California wants lesbians as mandatory 'role' models

Family advocates call plan 'worst school sexual indoctrination ever'

Lawmakers in the state of California are proposing a law that would require schools to portray lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals and those who have chosen other alternative sexual lifestyles as positive role models to children in all public schools there.

"SB 48: The worst school sexual indoctrination ever" is how officials with the Campaign for Children and Families describe the proposal, SB 48, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno.

Openly homosexual, Leno boasts on his website of founding a business with his "life partner, Douglas Jackson," who later died of AIDS complications.

That description as "worst" is considerable, considering the Campaign for Children and Families was a key player in the battle in the state in 2007 and 2008 over a variety of laws that now forbid any "adverse" portrayal of those alternative sexual choices in school, class, curriculum and by teachers.

On its website, the organization explains the plan by "homosexual activist" Leno "would require all students in social studies class to admire 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender' role models.

"The Democrat state legislators pushing this radical bill want to recruit boys and girls to support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda, personally and publicly," the organization's Action Alert explains.

"They want them to become 'LGBTIQ' activists [and] help trample religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, business-owner rights, private property rights, the Boy Scouts, and everything else you hold dear."

Equality California, an organization that advocates for homosexuality, said others sponsoring the plan include Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego; Assembly member Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco; Assembly member Toni Atkins, D-San Diego; Assembly member Rich Gordon, D-San Mateo; and Assembly member Ricardo Lara, D-East Los Angeles.

On his state website, Leno expressed his worry: "Most textbooks don't include any historical information about the LGBT movement, which has great significance to both California and U.S. history.

"Our collective silence on this issue perpetuates negative stereotypes of LGBT people and leads to increased bullying of young people. We can't simultaneously tell youth that it's OK to be yourself and live an honest, open life when we aren't even teaching students about historical LGBT figures or the LGBT equal rights movement," he said.

He said it is confirmed that where schools promote homosexual lifestyles, those who exhibit that lifestyle "are treated more fairly by their teachers and peers."

But the Campaign for Children and Families, which teaches people to stand up for "what's right in God's sight" and encourages them to challenge "liberal forces" and "impact the next generation," is promoting a campaign to have state residents contact state officials with their own concerns

The message warns that if the plan becomes law, "children as young as kindergarten will be taught to admire homosexuality, same-sex 'marriages,' bisexuality, and transsexuality.'"

"Children will be enticed into political activism in support of everything pushed by 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning' political groups, as the bill requires 'particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.'"

Further, it would require that "teachers will be made to positively portray homosexuality, same-sex 'marriages,' bisexuality, and transsexuality … because to be silent opens them up to the charge of 'reflecting adversely.'"

"This is radical, in-your-face sexual indoctrination that parents genuinely don't want and children certainly don't need," the statement says.

The California Legislative Counsel's commentary on the plan affirms it would "require instruction in social sciences to also include a study of the role and contributions of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans … to the development of California and the United States."

It also would require "alternative and charter schools" to "take notice of the provisions of this bill."

The law itself requires that schools teach "particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society."

The Campaign for Children and Families, run by executive Randy Thomasson, notes that it would demand that schools boards select textbooks and other materials that actively promote homosexuality, because to be silent "opens them up to charges of 'reflecting adversely.'"

It also notes parents would not be able to exempt their children from the mandatory teaching.

Thomasson told WND that this is the next progression following a multitude of earlier laws adopted in California that serve the dual purpose of cracking down on traditional families and promoting the "alternatives."

"The California public schools are no longer safe places for boys and girls morally," he told WND. "This new bill, SB 48, reflects the desire of the Democrat state legislators to recruit boys and girls to support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda both personally and publicly."

Under the law, he said, "textbooks, teachers and school boards will be forced to promote homosexuality, same-sex 'marriage,' bisexuality, transsexuality, sex change operations, cross dressing as positive role models." "Pushing this slop bucket in the face of impressionable kids is disgusting to most people," he said.

It was just two years ago when the Campaign launched the Rescue Your Child effort to encourage parents to withdraw their children from public schools because of such indoctrination.

That followed work by the legislature and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to establish Senate Bill 777 and Assembly Bill 392 as law. Those institutionalized the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyle choices by banning any "adverse" references in schools.

At the time, officials said SB 777 "functionally requires public school instructional materials and school-sponsored activities to positively portray cross-dressing, sex-change operations, homosexual 'marriages,' and all aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality, including so-called 'gay history.'"

