California public schools to begin teaching gay history, starting in second grade
A new history curriculum recently unveiled for
California public school students starting in elementary grades includes
information on the homosexual movement and the legalization of gay “marriage”
but only briefly mentions Christianity.
As part of the new LGBT-friendly social studies
curriculum, which was mandated by legislation five years ago and then delayed
by court action and petitions, pupils in Grade 2 will learn about “family
diversity.” By Grade 4, students will be taught California’s role in the homosexual
rights movement and in high school they will be presented with stories of
people who broke the gender stereotypes of the 18th,
19thand
20th centuries.
The course of study is mandated for public schools only.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom
Torlakson told the Los Angeles Times, “The new curriculum … will give our
students access to the latest historical research and help them learn about the
diversity of our state and the contributions of people and groups who may not
have received the appropriate recognition in the past.”
The curriculum’s approach matches what British
historian Herbert Butterfield termed “the Whig interpretation of history”
which, as defined by Wikipedia, views the past as “an inevitable progression
towards a more liberal, enlightened, scientific and democratic society.”
Historical figures are depicted either as heroes who moved humankind forward or
villains who obstructed it. What is obscured is the sinfulness and immorality of homosexuality itself and why it was illegal and why homosexual received jail sentences.
Allyson Chiu, who will be a high school senior in
September, told one reporter, "My classmates can solve quadratic equations
or cite the elements on the periodic table. They can't tell you who Harvey Milk
was or the significance of the Stonewall Riots”— a reference to a California
homosexual politician murdered in 1978 and a violent protest staged by
homosexuals against New York City vice squad raids on the bathhouses they used
for anonymous sex.
Jessica Grant of Our Family Alliance lauded the new
curriculum. Her twin children “were at my wedding — to my wife — but they have
no idea who fought for that or how we got to this point.” Her children also do not know about the immorality of homosexuality as stated in the Bible.
Homosexuals appear in California’s curriculum both as
heroes and victims alongside other groups such as blacks, Asians and women who
struggled for better treatment. Why not include adulterers as heroes while we are at it?
Throughout primary and secondary school, students are
guided to think of the movement toward equal rights as the essential theme of
American history “from farmers in Jefferson’s agrarian nation to suffragists
[sic] at the turn of the century to civil rights activists putting their lives
on the line to end Jim Crow … to Americans seeking to bring marriage equality
to same-sex couples in the 21st century.” Once again LGBT promotes itself as a human right issue and not freedom to sin away from God.
In Grade 2, students develop and share family
histories. The curriculum framework explains, “Through studying the stories of
a very diverse collection of families, such as immigrant families, families
with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parents and their children,
families of color, step- and blended families, families headed by single
parents, extended families, families with disabled members, families from
different religious traditions, and adoptive families, students can both locate
themselves and their own families in history and learn about the lives and
historical struggles of their peers.”
In Grade 4, the history of homosexual advocacy in
California is described in terms of fighting for the “right to teach” and then
the “right to get married.” History climaxes for this story, as for many in the
Whig narrative, with an act of government or the judiciary.
Thus, the inhumane aspects of the British industrial
revolution provoke government intervention, according to the curriculum, but
the popular outcry of Evangelical Christians to dehumanizing working conditions
that provoked the legislation goes unmentioned.
The attention paid to minority groups, especially
homosexuals, contrasts with the handling of religion. Thus, both the
contributions to the American effort in the Second World War by homosexuals are
described alongside those of Mexican Americans, Filipinos, women, and Blacks,
while the involvement of Christian leaders in the Civil Rights movement is
referred to briefly.
Jesus Christ and religion are dealt with in Grade
Seven without mentioning his claim to divinity, leading pupils to discover
outside the classroom why Christianity broke with Judaism, or what was the
source of its appeal.
