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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/calif-gov-signs-landmark-law-to-teach-gay-history/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/us/15gay.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_Education_Act

Now I am all for y'know, gay kids (and kids in general) not killing themselves and whatnot, but this just seems odd to me. Are there a huge number of gay scientists that get ignored, or is the idea to emphasize the uh, gayness I guess, of the ones that are mentioned? It just seems like this sort of thing would be better suited to a human sexuality class than a history one.

Plus I guess I can't really grasp how this would be implemented. Like when you are talking about Greek philosophers do you talk about how they thought gettin' it on with other guys was groovy? Do you talk about how they were even bigger on pederasty, or do you leave that out because it's socially awkward and there is no pederast lobby? Please discuss, because I am somewhat mystified.

As far as I know the only cool gays are Ian McKellen, Freddy Mercury, Rob Halford and Neil Patrick Harris. And Lady Gaga, I guess.

Well, consider Black History Month. You learn about Carver and peanuts, some guy and the traffic light, MLK and civil rights, etc...

I'd imagine a gay history unit could touch on perceptions of homosexuality at various points in history. You're a little off on your concept of Gay Greeks, incidentally.

In literature, Oscar Wilde comes to mind. Our English program in Ultra-Liberal Hippieland South Carolina had us reading The Importance of Being Earnest, and we didn't talk about the author at all. Joseph Conrad, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, etc, etc all had at least a brief "about the author" blurb, but Oscar Wilde's life is apparently unworthy of discussion (despite being pretty interesting). I bet if you looked around, you might even find there were other gay artists at various points in time </sarcasm>
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I could go subject by subject and point out some significant figures that happened to be gay, but the main point here is really:

Should someone's sexual orientation be highlighted in an educational setting?

This closely parallels the same question from 30-50 years ago:

Should someone's race be highlighted in an educational setting?

I'm willing to bet that most people's answers to both of those questions is the same, and probably falls along political lines.

It depends on how important sexuality was to their work.

For example, you can't understand Byron without knowing anything about his sexuality. You could probably make the same argument for Wilde, and definitely can for Mary and Percy Shelley.

Alan Turing.

I agree that there's no real need to highlight the sexuality/race/religion/favourite cat of someone you're learning about in class unless it's important to their line of work/why they were famous.

After having personally and recently had experience with the California education system, I am far more concerned about a child`s ability to do long division by 10th grade than I am whether or not they know that homosexuality exists and has since the beginning of human existence. The time and effort spent on this guys political crusade could be spent a hundred times better elsewhere.

The great thing about the USA is that anyone who disagrees with education in California can move to 49 different states.

Swordwind wrote:I agree that there's no real need to highlight the sexuality/race/religion/favourite cat of someone you're learning about in class unless it's important to their line of work/why they were famous.

Which is what they seems they're doing. Studying about Harvey Milk seems appropriate, it's not like they're pointing out "such and such famous person was gay and this makes it gay history".

What I find bizzare are people worrying over exposure to sexuality and gender identity over this. How sheltered do people want their kids to be?

Yeah Alan Turing springs to mind, poor bloke topped himself because of his treatment due to his sexuality, so its pretty important!

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Swordwind wrote:I agree that there's no real need to highlight the sexuality/race/religion/favourite cat of someone you're learning about in class unless it's important to their line of work/why they were famous.

Which is what they seems they're doing. Studying about Harvey Milk seems appropriate, it's not like they're pointing out "such and such famous person was gay and this makes it gay history".

What I find bizzare are people worrying over exposure to sexuality and gender identity over this. How sheltered do people want their kids to be?

Home schooling is very popular in the USA.

Anything that makes the fox news drones and their fanbois nervous is a good thing in my book...

Fox News wrote:The bill has drawn criticism from some churches and conservative groups that argue such instruction would expose students to a subject that some parents find objectionable.

I have to laugh at this; Parents may find the real world objectionable

Dogma is spot on here.... If their sexuality was important to their work, it should be discussed.

Kilkrazy wrote:The great thing about the USA is that anyone who disagrees with education in California can move to 49 different states.

All of which use textbooks approved by the fiefdom of Texas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

J.Black wrote:
I have to laugh at this; Parents may find the real world objectionable

But, of course, objecting to reality could never, ever have a material effect on a child; because parents have the right to control what influences them.

dogma wrote:

All of which use textbooks approved by the fiefdom of Texas.

