This piece is a response to Mary T. Hunt”s recent opinion on the state”s new curriculum regarding American history.
Hunt was obviously referring to Governor Brown”s signing of the FAIR (Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful) Education Act.
As the name suggests and lead proponent Shannon Minter states, the bill will “ensure that for the first time, we will have a generation of LGBT youth who are growing up seeing themselves reflected and included in public institutions.” Looking back on the recent teen suicides, I can”t help but feel hope that the FAIR Act marks a turning point for the way Americans view the LGBT community.
For those of you afraid that the Act will force teachers to go out of their way to teach students about the LGBT past, you are sorely mistaken.
The FAIR Act simply means that teachers will no longer be able to dodge the subject of equality. Teaching materials will no longer exclude the sexual identity of LGBT historical figures like Walt Whitman, Marie Antoinette, Susan B. Anthony, Leonardo da Vinci, Emily Dickinson, Frederick the Great, Michelangelo, Plato, Eleanor Roosevelt and Oscar Wilde (to name only a few).
Hunt suggests that “if [they] are going to teach such a subject to our children, then don”t forget to teach them the outcome ? such as the disease AIDS.”
According to your logic, since we”re teaching children about straight historical figures, we should be teaching them the outcome of that as well.
Perhaps you need reminding that heterosexual interactions can lead to pregnancy, STDs and yes, HIV and AIDS.
In fact, California sees more than 53,000 teens giving birth each year (many more become pregnant and fail to give birth for one reason or another). I”m failing to see how today”s youth, will be “bogged down with this unnecessary curriculum such as sex education.” Sex education is absolutely necessary if we want to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of disease.
Fighting the FAIR Act and preventing your children from learning the facts about sex is only going to hurt them.
From 2006 to 2008, one-third of teens failed to receive formal education of contraceptives. In that two-year span, the rate of teen pregnancy increased for the first time in over a decade, rising 3 percent. The correlation is proof that teens need formal sexual education and access to contraceptives.
Melissa Denton
Lake County
