Sheila Kuehl

In California, Ms. Kuehl is proposing a bill that would

forbid the teaching of any material that "reflects adversely on persons due to sexual orientation," and add the "age appropriate study of the role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender."

For Ms. Kuehl, 65, the bill seems to have as much to do with school security as it does with the A B C's.

"One of the things that contribute to a safe or unsafe environment for kids are the teaching materials," Ms. Kuehl said. "If you have teaching material that didn't say anything at all about gay and lesbian people, it is assumed that they never did anything at all. But if it said anything about gay and lesbian people, the whole atmosphere of the school was safer for gay and lesbian kids, or those thought to be gay and lesbian."

At a time when same-sex marriage is a polarizing presence in the courts and voting booths across the country, any issue dealing with gay rights is bound to cause a fluster, and this bill is no exception. The Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative pro-family organization, labeled the proposal "the most outrageous bill in the California Legislature this year."

Concerned Women for America, a Christian public policy group, filed a letter with the Senate suggesting that such studies were the domain of the home, not the schools.

Cindy Moles, the state director of Concerned Women for America, said the bill was trying to indoctrinate children to "dangerous sexual lifestyles" and unnecessary from an educational standpoint. "We don't need to list all the behavior of historical figures," she said. "Certainly not their sexual behavior."

...snip...

Ms. Kuehl says she traces her quest to include material on gay figures in textbooks to her days as a student in Los Angeles public schools in the late 1940's and early 50's.

"When I was a kid, there were no women in the textbooks, no black people, no Latinos," she said. "As far as I knew, the only people who ever did anything worthwhile were white men."

Ms. Kuehl said the practical applications of the law would be limited to including the accomplishments of gay figures in textbooks and class studies alongside those of other social and ethnic groups. For example, a teacher talking about Langston Hughes would not only mention the fact that he was a black poet, but also mention his sexuality, Ms. Kuehl said.

Well, we'd want to grant our support to Kuehl because she is definitely fighting the good fight. Anti-kudos to the NY Times for branding the "Capitol Resource Institute" a "pro-family organization." That's like saying the Nazis were a pro-german political party; Jewish German's didn't feel the whole "pro" side of that. On their webpage, just below a bunch of smiling white people (no latinos, no blacks, family protectifying huh?), they attack laws that would ensure equal rights to transgender children. Yes, you read that right. They are attacking children. But, for the Times, that is okay with Family-friendly.