The second bill, AB 394, "requires public schools to distribute controversial material to teachers, students, and parents which promotes transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality, all under the guise of 'anti-harassment' training."

Those laws ban in any school texts, events, class or activities any discriminatory bias against those who have chosen alternative sexual lifestyles, according to Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute.

But there are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs. Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits.

California also has mandated that public schools honor Harvey Milk – a homosexual activist and reported sexual predator, as well as an advocate for Jim Jones, leader of the massacred hundreds in Jonestown, Guyana.

SaveCalifornia.com led a statewide battle against "Harvey Milk Day" before California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the S.B. 572.

The bill designates May 22 – Milk's birthday – a date of "special significance" and encourages all California public schools to "conduct suitable commemorative exercises … remembering the life of Harvey Milk and recognizing his accomplishments as well as the contributions he made to this state."

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Choices -- not discrimination -- determine women scientists' success, researchers say

It's an incendiary topic in academia -- the pervasive belief that women are underrepresented in science, math and engineering fields because they face sex discrimination in the interviewing, hiring, and grant and manuscript review processes. In a study published Feb. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cornell social scientists say it's just not true.

It's not discrimination in these areas, but rather, differences in resources attributable to career and family-related choices that set women back in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, say Stephen J. Ceci, the H.L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, and Wendy M. Williams, professor of human development and director of the Cornell Institute for Women in Science, both in Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

The "substantial resources" universities expend to sponsor gender-sensitivity training and interviewing workshops would be better spent on addressing the real causes of women's underrepresentation, Ceci and Williams say, through creative problem-solving and policy changes that respond to differing "biological and social realities" of the sexes.

The researchers analyzed the scientific literature in which women and men competed for publications, grants or jobs in these fields. They found no systematic evidence of sex discrimination in interviewing, hiring, reviewing or funding when men and women with similar resources -- such as teaching loads and research support -- were compared.

"We hear often that men have a better chance of getting their work accepted or funded, or of getting jobs, because they're men," Williams said. "Universities expend money and time trying to combat this rampant alleged discrimination against women in the hope that by doing so universities will see the numbers of women STEM scientists increase dramatically over coming years."

The data show that women scientists are confronted with choices, beginning at or before adolescence, that influence their career trajectories and success. Women who prioritize families and have children sometimes make "lifestyle choices" that lead them to take positions, such as adjunct or part-time appointments or jobs at two-year colleges, offering fewer resources and chances to move up in the ranks.

These women, however, are not held back by sex discrimination in hiring or in how their scholarly work is evaluated. Men with comparably low levels of research resources fare equivalently to their female peers. Although women disproportionately hold such low-resource positions, this is not because they had their grants and manuscripts rejected or were denied positions at research-intensive universities due to their gender.

Also, females beginning before adolescence often prefer careers focusing on people, rather than things, aspiring to be physicians, biologists and veterinarians rather than physicists, engineers and computer scientists. Efforts to interest young girls in these math-heavy fields are intended to ensure girls do not opt out of inorganic fields because of misinformation or stereotypes.

Also, fertility decisions are key because the tenure system has strong disincentives for women to have children -- a factor in why more women in academia are childless than men. Implementation of "flexible options" to enhance work-family balance may help to increase the numbers of women in STEM fields, the researchers say.

As long as women make the choice and "are satisfied with the outcomes, then we have no problem," they write in the paper. "However, to the extent that these choices are constrained by biology and/or society, and women are dissatisfied with the outcomes, or women's talent is not actualized, then we most emphatically have a problem."

The solution will only be possible if society focuses on changing the women's non-optimal choices and addressing unique challenges faced by female STEM scientists with children, the researchers say.

SOURCE




Swedish 8th graders assigned sexual essays

Parents of students in a Swedish eighth grade class said they were shocked and outraged to learn their children had been instructed to write sexual essays.

The parents said the class of mostly 14-year-olds at the Kastanje school in Tomelilla were instructed as part of a Swedish lesson to write a half-page essay with "passion," detailing their past sexual encounters or sexual fantasies, The Local reported Wednesday.

"Just the thought that a teacher would sit and ask about their sexual fantasies makes me sick," a parent told the Ystads Allehanda newspaper on condition of anonymity. "Can they really do this? As a parent, it doesn't feel right and it irritates me that we're talking about a graded assignment in a Swedish-language lesson."

A teacher at the school said the assignment was part of a joint lesson the Swedish language department planned with the biology, and sex and well being departments. The teacher said the assignment will be reviewed next year.

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