However, if you live in Alameda County in California, which encompasses the East Bay area of Oakland, Fremont, notorious Berkeley, and some of the poorest neighborhoods of the state, your kindergartners, 1st graders, and on up, are going to begin to learn about gay parenting and sexual orientation, ostensibly to keep the children from becoming bullies.

This, despite the protests of 500 parents who showed up to oppose the vote of the Alameda School Board just days ago.  So many parents signed up to speak in opposition to the Alameda Board's vote for gay curriculum that another five hour public hearing will be held Monday night, June 8, 2009, just to accommodate all the angry parents.

As a former school board president in Los Angeles, I have seen my share of angry board meetings.  Never, even in our large city with contentious issues like busing and boundary changes, have I ever seen 500 parents make the effort to speak at a school board meeting.  Political and gay activists are playing with dynamite by trying to force teaching about gay sexuality into public schools.  Even voters who supported gay marriage in California oppose bringing the subject into the schools.  Most people just don't feel that any kind of sexuality — gay or straight — should be part of school instruction, and legally, schools must wait until 5th grade to even discuss maturation.

Along with marriage, civil rights, and sexuality, maybe gay activists believe they're also experts on the needs of children.

Parents, pay attention, because your school may be next.

Several years ago California State Senator Sheila Kuehl, an openly gay legislator, wrote and pushed through the “Safe Schools” curriculum.  The name is a misnomer.  Perhaps because Senator Kuehl couldn't ensure that gay curriculum would be approved for public schools by calling it “gay curriculum,” she dressed the legislation up in a disguise called “Safe Schools.”   The concept is to introduce gay sexuality “as early as possible” so that gay students don't endure mistreatment in school environments.  Who would oppose that goal?  The glory of Kuehl's invention is that parents don't have to be consulted, or informed, or have a voice in  “bullying” curriculum.  Usually, school lessons having to do with sexual curriculum must have parental consent and/or students may opt out if preferred.

Parents are now discovering that it is not legal to opt out of “Safe Schools” curriculum.

A crack in the door seems to be all that gay activists want or need.  Once discussion of sexual orientation is introduced, it will take a lawsuit, shouldered by a parent, to challenge any expansion of that idea.

The “Safe Schools” curriculum is the tip of the iceberg.  Check your school libraries.  Forty California school district elementary libraries have also now placed books about gay sexuality on their shelves.   “Coming Out” Week is another staple in the Alameda School District that is ready for export as well.  Finally, “Harvey Milk Day” has been approved by the California State Legislature to promote gay sexuality as being “healthy and natural.”  

Do we know enough about gay sexuality to be teaching it in the schools?

Just for your information, other states also have anti-bullying curricula.  The mission?  To teach public school children to be kind and tolerant of everyone .  It's as simple as that:  Be kind to everyone.  There's no need to pass out pledge cards to 5-year olds in poor neighborhoods, where the parents don't speak English yet, and ask the children to sign their names as supporters of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and “questioning”  people, as happened last fall in an Alameda School District kindergarten.   See one of the pledge cards for yourself.  It gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Children deserve better than teachers who would pull such a stunt while keeping parents in the dark:

Here's another must-see news report from KABC  showing you firsthand what Alameda parents think of cloaking gay studies as a “safety curriculum.”

I know my blogging today has an edge to it.  It's an edge of fatigue, not bigotry.  I don't approve of any child or any student being harassed or mistreated for any reason.   I also support teaching students in upper grades about tolerance and sensitivity and kindness to all teens.  What I oppose are adult agendas forcing gay sexuality into the classrooms of our youngest children when they are still learning to sit still on the carpet.

Early elementary school children distinguish one another by their eye color.  By whether they sit still or not.  By what they have in their lunch boxes.  It is wrong to interfere with their sacred right to be kids .  They deserve to be able to come to an awareness of their sexuality on their own, without adult agendas being dropped on their heads, and to be able to have their parents in on the discussion.

Make sure you are in touch at your elementary school.  If possible, sit in on your school leadership council.  If it is the wish of some stakeholders at your public school to introduce a gay-oriented curriculum, take a vote.

As parents and taxpayers, we deserve a voice in the curriculum of our children, we deserve to have notice if it is going to change, and we deserve the right to opt out, if we so feel it appropriate.

Realistically,  how many kindergarten children have you seen bullying gay students?

Let's let them eat their graham crackers . . . in peace.