class. There are already a lot of historical focus classes, such as Native American, Nazi Germany, Women's, African American Studies, etc... Homosexuality has been around a long time. It's only a Thing because people tried to extinguish it. Whatever, it is a Thing and it has a history.

I just don't like that we have to legislate decency. Usually when they do this it just creates one more confining rabbit-hole for taxpayer money. It also relinquishes a little of our personal control... I moved out of my parents' house a long time ago, thank you.

Sprinkling tidbits of gay history into school is fine with me, I just don't think they should make a big deal out of it. If you're interested, take some courses in college that illustrate the history of people's sexuality.

I do believe that LBGT education and awareness is just as necessary as African American, autistic persons, and Holocaust education/awareness. People who worry that this will be too much of a big deal, it may only feel like it but let's be real about this: LBGT is getting the attention it's getting because the world considers them second class citizens and the world is aware of that fact. If taught properly, future generations can get the right facts about LGBT that doesn't induce fear in adolescents. You don't have to start teaching it in elementary school but it should start at least sometime in middle school.

Saying, “We are failing our students when we don’t teach them about the broad diversity of human experience.” sounds like they're going to teach kids how to be gay which might... which will upset many parents. They feel it's their place to deal with sexual issues, but then they don't. We went through this in the early 70's when my state mandated Jr. High sex education. Parents freaked.

But, if you don't learn how to be gay in school, where do you learn? On the streets? From your first lover? (that hardly seems fair) From other students?

This is a real problem that a lot of parents don't want to deal with. Several years ago, I taught a high school health class that addressed sexual health but didn't include any mention of homosexuality. I was told not to discuss it with my class. I had one student who felt he was gay but didn't know how to proceed. He approached me after class, privately. It broke my heart; he was so confused. I had no clue what to say to him and told him so but that I'd help him find some answers. Then we sat down at a computer and I typed, "I think I'm gay" in the google box and we went from there. There is a wealth of information on the internet.

We can't continue to fail these kids. If they're gay or lesbian, denial isn't going to make them hetero.

I don't hate gays, but I don't think gay history should be mandatory curriculum.

In the same way I don't hate witchcraft or any other small group of people who want social acceptance to be mandatory history curriculum.