Schwarzenegger Veto of a Simple Bill to Outlaw Discrimination in Schools and Curriculum on Basis of Sexual Orientation Makes No Sense Other Than Politics and Pandering

"[b]y proactively teaching about sexual lifestyles of historical figures, the schools will be implicitly offering those behaviors as normal to children." They add that "[a]dopting such a policy would clearly be pandering to a tiny minority (one to three percent) of the population who identify with aberrant sexual behavior." (Letter from Concerned Women for America, dated March 30, 2006.)

In reference to the prohibition against discrimination in textbook and instructional material that would include "gender" and "sexual orientation" on the list of characteristics, the same opponents argue that "SB 1437 flies in the face of parents as it seeks to place the schools, rather than parents, in control of the moral attitudes and beliefs of their children. The average parent would be outraged at alternative sexuality even being discussed in the classroom. Such topics are the domain of the home, not the schools."

Why did the bill have the heated Assembly debate, and have one Republican Assemblymember apologize for inappropriate remarks he had made in even opposing the bill being amended and watered down, if it didn’t do something to “advance the homosexual agenda” as he argued?

Remember, this bill was watered down from an earlier version that brought howls of protests from right wing groups. On May 24, 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger announced he would veto an earlier version of the bill that would have required inclusion of the roles and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in history and social science curriculum.

Eqaulity Califoria was a sponsor of the bill. This is what their Executive Director, Geoff Kors said when he heard of the veto:

Yet again, this governor has shown that he will play politics with our lives when a few extremists yell loud enough. The governor’s veto message states that the underlying laws the bill amends are too vague. Such reasoning is completely nonsensical. The truth remains that the governor vetoed adding LGBT people to an existing law protecting every other group but us.

Senator Kuehl, the author of the bill was also disappointed. She said:

Since we amended the bill simply to bar discrimination in official teaching materials, I an extremely disappointed that the governor chose to respond to a small, shrill group of right-wing extremists rather than a fair-minded majority of Californians who support this reasonable measure. This piece of legislation would have only modestly expanded existing statutes to bring us one step closer to the goal of safe schools for all children. Schools continue to be a hostile place for LGBT students, and they deserve the same protections against discrimination at school events and in textbooks that other groups of students currently enjoy. SB 1437 gives them this equal protection.

According to the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network’s 2005 National School Climate Survey, in the last school year, 64% of LGBT students reported instances of anti-gay verbal harassment and an alarmingly 36% reported physical harassment on the basis of sexual orientation. These circumstances led to nearly two-thirds of LGBT students surveyed to feel unsafe at school, an outcome that manifests itself in the form of increased absenteeism, dropout, depression and even suicide.

According to the California Safe Schools Coalition’s Safe Place to Learn report published in January 2004, California is no exception to this national trend, with more than 200,000 students estimated to experience harassment based on sexual orientation each year.

As he paddles a little right and a little left, without strong leadership and core principles in evidence, school children suffer. A small step to solve these problems and enact good public policy for the state have been expediently abandoned when the going got a little rough on the right. Schwarzenegger has failed to stand up to those bullies and bigots.