Parental Rights v Gay Rights? Not Quite . . .

A couple weeks ago I was having a discussion with some of the usual commentators on the Catholic Online website. The discussion related to an article regarding the push for GLBT education in Alameda School District public schools in California. The bishop who wrote the article condemned the school district's efforts, claiming that it was indoctrinating homosexual education into the young students' minds. Something noteworthy about the efforts of the school district was that there was no parental override, meaning parents could not get their children out of this teaching. Thus, any student in the Alameda school district had to go through GLBT sensitivity schooling.

Obviously, the readers and commentators on the article were utterly furious. In all honesty, I do not think their worries were without merit. I do have issues with children being forced to learn certain things without parental approval. However, I am also a major proponent of separation of state and church, especially in schooling. Obviously as a gay man I side with the school district, but my reasons for siding with have less to do with my own homosexuality and more to do with that fact that I just do not believe this is an issue where children are learning something anti-Catholic/Christian without parental consent. I do think there needs to be far greater sensitivity instruction in schools because schools are becoming more diverse in general.

I think a description of what the efforts of the Alameda school district is actually doing is in order. First off, I do not see this as an effort on the part of the district to "indoctrinate" homosexuality into the minds of young children. Quite frankly, I think the word "indoctrinate" is something that religious conservatives and culturally unsympathetic people throw out in an effort to create fear. Indeed, the vast majority of people commenting on the afore-mentioned article are probably those types of people that think homosexuality can still be taught. There were some comments that included statements saying such things. These people most likely see the efforts of the schools not as a way to alleviate prejudice, but as a way to get kids to accept and be ok with homosexuality, if not become homosexual.

Funny enough, when I first read this article, it was when my aunt who lives and teaches in California was visiting us in Minnesota. Now, my aunt is in the Burbank district, so her school would not be subject to the Alameda initiatives. I spoke with her and asked her opinion on the article. As soon as I finished telling her about the Alameda efforts, she jumped in immediately and said it was desperately needed. Although she never gave me any specific examples, she made it very clear that she had seen some terrible behavior in some of her students, especially when it came to cultural sensitivity. As soon as I finished with her, I went immediately to my laptop and wrote out my comment concerning the article. Of course, I included what my aunt had to say on the matter.

After I posted my comment on the board, I received a slew of responses over the next few days that I found rather insulting. One woman accused me of being a "paid representative" for the gay community who was purposefully infiltrating the Catholic website with secular, demonic garbage. Another woman accused another less devout poster as being anti-Catholic, telling her "Shame on you."

I believe that these people and the deacon who wrote the article are creating a religious issue where one does not exist. This is not an issue of whether the gay agenda is improperly impinging on the rights of parents to teach their children that homosexuality is morally unacceptable. Something that those people seem to forget, or maybe they do not even realize, is that there is a lot of hostility in schools among different groups of children. Children nowadays have a larger vocabulary than what we did as children. My aunt has heard small children, some no older than five years old, calling other children sluts, whores, gays, queers, racial slurs and other pejorative words. This is something that is incredible. I didn't know any of those words existed when I was that young and I did not learn of their existence until much older.

What this type of education is trying to do is get kids to be nice to one another and alleviate this type of name-calling that creates a hostile and uncomfortable environment in schools. The fact that children this age are going around insulting each other with words that would make even a sailor blush is remarkable. This is going beyond what people would call an immature, schoolyard taunt. We all remember the days of being called a doody head. However, I never recall being called a slut, a whore, or a fag by my middle school or even by my high school peers. Not only do these words create a hostile environment in schools, but these children are learning words that will ultimately damage their life and turn them into bullies if they continue to think this type of conversation is publicly acceptable.

I think the Alameda initiative is really just trying to get kids to realize that this type of name-calling is not only wrong, but it hurts people and it is not acceptable conversation in the public sphere. For religious groups to go around saying that this type of tolerance training in schools is impinging on parents' God-given and Constitutionally given rights to educate their children is completely ridiculous. To equate education that tries to keep kids from calling each other gay or queer or dyke-y with "indoctrination" of homosexuality against parents' wishes is irresponsible. Indeed, to turn this into an issue of religious right is laughable. Parents do not have a Constitutional right to keeping their kids in schools where those children are making a hostile environment for others.

One thing I mentioned earlier was that in addition to creating hostile environments in public schools, these children are learning language use that could be detrimental to their success and futures. Let me give an example. In the past decade, the legal field has become furiously interested in the gay rights debate. Indeed, the ABA has stated that all ABA approved law schools must have GLBT non-discriminatory clauses in their admissions statements, even if the state has no laws requiring such protection. Further, firms all across America have begun to take great interest in creating diverse workforces that include GLBT (mostly G and L) lawyers. Although I do not know for sure, the ABA actually may require firms to have some sort of non-discrimination policy for GLBT individuals. Needless to say, the legal profession is not a good choice for homophobes.

If these children continue thinking that using the word "gay" in public discourse is acceptable, they most certainly would not be last very long in the American legal field. Of course I assume that anyone who thinks that such usage of words is appropriate would even be in law school. Most of my law school classmates (actually all of them I think) knew it was inappropriate to call people naughty words. However, only a few years ago did University of Michigan Law School graduate, Ann Coulter call John Edwards a faggot on the national morning news.

Of course, by going through life's experiences, most children will probably learn at some point in their life that such talk is not a good thing. However, I still think it is a good idea to instruct kids on how to be sensitive and nice to one another. Just because they will eventually learn to be tolerant does not mean we should ignore telling them that at a young age.