California Parents to Schools: Don't Tell Our Children to Stop Bullying Gays
In a perfect world, this would only be a story worthy of The Onion. But alas, a group of California parents are seriously trying to push the Vallejo City Unified School District to drop an anti-bullying program that fosters respect for all students. Why? Because the program addresses anti-gay bullying, and says that LGBT youth shouldn't be beat up or harassed in schools.For a small yet vocal group of parents, that comes too close to endorsing homosexuality. So they want the bullying program dropped, or at least given permission to opt their children out of the curriculum.
Huh, what good is an anti-bullying program if students aren't required to go through it? And do parents really need to give permission for their children to learn values like respect and nonviolence?
That's the question that one family in the school district is asking. That would be the family of Rochelle Hamilton, who filed a lawsuit against the school district years ago for ignoring the anti-gay harassment that Hamilton, an openly lesbian student, suffered while going to class. The result of that lawsuit was that the Vallejo Unified City School District would enact comprehensive anti-bullying programs, including a series of short films known under the banner of "Respect for All."
It's these films that are drawing the ire of social conservatives now, because they touch on showing respect for people regardless of their sexual orientation. That ire has Rochelle Hamilton totally perplexed,according to the Contra Costa Times.
"It's a video. It's about making the world better, so why would you get mad? It's not like it's something that's harmful or dangerous; everybody's just trying to be happy. Really, that's all it is," Hamilton said.
That's also a point that was made particularly well by our own Cristian Asher a couple weeks ago, when he wrote that schools are the perfect venue to address bullying. Some parents may not approve of homosexuality, and that's their right. But in a civilized (not to mention secular) society, schools have the responsibility of making sure all students are safe, regardless of their sexual orientation.
"The truth is, anti-bullying programs like this one exemplify the kind of social training that schools must do every single day, along with all that reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. Schools are social incubators, and to fail in this area would handicap their graduates just as much as illiteracy does," Asher wrote. "Inclusion of LGBT students as part of such an anti-bullying curriculum also exemplifies the school's responsibility, because the fact is that LGBT people do exist in our world, even in Vallejo, and even around [parents] who want nothing to do with them. For a school district not to address this very current and devastating issue of how to treat other people, including people of minority gender identities, would be a complete abdication of its duty to its students."
The scary part in all of this is that these parents are looking to step up the pressure on Vallejo to drop the program, or let them opt their children out. The next school board meeting is slated for December 8, and it's possible this issue could come up.
Photo credit: iboy_daniel
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