For as much as they discuss the Ten Commandments, you might think that social conservatives would endorse legislation that made schools tell the truth. Nope. They are organizing in opposition, and frantically so.
California SB-48, The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, requires that schools include the contributions of LGBT Americans in social science classes. Led by state Sen. Mark Leno, and co-authored by our own Assemblywoman Toni Atkins and state Sen. Christine Kehoe (among others), it was signed into law by Gov. Brown on July 14. Before the ink was dry, right wing forces started the ball rolling for a ballot proposition to overturn it.
Here we go again.
The bill doesn’t lay out any specific curricula, time quotas or viewpoints. It simply requires that everyone’s contributions be mentioned without discrimination, and that text books and school materials be similarly inclusive and non-discriminatory. The FAIR Education Act is NOT specific to LGBT contributions but rather includes “men and women, Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities and members of other ethnic and cultural groups” and “the entrepreneur and labor”.
It would be impossible to teach anything resembling an accurate version of recent California history without mentioning these communities and groups. Should students learn about the California Assembly without mentioning Latino and gay Speaker John Perez or lesbian Majority Whip Toni Atkins? How do you mention Prop 8, the most expensive social issue initiative ever fought in the United States, without mentioning the LGBT community? Isn’t it possible that on Cesar Chavez Day, pupils might ask who he was? Did Californians participate in the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Don’t ask.
In short, opposition to the FAIR Education Act is pretty much support for lying to children, or at least keeping them in an alternate reality. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as these are by and large the same folks who believe intelligent design should be taught in science class. If you can make up science, why not history? With the Human Rights Campaign so successfully co-opting the equal sign, they may have to take on mathematics next.
“We want to lie to kids” must not have passed the focus groups, so they have other messaging. Given the current budget deficit, California can’t afford new textbooks. (Though they don’t have to be bought until 2015.) Allegedly, the FAIR Education Act would prevent an honest discussion of the radical Islamic terrorists behind 9/11, or how German nationalism led to the rise of the Nazi Party and the holocaust. (I doubt this was Sen. Leno’s intent, as he is Jewish.) And, as usual, the dizzying but sadly effective assertion that by legislating inclusion we are unfairly singling out intolerant people.
Jumping the shark with a Hitler allusion right out of the gate should be a bad sign for the repeal campaign. Unfortunately, with paid signature gatherers, the ballot initiative is perhaps only a few months and a few million dollars away, so we better get our own messaging in order. Given the breadth of the law, we need to resist the urge to make the FAIR Education Act about a specific community, even our own. Should children learn about Harvey Milk? Of course. Just as they should learn about Cesar Chavez, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Willie Brown, Fiona Ma and more. But we would be wrong to campaign on the achievers, or the achievements.
It’s should be about the children of California. All of them. It’s a little bit about the inspiration and confidence a child gains knowing that someone like him or her achieved great things. But it’s mostly about the fact that we owe them an accurate and honest portrayal of history. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it; those who are lied to about history probably do even worse.
