Not quite two months ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 48 into law. Nicknamed the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (F.A.I.R.) Education Act, SB 48 amends the state’s Education Code to include the contributions of LGBT people in the social sciences curriculum. It is a first in the nation. It may be the last.
“This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books,” said Gov. Brown when he signed the bill. “It represents an important step forward for our state.”
As the LGBT civil rights movement took that step forward, anti-equality advocates have also stepped up to repeal the legislation. A coalition of family organizations, parents, students and teachers has launched Stop SB 48, a campaign to prevent the bill’s implementation through a referendum process.
“Jerry Brown has trampled on the parental rights of the broad majority of California mothers and fathers who don’t want their children to be sexually brainwashed,” said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, an organization that leads the bill’s opposition.
Some in our community say it’s Proposition 8 all over again, the 2008 voter initiative that eliminated the rights for same-sex couples to marry. Some go farther and say it’s even worse.
F.A.I.R.: History of SB 48
While LGBT organizations, advocates and the media (even San Diego LGBT Weekly in past issues) have focused on the impact the bill has had and will have on our community, SB 48 covers much more.
Existing California law requires schools to teach a curriculum that includes the contributions of culturally and racially diverse groups, including Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, “to the total development of California and the United States,” according to the bill, authored by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).
“This bill would revise the list of culturally and racially diverse groups to also include Pacific Islanders, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, and persons with disabilities,” the bill reads.
California’s Pacific Islander population is estimated at 150,000, and 15 percent of the state’s population is believed to be disabled.
Leno introduced the bill Dec. 13, 2010. It was passed by the California Senate with a 23-14 vote on April 14, and was passed by the Assembly on July 6 with a 49-25 vote. Sen. Christine Kehoe and Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, both of San Diego, were principal legislative co-authors.
Gov. Brown signed SB 48 on July 14. Plans for a ballot initiative to overturn the bill were announced the next day.
THEM: What they are saying
“Gov. Brown refused to listen to the calls of pro-family voters asking him to veto SB 48. He ignored the majority in our state who object to the implementation of this controversial, objectionable and poor public school policy,” said Karen England of Capitol Resource Family Impact. “The people of the state want a vote on SB 48.”
Not quite yet, but that’s what a group of “highly regarded pro-family leaders in the state” are hoping for, according to the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). Stop SB 48 is working to gather up to 750,000 California resident signatures in the hopes of meeting the required 550,000 registered voters to add a ballot measure to repeal the F.A.I.R. Education Act. If the group meets their goal by the end of this month, it could be on next year’s June ballot.
“Liberals in the state Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown may have been celebrating on July 14 … but it’s time for the people of California to weigh in and decide if they want pro-homosexual content in their child’s textbooks,” Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of TVC, said on July 27. “That is why I am proud to announce that Traditional Values Coalition is standing with our friends at the Pacific Justice Institute and Capitol Resource Institute to serve as co-leaders of the recently filed referendum effort to stop SB 48 from taking effect.”
So how do they hope to get those signatures? Listen in:
“California government schools are no longer morally safe for impressionable children,” Thomasson said. “Because of the raft of sexual indoctrination laws already in force, which promote homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality under the guise of discrimination and harassment, the social engineers are having their way with more than six million boys and girls.”
Rev. Sheldon said, “California’s classrooms, textbooks and instructional materials will all become pro-homosexual promotion tools.”
“Understand, this is not a political issue,” Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills was quoted in Metro Weekly. “This is a righteousness issue that has been taken from us by a rogue government that took it away from our opportunity that the voice of the California people might say so.”
Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., made a video address to Californians. In it, he said “it’s disturbing that elected officials passed a misguided and harmful legislation,” and called the F.A.I.R. Education Act “propaganda.”
Perkins’ organization believes: “Despite decades of activism and media propaganda promoting acceptance and celebration of homosexuality, and a number of political and judicial victories for the pro-homosexual movement, polls show that a clear majority of Americans still believe that homosexual behavior is ‘morally wrong.’ Pro-homosexual activists have therefore decided that indoctrinating impressionable school children is an easier way of changing public attitudes toward homosexuality than persuading adults.”
“Sounds like déjà vu, doesn’t it?” asked Carla Kirkwood, Program Director of the San Diego Democratic Club, when addressing the club about comments “that this sort of education will become a recruiting group for those kind of people,” she said. “When the actual truth is, stated so clearly by Harvey Milk – whose significant contributions to the movement for human equality will now be taught by SB 48 – ‘If it were indeed true that children mimic their teachers, you’ll sure have a hell of a lot more nuns running around.’”
US: Preparing a solid response
“First our opponents wanted to ban love, so they invented Proposition 8,” said Rick Jacobs, chair and founder of the Courage Campaign. “Now, they want to use the same fear tactics to prevent California students from learning history. They want to gloss over the fact that important people in history like Walt Whitman, Pyotr Tchaikovksy, Bayard Rustin, Billie Jean King, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Willa Cather, Harvey Milk and even J. Edgar Hoover were gay. They want kids to grow up thinking gay people have never contributed to society at all.”