Which seems like it must be a falsehood until you read up on it and realize that the lunatics have indeed been given the keys to the Asylum on this one...

The great thing about the USA is that anyone who disagrees with education in California can move to 49 different states.

The other great thing about the USA is that anyone who disagrees with education in California is fully within his/her rights to point at the whole backwards mess and laugh at it, whether they move or not.

Teach history. Teach what is important. If someone did something important, they should be included in the lesson plan regardless of race / sexual preference / ect.

People should not be included based exclusively on whether or not they fit X flavor, whether it be that they were gay / black / ect.

There shouldn't be special periods of time where history lessons are given about special groups. To do so not only devalues the message that they should be equal but also ends up continuing the idea that said group is different. There shouldn't be a black history month (or any equivalent), but rather, our history classes should be taught in such a way to make it so that the important events that took place (i.e. the Civil Rights Movement) are properly discussed.

Going out of the way to spend a month on Harvey Milk or whatever other interest happens to be taking root, simply takes away from the already dwindling historical knowledge of our children and replaces it with "highlights" that are often misconstrued and simply propagate stereotypes.

In a land of equality no one should be treated better than any one else, for we are all the same.

CT GAMER wrote:
Which seems like it must be a falsehood until you read up on it and realize that the lunatics have indeed been given the keys to the Asylum on this one...

Just remember that, no matter how many people enjoy pretending that Texas can declare independence, we have more guns and Mexico doesn't brook insubordination.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manstein wrote:Teach history. Teach what is important. If someone did something important, they should be included in the lesson plan regardless of race / sexual preference / ect.

Who decides importance? It isn't an intrinsic quality you know.

Manstein wrote:
People should not be included based exclusively on whether or not they fit X flavor, whether it be that they were gay / black / ect.

Good, we can stop talking about Hamilton and Franklin then.

Manstein wrote:
To do so not only devalues the message that they should be equal...

That has never been the message. If it had been, then we would be contemporaneously speaking of Mao and George Washington.

Kilkrazy wrote:Home schooling is very popular in the USA.

dogma wrote:All of which use textbooks approved by the fiefdom of Texas.

Both of which make me very very sad

CT GAMER wrote:Anything that makes the fox news drones and their fanbois nervous is a good thing in my book...

What about terrorism?

mattyrm wrote: Yeah Alan Turing springs to mind, poor bloke topped himself because of his treatment due to his sexuality, so its pretty important!

+1

The guy breaks the code for the Enigma Machine and later gets prosecuted for being gay. Pretty sad, really.

Monster Rain wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:Anything that makes the fox news drones and their fanbois nervous is a good thing in my book...

What about terrorism?

Nice try.


Though I am still waiting for them to report that Bin Laden was cloned and thus the need to bomb the gak out of some more places most of their followers can't find on a map...

CT GAMER wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:Anything that makes the fox news drones and their fanbois nervous is a good thing in my book...

What about terrorism?

Nice try.

No! Try not. Do, or do not; there is no try.

Monster Rain wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Yeah Alan Turing springs to mind, poor bloke topped himself because of his treatment due to his sexuality, so its pretty important!

+1

The guy breaks the code for the Enigma Machine and later gets prosecuted for being gay. Pretty sad, really.

The best man in WWII.

Kilkrazy wrote:Alan Turing.

I think this was a BIG one for me when I went into Computer Science. For me, who knew the Father of Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence was homosexual. And the abuse he endured for being gay (administered chemical castration) by the UK government.

Manstein wrote:Teach history. Teach what is important. If someone did something important, they should be included in the lesson plan regardless of race / sexual preference / ect.

People should not be included based exclusively on whether or not they fit X flavor, whether it be that they were gay / black / ect.

There shouldn't be special periods of time where history lessons are given about special groups. To do so not only devalues the message that they should be equal but also ends up continuing the idea that said group is different. There shouldn't be a black history month (or any equivalent), but rather, our history classes should be taught in such a way to make it so that the important events that took place (i.e. the Civil Rights Movement) are properly discussed.

Going out of the way to spend a month on Harvey Milk or whatever other interest happens to be taking root, simply takes away from the already dwindling historical knowledge of our children and replaces it with "highlights" that are often misconstrued and simply propagate stereotypes.

In a land of equality no one should be treated better than any one else, for we are all the same.

