The FAIR Education Act (SB 48) requires all schools in California to include LGBT history as a part of its curriculum. Despite the overwhelming benefits of including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender education throughout the state’s schools, an anti-gay group called Stop SB 48 has aimed to put an end to the state’s initiative.
Previously, Stop SB 48 had tried to gain signatures to overturn the FAIR Education Act by including a referendum on the state’s ballot. The group failed to collect enough signatures. Now, announced in an email, Stop SB 48 is “working on an initiative” to collect new signatures.
Prop8TrialTracker.com provides detail on the group’s initiative requirements:
An initiative requires collection of the same number of signatures as a referendum (504,760) but one gets more time in which to get complete the process (90 days for a referendum to get title and summary, collect signatures and turn them in vs. 150 days for an initiative). In addition, for an initiative, the 150-day clock starts after title and summary is received from the attorney general, whereas with a referendum that time counts against the 90 days (meaning one must wait for title and summary before collecting signatures, but the 90-day clock has already started ticking). The initiative must also qualify at least 131 days before the next statewide election at which the sponsor is attempting to qualify the measure — in this case, before November 6, 2012. They also must start from scratch — they cannot use the signatures they collected the first time around. There are also additional deadlines depending on how many signatures are collected and which counting method is used by elections officials to verify signatures.
The Stop SB 48 campaigners claim to have already collected 497,404 signatures. But the signatures may have been collected dishonestly according to PropTrialTracker.com. “The public will be fooled by the lies that were and will be told by the campaign… the public and/or people who signed the referendum [will have realized] the sky hasn’t and won’t fall on kids in California schools [if the FAIR Education Act passes].”
In the Stop SB 48 email, the group states:
Our effort to qualify a referendum to overturn SB48, California’s so-called “gay history” bill, came so close to victory but ultimately did not have the signatures. With 504,760 signatures needed, we only came up with 497,404. It was a remarkable achievement, but not enough… We have received inquiries, advice and pleas all pushing us toward another effort to liberate our classrooms from this very bad law…We are working on an initiative and will tell you more about that in a number of weeks.”
