I totally support what you said in your post. The state should butt out. Our schools are failing and something has got to change.....privatization.

I believe however that schools should teach history and current events. If they touch on things indirectly that have something to do with this...then ok. But a curriculim that just addresses gay history. NO.

I would advocate an totally free market education system. Forgot the voucher program. That involves the government too much still.

"This is like teaching white history simply because it is about white people."

I'd compare it more to teaching Black history. It appears to me that the critics are focusing on how the law will allegedly force schools to teach about homosexuality, when in fact it seems that the law would be teaching about historical events surrounding the homosexual community. Is it wrong to teach about African American culture? Asian American culture? European American culture? Why is homosexuality so taboo that they may not have important events surrounded by them/brought about by them that would be important to mention as a part of the culture of the United States?

I agree that time can be better spent on the basics.

But the fact is gays are singled out and they do recieve more protection from the government than the average citizen gets. Hate Crimes laws do this. Hate crimes is dangerous to free speech.

Hate crime legislation violates the fundamental Constitutional protections of equal justice by promoting unequal justice under the law. And in this case for homosexuals.

So they are special in the eyes of the government. That mentality is spreading into the schools. They are special...lets treat them as such.

"Public schools with a mandated pro-homosexual, antidiscrimination policy that sends objecting students to appropriate counseling without notifying their parent." (California)

California Assembly Bill 1785 Chartered Bill Text, introduced by Assembly member Villaraigosa, 26 January 2000, Section 4)b) 3.

"The homosexual strategist says that to be recognized as disadvantaged and victimized...the greater a groups victimization, the stronger its moral claims on the rest of society."

James Jacobs and Kimberly Potter, Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Policies (Oxford University Press, 1998), 5.

So today gays are portrayed as disadvantaged and special...they are victims. Is it any wonder why schools are picking up on that. Our schools are run by unions that embrace homosexuality for whatever it is. This is just the tip of the iceburg...as to what our schools will be teaching regarding this.

Your phraseology makes it seem like acceptance and tolerance magically spring forth from a well of nothingness. Neither occurs without dialogue. And dialogue doesn't occur without an encounter with "others". Including disfranchised people in the sociological and historical dialogue is not a wrong way of going about instilling a sense of normalcy. Exposure is the very first, the most significant, and quite frankly, the only necessary step in the right direction. Adding people like Harvey Milk, events like the Stonewall riot, even literary works like Queer London into curricula only serve to broaden our collective understanding and appreciation of the full scope of the human experience. What you are advocating is an education that deludes for the sake of comfort. I don't think you can be any more wrong in your conclusion.