As noted previously, the hate merchants of the Christian Right have launched an effort to gather enough signatures to repeal California's FAIR Education Act that mandates that the achievements and positive contributions of LGBT individuals - e.g., individuals like Michelangelo - be recognized and included in the state's public school history curriculum. Nothing undermines the false picture of LGBT individuals promoted by "family values" organizations and professional Christians quicker than having students know true and accurate history. Hence the hysteria against the FAIR Education Act. A San Francisco Chronicle article looks at the likelihood that the effort to repeal the legislation - the good news is that it looks like the opponents will be fighting an uphill battle. Here are some excerpts:
At churches, shopping centers, schools, and local tea party meetings in California, fired-up volunteers have started gathering signatures for a ballot referendum that would repeal the nation's first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay people and gay rights' milestones in school lessons.
Organizers of the Stop SB48 campaign_ Senate Bill 48 was the law approved by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in July — are telling would-be voters the new mandate would inappropriately expose young children to sex, infringe on parental rights and silence religion-based criticisms of homosexuality. Those are talking points successfully used by proponents of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California.
But so far, Mormon and Catholic church leaders and conservative groups who spearheaded the Proposition 8 campaign have not joined the effort to qualify the gay history referendum for the June 2012 ballot, leaving less-experienced Christian conservatives to lead the charge without the organizational prowess and funding to hire paid signature gatherers. Political operatives say they can't recall any citizens' initiative that made the state ballot without professional petition circulators in almost three decades.
Supporters have until Oct. 12 to collect 504,760 signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure for the ballot. Conventional wisdom among political consultants is that it will be difficult to meet the requirement with such a short window and only volunteers.
Still, no one is ready to write off the repeal attempt, especially if a donor steps up in the next few weeks to fund professional petitioners. If ever there was a measure that could galvanize the electorate, it's one dealing with gay rights and school children.
The new law takes effect Jan.1 but state education officials say it is unlikely to be fully implemented until at least the 2015-16 school year. It adds lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people, as well as European Americans and people with disabilities to the lengthy list of social and ethnic groups whose "roles and contributions" California public schools must include in California and U.S. history lessons and teaching materials such as textbooks.
The law also prohibits any instructional materials that "reflect adversely" on gays or particular religions. Because of the state's budget straits, the California Department of Education's timeline for adopting new textbooks has been pushed back until 2015. The work of revising the history and social studies curriculum framework that determines what students learn and at what grades has been suspended until further notice.
The group organizing the petition drive is the Capitol Resource Institute, a nonprofit organization that has fought gay rights bills, including measures that recognized slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk's birthday. Three years ago, the institute unsuccessfully attempted to qualify a referendum that would have overturned a law prohibiting discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation.
Like so many of the "family values" organizations, in addition to spewing religious based hatred, Capitol Resource Institute's main purpose is to provide a steady income to its paid staff. In the furtherance of that goal, no lie is to big and no anti-gay myth is too disgusting. It's all about money and promoting special rights for Christianists.
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