Obviously, the knowledge and skills taught to kids should be appropriate to their age. At whatever age kids can meaningfully absorb the history and message of religions, for example (don’t ask me what age that is), the real question is what they should be taught about them. Given our constitutional separation of Church and State and our commitment to individual choice and the enriching benefits of a multiethnic population, public schools can not “teach Christianity”. But it is highly desirable to teach students about Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the other major religions—their histories and beliefs. Parents have a right to be satisfied that what is taught fairly represents their religion.
At an appropriate age kids need to learn about races—about why some kids in the room are black, white, brown, and yellow. At an appropriate, presumably older age, they need to learn the history of these races and especially slavery as it is particularly relevant in America, as are Chinese rail road workers and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
At appropriate ages kids also need to learn about how their bodies function and how to keep them healthy. As they approach puberty, they will want to know all about what is going on in their bodies. If they are not given this information in the classroom, they will seek it elsewhere. Current controversies over teaching information about sexuality and sexual functions to kids at the age needing and wanting such information and over the availability of affinity clubs for young teenagers to discusses these pressing questions, reflects, in my view, two serious mistakes in confronting this issue. The first is to overlook or deny that kids will seek out what ever information they can about every aspect of sex whether presented in the classroom or not. The second serious mistake is the claim that teaching about homosexuality and providing clubs in which kids can discuss their questions about it with their piers will recruit heterosexual students to join up with the gays as if being gay is so desirable. We cannot chose our sexual orientation.
I want to focus on the second of these. We are born with our sexual attractions. We are not and cannot be recruited from it to its opposite. The survival of the species requires that most people are heterosexual and happy to procreate and so overwhelmingly most people are heterosexual. Those who are not are acutely aware that their attractions are not the norm. As they attempt to establish their goals for their lives, most homosexuals try to hide from, or deny to, themselves that they are different. Most would rather not be. But they cannot change the facts. Their goal should be to accept the facts and carry on building the most fulfilling lives possible. This is much easier today than earlier because of honest and factual classroom information and public role models of successful gay men and lesbian women.
Sixty-five years ago as I struggled to sort out my own attractions (yes I know that that was a rather long time ago and a different world) I did not know any, or of any, gay people as models or better still to talk to. There was no Will and Grace, or Peter Buttigieg, or Peter Thiel, or Lily Tomlin. I had only heard of child molesters—bad people who were run out of town. I hated what I felt. It threatened to destroy the life I hoped to have. So I buried it away for many year at the cost of considerable internal pain. What a relief it would have been to have learn in class that some people are just that way and can have otherwise normal lives.
Thus, it is quite distressing to me that some poorly informed parents are rising up against such instruction. While I assume that they mean well, I see their actions as child abuse. They mistakenly believe that homosexuality is a choice. They understandably don’t want their child to make that choice. But it is not a choice. We often say that God made us homosexual, and we chose to be gay.
All children need the facts about the various urges god gave us and help with their struggle to accept their own sexual orientation and to fit in with the rest of society. Clubs at which they can socialize and feel comfortable and discuss the fact of their homosexuality can be a helpful part of their development. Despite the enormous progress in public understanding, ignorance persists in some quarters on which the Washington Post gives an interesting report:
Flyers at school advertising Safe Place club meetings, “set off a wave of parent anger and rumors that Safe Place club advisers including Melissa Panico, a teacher who has LGBTQ children, would “indoctrinate” students.
“Spurred by these concerns, legislatures in at least 19 states have passed or are considering laws that bar discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity for younger children while limiting teaching on those topics for older students….
“’Safe Space’ signs had to come down. The posters were ‘political in nature,’ he wrote, and might cause ‘disruption to the learning environment.’ The signs could run afoul of two legal considerations, he added: ‘One, will what is posted or worn be seen as indoctrinating our students to believe or think in a certain way. Two, would we allow anything that represents the opposite viewpoint?’” It is hard to believe that these were the words of an adult educator. “Gay-straight alliance-indoctrination-school club”
Progress has been made but we still have a ways to go:
“When Sen. Barry Goldwater, dubbed “Mr. Conservative,” learned that his grandson and grandniece were gay, he worked for new laws that would protect their civil rights. When Newt Gingrich became speaker of the House, and his lesbian half-sister, Candace, became a gay activist, he took a more neutral stance. “It’s a free country,” he told the press. State Sen. William “Pete” Knight has been estranged from his son since learning four years ago he is gay.
“And now, Dick and Lynne Cheney are faced with their decision, how to handle in public what is essentially a private matter: the sexual orientation of their daughter, Mary.” “The Cheney’s”
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