This week’s radio commentary…
We don’t call California the “left coast” for nothing. The Golden State works hard to maintain its standing as one of the top two or three most liberal states. Unfortunately, what happens in California rarely stays there—and one of these days what starts there wends its way to the Midwest and beyond.
Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown proved my point when he signed into law a bill that requires all forms of public schools in that state to teach what is essentially “gay history.” The so-called FAIR bill, an acronym for “Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful,” is supposedly an attempt to update California’s existing law that requires schools to include certain specific groups of people in their instruction, noting their contributions to the history and culture of the state and nation.
According to an analysis by the California legislature, the bill “adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender…Americans, persons with disabilities and others to the list of groups of people whose role and contributions shall be accurately portrayed in instructional materials and included in social science instruction, and adds sexual orientation and religion to the list of characteristics that shall not be reflected adversely in adopted instructional materials.”
So, for the first time ever in the United States a state legislature has passed into law a requirement that no school district can adopt a textbook that adversely reflects on homosexuality. Apparently, it’s more important to the State of California that the textbooks they adopt and the other instructional materials their teachers use don’t somehow negatively reflect on gays than it is that the books and materials do a good job of teaching history.
Who decides what “reflected adversely” means during textbook adoption and materials selection? Really. Just what does that term mean when it comes to making a decision on textbook adoption? Is it adversely reflecting if the book mentions that some religions don’t approve of same-sex marriage or of homosexual behavior? Or how about stating that male homosexuals have the highest rates of HIV/AIDs and the numbers are climbing? Or maybe noting that many people who have practiced homosexuality have successfully left that lifestyle? Just who is going to make those decisions? Given that this is California, I’m betting that the decision makers likely aren’t conservative Christians.
But the bill goes beyond this. It requires that gay history be taught. According to reports, the state will draw up the guidelines for this addition for the school districts; and then “educators” will determine who gets included and at what grade levels this information is taught.
I can just see the next generation of textbooks with special sections on actors such as Heath Ledger, Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen Degeneres, and politicians such as Harvey Milk, maybe Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank, and maybe even open homosexual millionaire Tim Gill who personally funds and utilizes his vast network to make sure pro-homosexual state legislators get elected around the country. The homosexuals argue some of these people are as important as Martin Luther King Jr.
For the first time, history textbooks will feature people not for what they have accomplished or contributed to our country and society, but because of their sexual orientation.
California’s decision won’t remain in California. For starters, textbook publishers don’t typically create different textbooks for each state. They try to comply with what the largest states have mandated—states such as Texas and California. Many other smaller states then get pressured into using textbooks and materials written for California, which now will feature gay history. And it won’t stop there. One of these days a state legislator here in Wisconsin will think what California did is just great and will introduce a bill to do the same thing in our state.
This new law isn’t about teaching history; it’s about indoctrination. It’s about normalizing and affirming homosexuality. It’s about filling young, impressionable students with wrong and even harmful information that homosexuality is normal and should be celebrated. It’s also about violating the students’ and their parents’ religious liberty.
We know if it happens in California, it can happen here. Parents, be vigilant, be proactive, be involved. Ask questions. Investigate. Examine the textbooks your children are using. Take nothing, absolutely nothing, for granted about your public schools or the laws coming out of Madison. It’s the only way you can protect your children from the long reach of California.
This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
