Education

I had previously confused "The Prince" with the fairy tale "King and King" about a king and his...ummm...king. I wonder if there's a gay Rapunzel in the works.

The above book display in my school's high school library prompted this post. My friend Chris pointed out some errors, however, so I fixed them up and here it is again:

In California schools, there's a push to mainstream homosexuality.

Democrats in the California legislature continue to pass laws requiring schools to teach students about homosexuality and have homosexual representation in history books (not that there's anything wrong with that).

A recent law prohibits gender bias.

All schools, even in supposedly "macho" communities like Huntington Park have gay-strait alliance clubs.

This isn't really a criticism or an opinion. I'm just reporting on the situation. Knowledge, awareness, accuracy, and all that good stuff.

King & King by Stern Nijland

I'll even make the following neutral, objective arguments: Gay people are citizens too and deserve recognition. And, since they probably don't utilize the school system as much as the non-gay population while paying the same amount in taxes, they're a net-gain for schools.

Other arguments include reducing prejudice against 3-5% of our population and, according to the argument in the Guardian article referenced, the accurate reflection of reality.

As for the clubs, if that's how children want to organize themselves, OK.

Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez

I can argue for the books' exclusion as well: As I mentioned one sentence ago, people want to include gay books because they reflect reality. But, is children's literature meant to reflect reality or to inspire proper behavior and form societal values? Unless explicitly condemned (and I'm not saying that homosexuality should be in a public school), anything talked about becomes condoned de facto and lots of things exist that we don't want to necessarily condone. I'm sure you can come up with your own examples. Some who hold heterosexual marriage as the ideal only wish for their children to consider such a relationship.

Anyways, again, these things are complicated and neither point of view, in my opinion, can be dismissed.

This is an article about California grammar school literature in 2010. Excerpt:

Follow up:

A pilot scheme introducing books dealing with gay issues to children from the ages of four to 11 has just been launched in England's schools.

It is being argued that the books, one of which is a fairytale featuring a prince who turns down three princesses before falling in love and marrying a man, are necessary to make homosexuality seem normal to children. Fourteen schools and one local authority, backed by teaching unions and a government-funded organization, are running the controversial scheme, which has been attacked by Christian groups.

Twenty years ago the publication of Jenny Lives With Eric And Martin for use in schools led to an angry public debate. In response the government passed Section 28, an amendment to the Local Government Act 1988, that prevented local authorities and, by extension, schools from 'promoting homosexuality' or its acceptability as a 'pretended family relationship'. The amendment was repealed in 2003 and this is the first large-scale attempt to put similar books back into the curriculum. Other books on the list of recommended texts for the schools, which have not been named, include a story about a spacegirl with two mothers and a baby penguin with two fathers. If successful, the scheme will be extended nationwide.