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"Some might object to mentioning "sexual identity" to young students though."

Yeah I do. I also object to school time being spent on such nonsense. Children can be taught to respect one another during the course of their regular lessons. Any child young enough to really enjoy Sponge Bob or (heavens!) Barney, is far too young to understand the concept of "sexual identity" or even such concepts as "abilities" or "culture".

Any child young enough to really enjoy Sponge Bob or (heavens!) Barney, is far too young to understand the concept of "sexual identity" or even such concepts as "abilities" or "culture".

To some extent I do see your point - but at the same time, kids today grow up in a world where there are openly gay people on TV and the issue is talked about frequently in many different places. At some level, you almost have to talk about the issue with them, if only because everyone else is.

First, I haven't seen much of this "controversy" and indeed hadn't heard of it since I have restricted my news intake to major events found on various news organizations websites. I personally think the whole thing is silly. If I take Dobson's statement in the way he says he meant it, then I wholeheartedly agree. GRADE SCHOOL IS NOT THE PLACE FOR INDOCRTRONATION OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE. I don't care if you're teaching kids to e heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual. Children at all levels of education in this country are behind their peers in the basic fundamentals they will need to succeed in life, they don't need one second of precious learning time interrupted to teach them how to deal with someone who may feel a different way about religion, sex, or whatever. They need to learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Children should be taught right from wrong by their parents, based on the beliefs in their family, not by any outside force, even if it is a teacher. What part of getting a bachelor's degree in education qualified you to teach my kids what they should believe? Teach them how to read and write and leave it at that. This is part of why our country is lagging behind other parts of the world, particularly Asia, I believe, in producing quality engineers and scientists. Personally, I was not a big fan of chemistry in high school in 1991, but I know now and knew then that it was a lot more important for me to be well-rounded in math and science at age 15 than for me to be well-rounded in tolerance. At that age, I'd gotten enough from my family (and common sense, something else that is not encouraged in teaching young children) to make up my own mind about how I felt about people with a different sexual orientation that I have. I now have several friends who are gay or bisexual and you know what? They all seem to be as happy in their sexuality as I am for them to be happy in it. I don't care what they do with whom and they don't care or need approval from me or society to feel the way they do. Perhaps this happiness comes from making the decision on their own instead of having it forced upon them constantly when they were really too young to know the social, psychological, and even physiological ramifications of sex in the first place. Talk about it in health class.. in about the 7th grade or so.. in a very clinical manner.. then DROP IT. Let adolescents have any further discussions about how they feel with the people they should be having them with - their parents. This will free teachers to focus on what they should be teaching... and maybe we can get that one survey percentage to rise.. you know the one a few years ago.. where a majority of school children couldn't identify the capital of the country they live in.