FAIR Education Act Opponents Miss Petition Deadline

I've yet to see an official announcement, but Equality California is reporting that the Christianist and religious extremist/theocrat backed StopSB48 effort has announced that they have failed to collect the required number of signatures to place a referendum for the November 2012 ballot to overturn California's Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act. As previously noted, FAIR requires schools to integrate age-appropriate and factual information about historical roles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, people with disabilities and people of color into existing social science instruction. Naturally, teaching the truth is an abhorrent thought to White Christianists who want minorities kept as second class citizens and their contributions hidden from history. If the reports of the failure of the petition effort are true, we can rest assured that the hate merchants will not take the loss quietly. Here are some additional highlights from an e-mail I received from Equality California:

“The FAIR Education Act will simply ensure that California’s students learn an honest, accurate, and inclusive account of history, but opponents of equality have grossly distorted the intent and the effect of the FAIR Education act in their quest to secure signatures for this referendum. Today's victory shows that their lies cannot stand up to our truth,” said Roland Palencia, Equality California Executive Director and Interim Executive Committee Co-Chair of the coalition to protect the FAIR Education Act. “But we know that opponents of equality won't stop here. We remain vigilant, not only to make sure that people know the facts about the FAIR Education Act, but also to continue preparing for new attacks on the FAIR Education Act at the ballot box, in the legislature and in courts of law.”

“Now it's time to focus on implementing the FAIR Education Act and demonstrate to the public that our opponents’ lies are nothing more than smear tactics designed to censor the historical contributions of LGBT people, people with disabilities and people of color from social studies classes,” said Laura Valdez, Interim Executive Director of Gay-Straight Alliance Network and Co-Chair of the Interim Executive Committee of the coalition to protect the FAIR Education Act. “Already, we are working with school administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community groups to ensure the fair and accurate portrayal of historically marginalized groups in schools, and we will continue to work to educate the public.”

If the repeal effort has indeed failed, let's hope that California moves forward with revising its textbooks to be inclusive of accurate LGBT history - something that will directly impact textbooks used across the nation.