SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Board of Education has voted unanimously to comply with a state law requiring homosexuality to be incorporated into history and social studies lessons from the second grade and up.
In 2012, California lawmakers passed the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, which requires the inclusion of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” in history lessons, along with people groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, disabled persons and others.
Studies are to center on the contributions the groups have made to “the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.”
On Thursday, following four hours of testimony, the Board of Education agreed to implement the curriculum in compliance with the 2012 law.
“An outlined curriculum introduces the concepts in second grade with discussions about diverse families and again in fourth grade with lessons on California’s role in the gay rights movement,” the Associated Press reports. “The proposed outline also touches on the topics in the fifth and eighth grades and throughout high school.”
The LA Times also notates that studies in fourth grade, for example, will focus on “the emergence of the nation’s first gay rights organizations in the 1950s,” as well as the push for “gay marriage” in California from the 1970’s onward.
Teachers will receive training on how to educate students about homosexuality in American history.
Homosexual advocacy groups cheered the development as being beneficial students.
“It allows all students to think critically and expansively about how that past relates to the present and future roles that they can play in an inclusive and respectful society,” Don Romesburg, framework director for the Committee on LGBT History, said in a statement.
But others expressed concern and notated that parents will likely be uncomfortable with the teaching as well.
“Certainly some families will be concerned about their second-graders learning about two-mom families, but I think parents would be much more alarmed if they knew that LGBT History Month, in the last few years, has promoted the notion that ‘America, the Beautiful’ is a source of lesbian pride,” Matthew McReynolds of the Pacific Justice Institute told reporters.
“California has decided to include people in the curriculum and celebrate them (no criticism allowed, apparently) based solely on their sexual behavior,” Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project also lamented. “Especially after the Obergefell decision, it’s only a matter of time until this propaganda spreads to the public schools of other states.”
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