Posted on 04/07/2006 3:39:00 PM PDT by calcowgirl
SAN FRANCISCO – California school textbooks would highlight the role gays have played in the history of the nation's most populous state if a new proposal that has angered conservatives passes the state Legislature.
History books record contributions by gays but their sexual orientation is often ignored, a situation gay activists say is inexcusable in California, home to a large gay population in San Francisco, a city that briefly made history in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The proposed bill would require school textbooks to include lessons on how gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons have helped California develop.
Conservative groups say the proposal before lawmakers goes too far and promise a hard fight in California's ideologically divided Legislature. They say it is another bold political move by gay-rights advocates who last year lobbied the Democrat-led Legislature to pass a bill to allow same-sex marriages.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed that legislation, but has not taken a position on the new bill.
“This bill would also prohibit anything that reflects adversely on those people,” said Karen England of the conservative Capitol Resource Institute.
“They're after their lifestyle to be embraced and they want to force it on kids as young as kindergarten.”
NATIONAL IMPACT?
If the bill by Democratic state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the Legislature's first openly gay member, becomes law, it would have a national effect because California is the biggest U.S. market for school textbooks, England said.
Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, a gay-rights group and supporter of Kuehl's bill, said the legislation would shed light on a community not discussed in public school books.
One figure activists say merits a place in history texts is San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of a major U.S. city. Another city supervisor shot and killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978.
“Public schools should be teaching about all of our history and not deliberately excluding,” Kors said. “What this bill does is it ensures that students get a full and complete education.”
The bill would amend California's education code to revise its list of groups whose roles in the history of the state and nation are included in textbooks.
It would add “people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender” to the list, which currently includes various ethnic groups.
Kuehl was unavailable to discuss her bill, which the state Senate Judiciary Committee passed Tuesday by a 3-1 vote with only Republican Senate leader Dick Ackerman opposed.
It still needs to win approval by the Senate and the state Assembly before being passed to Schwarzenegger.
“It's overreaching on many levels,” Ackerman said, adding he expects the Democrat majority in the Senate to ensure its passage.
In the state, or in the arts & entertainment industry? [hoot]
Will their orientation be mentionned if they are bad guys like Tiberius?
Mrs VS
Here, here! It's about time, if you ask me.
And while they're at it, I demand textbooks that recognize the historical contributions of meat eaters, certified public accountants, and owners of cats.
To ignore these people is to relegate them to second class status, and especially in a state like California that has such a significant population of meat eaters, certified public accountants, and owners of cats.
It's simply inexcusable.
Turd Burgler Legitimization Alert!
Lets call sick things sick again.!
History books record contributions by gays but their sexual orientation is often ignored
ah the infamous Sheila Kuehl. While Dobie was tracking down Thalia Menninger.....Zelda was on the carpet.
Dobie Gillis' fault.
***Lets call sick things sick again.!***
I agree. And my tagline says it all.
Repeated for emphasis. Texas is at least the 2nd largest market.
By all means let's share with the children all the sexual sins of every person in history. What a fabulous idea. The more degrading the better. That way the kids can learn all sex is equal. How charming. What a fine use of the power of government.
Might I point our who will likely be reaping the financial rewards of all those newly written pro-gay materials. Likely it will be the homosexual activist pals who donate to Madame Kuehl, the lesbian. Perhaps we need to always put that after her name so history won't forget that she likes to have abnormal sex with other women. It's so relevant you know.
>>>Dobie Gillis' fault.<<<
Bears repeating. I always thought Dobie was a little light in the loafers.....
Then he goes and gets lost on an island with two of the hottest babes on TV, and he completely ignores them?!
Maybe, if he'd just paid a little more attention to Zelda at a critical time in her life, she wouldn't have turned lesbian, and we wouldn't have these hair-brained statutes being hashed out in the legislature.
Just my theory.
How about highlighting some of the real history and telling the part homosexuals have played in turning San Francisco and the various branches of the government of California moral cesspools?
Wrong! It is always ignored because the sexual orientation of contributors to history is of no interest to anyone. I'm beginning to lose patience with the paranoia of the gay activists.
From "Vigilantes of California, Idaho, & Montana"
By John W. Clampitt in 1891
It was, indeed, an ungloved iron hand that, in the homes of these early pioneers, first upheld the pillars of society and put to death the disturbers of the public peace in the absence of an organized form of government. They reasoned, however, that the institution of government for a people is that the governed may obtain security of life and property; that without such safeguard social order could not exist; society would be anarchy, and the law of right would be that of might.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-Vigilantes3.html
I'm old enough to remember Zelda when she was young, she was a dog then too, and Dobie wouldn't have looked at her anyway. Remember what Limbaugh says about feminists and lesbians: they're that way because no man would have them.
Update! 145 years later it is exposed Abraham Lincoln was gay.
Which is a myth, IMO.
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