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Now It’s the Law! California Schools Must Push Homosexuality

Pushed out of the news cycle by the spectacle of catastrophic wildfires, California lawmakers have legislated a revolution in their state’s public education system.

Lee Duigon
  • Lee Duigon
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Listen to Chris Ortiz's Interview with Randy Thomasson on this important topic!

This is the worst law promoting alternative sexual lifestyles in the California school system that has ever been passed. If your child stays in public school, he will be sexually indoctrinated! —Randy Thomasson

Pushed out of the news cycle by the spectacle of catastrophic wildfires, California lawmakers have legislated a revolution in their state’s public education system.

For the first time, state law now requires classroom instruction to promote a positive view of homosexuality and other deviant sexual behaviors.

For the first time, one of California’s mainstream pro-family advocacy groups is calling on parents in the state to remove their children from the public schools.

“This is the last straw. It has opened my mouth,” said Randy Thomasson, founder and president of Campaign for Children and Families (see www.savecalifornia.com). “We are calling on parents who love their children to remove them from the public school system.

“The slow but steady death of the public school system has now been punctuated by the quick death of children’s innocence if they remain in those schools,” Thomasson told Chalcedon. “Never before has there been such a radical change in the laws that deal with classroom instruction. It’s all-encompassing.”

What the New Laws Say

At issue are two bills passed last month by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—who vetoed almost identical legislation a year ago. The two new laws, SB 777 and AB 394, will go into effect in January.

Attorney Bruce Shortt, author of The Harsh Truth About Public Schools (Chalcedon 2004), analyzed the new laws and pronounced them “a complete victory for sexual deviants.

“The potential for litigation is absolutely endless,” he said, “and I am sure that the homosexuals and other ‘sexual minorities’ will use litigation, and, especially, the threat of litigation, to get whatever they want.” Behind the “soporific legislative prose,” he said, the effect of the laws would be “indeed quite radical.”

Section 220 of SB 777, he quoted, declares, “No person shall be subjected to discrimination on the basis of … sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes … in any program or activity conducted by an educational institution that receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance or enrolls pupils who receive state student financial aid.”

Section 51500 reads, “No teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that promotes a discriminatory bias …” (emphasis added).

To this broad language, Section 210.7 adds, “‘Gender’ means sex, and includes a person’s gender identification and gender-related behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth” (emphasis added).

“SB 777 treats ‘gender’ as if it is entirely socially constructed,” Shortt said. “Thus, if you have adopted a gender identification as a woman, the fact that your birth sex is male cannot be used in any way to ‘discriminate’ against you.”

In effect, the law denies that there is any such thing as one’s biologically determined “gender,” any such thing as “male” or “female.” For the purposes of the law, you are whatever sex you say you are—and your claim, no matter how preposterous, must be treated as reality by school authorities.

“The possibilities here are endless—Bible clubs, any activity, text, or teaching that portrays traditional families in a positive light, etc., could easily be argued to be either discriminatory because they ‘privilege heteronormativity’ or tend to foster a discriminatory bias against any group included in the definitions of ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender,’” Shortt said.

What Will Happen?

As the bills were being debated in the legislature, Randy Thomasson said, there was “a virtual media blackout” and “only a snippet of coverage after the bills were signed. The newspapers virtually ignored this, and so most Californians are very poorly informed about it, if they are aware of it at all.”

In the “news media,” reportage has emphasized such possible effects of the new laws as “a ban on ‘mom’ and ‘dad’” and the abolition of separate restrooms for girls and boys in schools (for example, see http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58154). The laws’ supporters deny such things would occur.

“I’m not going to talk about what could happen,” Thomasson said, “but here’s what will happen.

“All instruction, all school activities, will effectively and eventually be required to positively portray homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgenderism, etc., to children in these schools. There’s no other way to comply.

“This is the worst law promoting alternative sexual lifestyles in the California school system that has ever been passed. If your child stays in public school, he will be sexually indoctrinated!”

SB 777, he said, changes classroom instruction to put a positive gloss on homosexuality: for instance, “social studies” lessons would emphasize “gay and bisexual” historical figures.

“If a child objects, or disagrees, then the other law, AB 394, takes effect,” Thomasson said. “The child will be labeled a ‘harasser,’ and made subject to ‘specialized training.’

“Dissent will not be tolerated. Neither will mere silence. In fact, sensitivity training may be required for the dissenting child’s parents. The law could be interpreted that way. School officials might be able to call in the child’s parents for a ‘conference.’

“I can’t predict exactly how they’ll implement the law. But we are inviting every parent who loves their child to make changes now.”

What Else Can Be Done?

Other critics of the new laws have stopped short of calling for a mass exodus from the public schools. Some have suggested holding a statewide referendum to overturn the laws.