“This is the greatest threat for LGBT Californians right now. This could really take us back quite a few years, if not decades,” said Equality California Executive Director Roland Palencia. “Our enemies, our opposition are portraying this as the homosexual agenda – this is what is going to turn kids gay.”
Palencia spoke to the San Diego Democratic Club last week about the threat to SB 48. That day, Equality California, along with the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers and a broad coalition of equality advocates, launched a coordinated effort to protect the F.A.I.R. Education Act. In addition to LGBT rights groups, the coalition includes people of faith, labor organizations, disability rights advocates, racial justice associations (including several Pacific Islander groups) and many others.
“Learning the contributions made by activists of the disability rights movement is essential to a full understanding of our history, just as an understanding of the civil rights movement and the pioneers of women’s suffrage and the LGBT rights movement are an essential part of our history lessons,” said Teresa Favuzzi, executive director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers.
“The F.A.I.R. Education Act truly is a step in the right direction and it’s important for us to make sure that this landmark victory that promotes understanding in our schools is upheld because it’s time for our history classes and textbooks to accurately reflect the rich and diverse history of California,” Favuzzi continued.
The coalition’s biggest challenge, they say, is getting through the rhetoric of the opposition to clearly make their point. The Stop SB 48 campaign is going to use tactics that LGBT advocates know well. They are going to say, “we are predators, we have a homosexual agenda, we want to make every child in school gay, and we want to teach kids about sex,” Palencia said.
“No matter what the issue is – whether it is marriage equality, whether it is employment rights or fairness, hate crimes, education, safe schools, you name it – they always go back to this core issue, which is we’re a threat to family and children,” Palencia continued.
That’s the tactic used by the Yes on 8 campaign in 2008. That campaign was a success and Proposition 8 passed.
“We were talking about marriage, and they were talking about kids in schools. And we lost,” Palencia said, adding this fight is going to be tougher. “This is not going to be a referendum on the merits of whether we have contributed to the social, economic, political or cultural life for California or the U.S. It’s going to be a referendum on the entire LGBT community.”
Currently, the coalition is working to do everything in its power to keep the measure from qualifying, including a Decline to Sign campaign and its own Protect F.A.I.R. Petition – and is putting an aggressive campaign in place if forced to fight at the ballot. More information is available at faireducationaction.com.
“I think they are going to take this as a platform to really vilify, demonize and marginalize our community. We need to be extremely aware of what that agenda is really about,” Palencia said.
The coalition is already blasting the media to counter “lies” that Stop SB 48 has been spreading. This week, Equality California called out Family Research Council as a virulent anti-LGBT organization with ties to the Ku Klux Klan and is recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It refutes Perkins’ call-to-action video as blatant lies and gross misrepresentation of the F.A.I.R. Education Act.
In its own video, Equality California said, “Anti-LGBT extremists are spreading lies and using scare tactics. Again.”
Palencia said the coalition is hitting the issue head on. “We want to talk about how they are a threat to families and children. Discrimination is very dangerous. Harassment is very dangerous. Creating a hostile environment in school is very dangerous,” he explained. “We are going to have to come out there and say who really are the ones that want to promote safety, acceptance and tolerance, and to create environments that are conducive to learning. We’re going to really sharpen that message.”
NOW: Making history today
As the two sides rage an equality battle, the San Diego Unified School District is already working to enact the policies in the F.A.I.R. Education Act. School Board member Kevin Beiser, who spoke at the San Diego Democratic Club with Palencia, said the city will be ready when the law takes affect at the beginning of the year.
“SB 48 is a law in California,” he said. “To that extent, we, the school district, need to implement that law. We will do that. What we are doing right now is making resources available to the history teachers so they have information to educate and inform students.”
It may take a few years before that “information” is published in school text books, Beiser said. The schools are not required to purchase new books under SB 48.
“As this debate becomes more and more embroiled in our community, we have to make sure that we are very clear that this is only age-appropriate and factual instruction. That’s all this is,” Beiser said. “We have to make sure we are very clear. With ambiguity of what curriculum this covers, fear may arise.”
“Teachings are age-appropriate and factual,” Jacobs of the Courage Campaign also said. “It’s ridiculous to interpret this as five-year-olds being taught sex ed or about the Stonewall Riots, which sparked the gay rights movement. Lessons will be developed at the local level so teachers and parents can decide what’s appropriate for each classroom.”
Beiser also pointed out that these lessons are already being taught.
“Another very important piece of information,” he said, “is that 83 percent of school districts in California report already including LGBT issues in their anti-biased lessons. It’s being used as a very constructive learning opportunity for children.”
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