There’s a lot of squawking about SB 777, The California Student Civil Rights Act which was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger on October 12. On the Right, World Net Daily reports this from the World Congress of Families:
It will prohibit anything that suggests that the natural family - a man and a woman, married, with children - is normal or typical. Thus, under this latest advance toward a Brave New World of polymorphous perversion, California textbooks will no longer be able to use words like ‘mother and father’ and ‘husband and wife,’ because they suggest that heterosexuality is the norm - even though that is manifestly the case, even in California.”
Capitol Resource Institute, another California pro-family organization, plans to take the issue to voters in a referendum as soon as next year. The Campaign for Children and Families is advocating that parents pull their children out of public schools.
Meanwhile on the Left, The Daily Kos snears that all of this is “crap.”
There is nothing about BANNING the words MOM, DAD, POP, MOTHER, FATHER, HUSBAND or WIFE.
(I don’t know how they do it but somehow fascists, Nazis, and President Bush made it into a commentary on SB 777.) The bill was also supported by the California Teachers Association and the California State Parent Teacher Association.
So, who is right? Well, I didn’t know so I asked an old friend who is a public school teacher in California how this act would affect her job. Here are some important points:
- The bill does not say they have to teach the homosexual agenda but teach what homosexuality is.
- It’s about not excluding children based upon things beyond their control and being respectful.
- Here’s the tough part. The Act changes the definition of sex or gender. It used to be that if a child has 2 X-chromosomes she’s a girl and X-Y chromosomes he’s a boy. The new definition is based on gender ‘identity.’ Here’s the wording in the statute:
SEC. 4. 210.7. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth
So, if a child is born boy but has chosen a girl gender ID then under this Act he’s a girl and cannot be excluded from any normal ‘girl’ things. It begs the question about facilities usage. Will this boy be permitted to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms? Will he be permitted to participate on girls’ athletic teams? My friend doesn’t know and hasn’t encountered any kids like this in her career. I think the likely answer is yes. It will happen in some school somewhere in California. Then what? I guess we wait and see.
As for the claim that ‘mom and dad’ and the like will be banned terms of speech I don’t know. I think the answer has to do with how this new law interacts with California’s Hate Crime statutes. Too much for me to figure out.
One sure result will be more families becoming exasperated with public schools and looking for alternatives in private schools and homeschooling.
even if the bill does not expressly ban the terms, mom, dad, wife, or husband, it will be used to do just that. the courts, in their infinite wisdom, will say that is what the writers of this bill had intended. (because the courts can read minds and emotions)
October 25, 2007
As a 10 year California School Teacher, in a Title One school (all 44 schools in my district are Title One), I know that the families I serve would be unable to afford private schools. Many are single parents struggling to pay the rent and have still enough for groceries, as basic survival precedes anything else. As for home schooling, that is such a huge undertaking for families struggling to learn English and/or even understand third grade level math; add to that the parents with addictions, mental illness, violent behaviors, and no parenting skills/common sense. So here are the children in my public school classroom, and here comes another Senate Bill coming down the pipe. What am I going to do? Stay the course. I am going to be all the light that I can be in this darkness for my students.
No one is monitoring every word I say or don’t say. In 10 years, I have never had any reprimands from families or school administration about the topics of discussions or about any answers I have given, books I have read to them, or how I have treated them. Over the years I have had parents, legal guardians, the kids themselves express how being in my classroom made a difference in their lives. In short, I will keep on keeping on in my classroom, in spite of crazy mandates, because the bottom line is- serving my students. I won’t be distracted, but will continue to be “as shrewd as serpents but as innocent as doves.”
It’s pretty easy to sit in a legislative seat and mandate ‘utopian’ philosophies. But where the rubber hits the road, especially in a Title I school, it really doesn’t have a lot to do with reality. There are no practical alternative educational choices.
Beautifully said.
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