“California is in love with ballot procedures. It’s a reaction to our bad legislature,” Thomasson said. “But a referendum won’t work. They’ll just pass the same law all over again, under a different name.”

Others have suggested amending the state constitution to forbid the schools from carrying on any kind of sexual indoctrination (see “Constitutional change would fix ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad’ ban,” http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58231 ).

“We support the idea of a constitutional amendment, but we prefer to pull out our kids,” Thomasson said. “The earliest the people could vote on an amendment would be on the 2008 ballot, but we are not actively trying to do this. Children in California schools will begin to be sexually indoctrinated in January of 2008, and the longer you have them in those schools, the greater the chance they will be brainwashed.”

Even if the voters approve an amendment next year, he said, its implementation would probably be delayed by litigation—lawsuits that would work their way through the state courts and possibly all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.

Yes, You Can Homeschool

In California, Thomasson said, there are already 125,000 families homeschooling their children.

“There’s help and there’s curriculum available for families who want to start homeschooling,” he said. “I know a lot of parents have doubts about their ability to homeschool. But in light of this new legislation, we need to turn ‘can’t’ into ‘can’ because there’s no other option.”

California parents, he said, can either file notice with their local school board of intent to homeschool, enroll their children in a local Christian school, or pursue a program of “independent study” approved by their county board of education. “Additionally,” he said, “single parents who want to homeschool need support from their churches.

“People have to stop seeing their children as interferences or impediments, and must start teaching them themselves. They have to get their priorities straight. They’ll have to make some sacrifices. Forget about that new car every year, that new home entertainment system, whatever—your children have to come first.”

What’s true for California today, Thomasson said, will be true for the rest of the country someday soon.

“Public school parents throughout America need to seriously plan to pull their kids out,” he said. “California’s example will spread. The new, gay-friendly textbooks California will require will be used in other states.

“Don’t say you can’t homeschool. Now is a time for courage.”

An Anti-Family Agenda

California’s new education laws fail to make clear what constitutes “discriminatory bias.” This omission throws open the door to practically any complaint, no matter how fatuous.

What we see here is only the latest in a long chain of public “educators” trying to remake society according to their own political and cultural predilections—a constant feature of the public education enterprise since its inception in the early 19th century.

This summer Chalcedon reported on a decision by the Maryland State Board of Education to uphold “comprehensive sex education” in Montgomery County (see http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2755). The language of the board’s ruling reveals how public educators from the Atlantic to the Pacific think about sexual morality and moral authority.

“Tolerance of sexual diversity,” according to the board, is a “civic virtue,” while insisting on adherence to God’s moral law is equivalent to Holocaust denial. Even more chilling is the board’s assertion that although “It is, of course, the fundamental right of a parent to control the upbringing of his/her children … that right is not absolute. It must bend to the state’s duty to educate its citizens” (emphasis added).

The state of California has taken the next step: enacting the educators’ anti-Christian worldview into law. Although public educators nationwide have been promoting sexual deviance to children for years, they are now, in California, required to do so. Teachers who don’t will not be in compliance with the law.

We are at a loss to understand why parents allow this or to predict how much more of it they will tolerate before they revolt.

There is no way to substitute man’s law for God’s law without falling into sin. Christian homeschooling, or enrolling your child in a Christian school, is the way of obedience to God’s law. Depositing them in a public school, to be taught by strangers who have a sociopolitical agenda inimical to Christian faith and practice, is not.

Although the ideology of public education has always been anti-family, anti-religious, and statist to the core, in practice it was not always so. Reflecting upon an earlier generation of public schooling, R. J. Rushdoony wrote in 1963:

“What health there is in kindergarten has come, not from the educational philosophers, but from loving and healthy-minded teachers. These women, oblivious of theory and curriculum, have taken shy children, awed by the world of learning, gently in hand.”[1]

Much of the resistance to the idea of removing children from the public schools comes from parents and grandparents who remember that cleaner, greener time in education. Randy Thomasson, indeed, is the son and grandson of public school teachers. It cannot be easy for him, personally, to speak against this aspect of his family heritage.

But that cleaner, greener time has long since passed away, and California’s new public education laws will not allow it to be brought back. And whatever loving, healthy-minded teachers remain in the system will find their hands tied by the law.


[1] Rushdoony, The Messianic Character of American Education (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1963; 1995 edition), 283.


Lee Duigon
  • Lee Duigon

Lee is the author of the Bell Mountain Series of novels and a contributing editor for our Faith for All of Life magazine. Lee provides commentary on cultural trends and relevant issues to Christians, along with providing cogent book and media reviews.

Lee has his own blog at www.leeduigon.com.

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