I think this is pretty big also. We try to eliminate one form of racism for another form of racism. While teaching about racism in history is a good thing, teaching the history of racism is not.

Still he is remembered in the symbol of the poisoned fruit with one bite taken from it, representing his death.

Kilkrazy wrote:Still he is remembered in the symbol of the poisoned fruit with one bite taken from it, representing his death.

Ah, yes, I remember a professor telling me where the Apple logo came about. Of course, I later found out it is false.

Bromsy wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/calif-gov-signs-landmark-law-to-teach-gay-history/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/us/15gay.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_Education_Act

Now I am all for y'know, gay kids (and kids in general) not killing themselves and whatnot, but this just seems odd to me. Are there a huge number of gay scientists that get ignored, or is the idea to emphasize the uh, gayness I guess, of the ones that are mentioned? It just seems like this sort of thing would be better suited to a human sexuality class than a history one.

Plus I guess I can't really grasp how this would be implemented. Like when you are talking about Greek philosophers do you talk about how they thought gettin' it on with other guys was groovy? Do you talk about how they were even bigger on pederasty, or do you leave that out because it's socially awkward and there is no pederast lobby? Please discuss, because I am somewhat mystified.

I fully support this. Now that California's students consistently lead the world in math, science, and problem solving scores, we can now devote time to more collateral issues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mattyrm wrote: Yeah Alan Turing springs to mind, poor bloke topped himself because of his treatment due to his sexuality, so its pretty important!

He's British. Who cares. In the Frazzled new world order you'll be paying the US protection money. We have to lower that national debt somehow.

Statement confusing? Be a DCM and learn the secret...of the riddle of El Presidente Frazzled..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CT GAMER wrote:

dogma wrote:

All of which use textbooks approved by the fiefdom of Texas.

Which seems like it must be a falsehood until you read up on it and realize that the lunatics have indeed been given the keys to the Asylum on this one...

Just another sign that Texas is superior, rest of the states inferior. Its not our fault the next President is going to have a Texas accent. Viva Me!
Here's the interesting question though. Absent Harvey Milk, its not exactly relevant is it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manstein wrote:Teach history. Teach what is important. If someone did something important, they should be included in the lesson plan regardless of race / sexual preference / ect.

People should not be included based exclusively on whether or not they fit X flavor, whether it be that they were gay / black / ect.

There shouldn't be special periods of time where history lessons are given about special groups. To do so not only devalues the message that they should be equal but also ends up continuing the idea that said group is different. There shouldn't be a black history month (or any equivalent), but rather, our history classes should be taught in such a way to make it so that the important events that took place (i.e. the Civil Rights Movement) are properly discussed.

Going out of the way to spend a month on Harvey Milk or whatever other interest happens to be taking root, simply takes away from the already dwindling historical knowledge of our children and replaces it with "highlights" that are often misconstrued and simply propagate stereotypes.

In a land of equality no one should be treated better than any one else, for we are all the same.

Oh my, I believe with Manstein.

Frazzled wrote:
He's British. Who cares.

You, apparently. Unless this...

Frazzled wrote:
In the Frazzled new world order you'll be paying the US protection money.

...was supposed to be a sensible, witty, and relevant comment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
Its not our fault the next President is going to have a Texas accent. Viva Me!

Would that be the Presidential candidate that doesn't exist, or the one that does and has virtually no chance at a nomination?

Frazzled wrote:
Here's the interesting question though. Absent Harvey Milk, its not exactly relevant is it?

No, of course not, because homosexuality has never been a significant issue in American, or global history. Its like race in that regard.

dogma wrote:
No, of course not, because homosexuality has never been a significant issue in American, or global history. Its like race in that regard.

I think it was significant for the homesexual being persecuted.

If it isn't significant; please explain why calling something 'gay' has become another way of calling something 'crap'. There must have been some kind of dominating social reason for this becoming the case and, i suspect, this reason is historical...

J.Black wrote:

dogma wrote:
No, of course not, because homosexuality has never been a significant issue in American, or global history. Its like race in that regard.

I think it was significant for the homesexual being persecuted.

If it isn't significant; please explain why calling something 'gay' has become another way of calling something 'crap'. There must have been some kind of dominating social reason for this becoming the case and, i suspect, this reason is historical...

I'm pretty sure dogma was being sarcastic there.

It's kind of hard to tell over the internet.