http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/calif-gov-signs-landmark-law-to-teach-gay-history/
I will be as succinct as I can. If a gay man invented the light bulb, his gayness had nothing to do with it. If a gay man invented the Easy Jack, his sexuality had nothing to do with it. If a gay man negotiated a peace treaty and ended a war, his sexual orientation had nothing to do with it. You can't teach a kid, Look at Jack Jones. He saved the world because he was gay".
If you want to teach young students about bias against homosexuals, then I suggest that at an appropriate age, you can take up the subject in a social studies class and teach the kids that gays deserve to be treated as human beings while teaching about examples of mistreatment. We have come a long way in our acceptance of gays just in my lifetime. That is the message that should be taught. While they are at it, they could also educate our students about how gays are being hanged in Iran or how shariah law deals with gays, right?
As far as Harvey Milk is concerned, he was a gay activist who made it into San Francisco politics. That's about the extent of it. To compare him to Martin Luther King is absurd. I would venture that he was murdered by Dan White not because he was gay, rather because he showed up at the wrong time as White was murdering Mayor George Moscone or White had perceived that Milk was standing in the way of him getting his political post back, which he had just resigned.
I also wish someone could explain the wisdom of bringing sexual issues into a kindergarten classroom.
This is nothing more than a move by the gay lobby though Mark Leno, John Perez, and Jerry Brown to advance the "Gay Cause" far beyond teaching tolerance. It is tantamount to teaching that Bill Clinton became president because he was a sexual predator.
6 comments:
Amen. There is no such subject as "gay history." That is the kind of "meetooism" which has cast some legitimate demands in a ludicrous light.
I note that when Carter G. Woodson invented the discipline of "black history," he explicitly stated that if the work he began was done well, it would cease to be necessary, because people of African descent have never lived an isolated and separate history, rather, he was concerned that a very real presence and impact had been, literally, whitewashed from Our History, generally. We're close to that point now.
We don't need to start another tangled tale, which has far less reason, and call it "gay history."
In fact at the time Moscone and Milk were killed, SF Chronicle columnist Herb Caen observed that, having shot Moscone for not reappointing him to the county board seat he had resigned from, Dan White made the smartest move he could make by going down the hall and shooting Milk. It probably turned an open and shut first degree murder conviction into voluntary manslaughter.
As Gary eludes to, this can be a very sensitive subject to address. Putting slur aside, there can actually be a very interesting curriculum surrounding gay studies. On the professional end of the spectrum, Richard Von Krafft-Ebing wrote "Psychopathia Sexualis", a tome on sexual behavior. In that book, he approaches the topic of "Homosexuality" (Gays and Lesbians) in a very professional manner. To Von Krafft-Ebing, this is a situation where human sexual response to the opposite sex does not exist. This human sexual response does exist for the same sex.
Documentation from ancient history to the present can describe the gay/lesbian condition and how one handled this difference in human sexuality in society. Also, condemnation for gays/lesbians can be pointed out in the different cultures of the globe, as Gary brought out. If this information is going into the curriculum, then it maybe a worthy piece in the course of matriculation.
Squid
Milk was a lousy civil servant. He had one constituency and one cause. It is due to the fact that he was gay that he is a hero to the left.
What I object to is this additional waste of time and money.
I was a black letter guy myself for the first two years of college until I realized I would have no skills that a prospective employer could use.
Some percentage of our high unemployment rate has to do with the fact that so many of these students have wasted time on say, women's history, only to learn too late that not that many employers, trying to make a profit, need that skill set.
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Before reading any comments I want to say that for once I totally agree with you.
No Findalis, he was part of the "one big happy family united we march all oppressed people and sympathetic professionals together now" California school of what passes for "left wing" or "progressive" politics in the absence of an organized working class.
He voted for what all his adoring fans wanted, gay or straight, and his straight allies on the board voted for his agenda.
It tends to dampen case by case and issue by issue analysis of, is this good for anything, if so what, and what will it cost?
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