I blogged Monday about a San Francisco first-grade class who surprised their lesbian teacher by showing up at her wedding. A parent suggested the field trip and school administrators agreed it was a “teachable moment.” While I admired the thought behind the trip, I was very concerned about the far-right running with the story.
Well, they have. After the jump is an excerpt from an e-mail the Yes On Proposition 8 organization sent to their mailing list. (Thanks to a friend for sharing.) This is why we need to support No on Prop 8. (Not that I need to tell most of you that, but I figure it never hurts to give the No folks a link.)
The point the far-right keeps missing, however, and that the LGBT community needs to be more vocal about, I believe, is that our children are sitting in the classrooms right next to everyone else’s kids. Teaching respect for all children and their families is part of raising good neighbors and responsible citizens, not part of some external “agenda” making a sneak entrance into classrooms.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in its coverage of the trip, spoke with 6-year-old Chava Novogrodsky-Godt, one of the class members, and noted, “Chava’s mothers said they are getting married in two weeks.” Yep. We’re not an abstraction.
I’m not going to dismantle the e-mail below point by point. I think the garbage is obvious.
[From Yes on Proposition 8. Emphasis is theirs.] The most alarming result of allowing the redefinition of marriage is the immediate impact on children.
California Education Code Section 51933 states that “Instruction and materials shall teach respect for marriage and committed relationships.” Traditionally, this meant that students were taught that marriage between a man and a woman is the normal, healthy relationship for creating and raising a family. But now marriage has been redefined to mean that two women or two men can marry each other.
Now this means that when Section 51933 is obeyed in the classroom, students (even as young as kindergarten) will be taught to respect the new definition of marriage-including same-sex marriages.
Not only has marriage been redefined, the term “respect” is in the process of being changed. For anti-family forces, “respect” will now mean honoring and accepting same-sex marriage, regardless of your religious or moral beliefs. Respect will no longer mean deferring to someone else’s beliefs, but esteeming or honoring their beliefs just as your own. This is the death of freedom of speech and religion.
Some may argue that this type of prediction about same-sex marriage’s impact is just an overreaction. After all, it’s been “legal” in California since June.
But we’re already starting to see the results of redefining marriage.Just last week a kindergarten class in a public school was taken on a school-approved “field trip” to witness their gay teacher’s “wedding” to her partner.
These young, impressionable children were taken from the classroom, where they should have been learning reading, writing and math, to participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony. This is what anti-family forces have in mind when they apply Section 51933 in the classroom.
My comment is to quote the court in the King and King book case you wrote about a week or so ago:
“There is no free exercise right to be free from any reference in public elementary schools to the existence of families in which the parents are of different gender combinations.”
and
“Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them.”
Suck it up.
(As for the field trip, perhaps they should have just looked the other way when a whole class full of parents pulled their kids out of class, but I agree with another commenter that, given the social significance *right now*, it bloody well *is* a teachable moment. “Here kids: two women getting married. Discuss.”)
Thanks for this, per usual, Dana. And thank you for continuing to keep a clear bead on the vital, yet still all too often overlooked point that it is our children who are being taught, right next to the ones the Yes on 8 folks would be trying to protect.
A key point that of course never is mentioned in the Yes on 8 material is that California has THE most stringent “opt-out” law in the nation. Meaning, in this state, practically any parent can pull their kid from practically any lesson for practically any reason. Maybe slightly exaggerated, but that’s the essence.
As you note, the field trip was PROPOSED by a parent (a straight one), and two kids did indeed stay home, at the choice of their parents. Who were calmly exercising their right as protected under state law.
A final note or two (it’s the converted, reading here, but in case anyone finds themselves in a conversation over the topic which might lead to either a donation or a vote):
1. NOTHING about the Supreme Court ruling had anything to do with school curriculum; nothing in school curriculum in the early grades pertains to marriage, per se, whether opposite- or same-sex; and all such curricula are determined in concert with local communities at the local school board level. Period the end.
A fact vs. fiction page for No on 8 is here, in case Mombian readers would like to arm themselves for further conversations.
Out-of-state folks can help tremendously by encouraging donations. They’ve got us at the individual donor level at a rate of 2:1, and GOBS of those are from out of state-ers.
and
2. There’s a million dollar challenge grant on the table from right now ’til midnight, Sunday night, Oct 19. For every dollar donated to No on 8, philanthropist Steve Bing will match it, up to a million.
How ’bout we do without a date night this weekend? That’s probably $50 to $100 for those of us with means and kids (modest dinner + movie + babysitting).
Doesn’t hurt to ask.