California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 48 on Thursday, making California the first U.S. state required to teach students about the contributions of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders.
Also known as the Fair, Accountable, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act (FAIR Act), SB 48 was written by self-admitted homosexual state Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco. The bill passed the Assembly Education committee on June 22, and on July 5 the state Assembly sent it through to Gov. Jerry Brown on a 49-25 vote.
“History should be honest,” Brown said in a statement. “This bill revises existing laws that prohibit discrimination in education and ensures that the important contributions of Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life are included in our history books. It represents an important step forward for our state, and I thank Senator Leno for his hard work on this historic legislation.”
The California Board of Education is now required by law to create textbooks and other materials that highlight the homosexual community’s contributions to the economic, political and social development of California and the U.S. Daily Mail reports that although the bill will take effect in January, textbooks will not likely be changed until 2015.
The FAIR Act also requires that textbooks and materials—for students in kindergarten through 12th grade—must present lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, groups and lifestyles in a positive manner. Nothing negative or perceived to be negative about them can be presented.
According to Maryal Boumann, director of Pray California, the law will only affect public schools and does not apply to private schools, including church schools and home schooling.
“Today we are making history in California by ensuring that our textbooks and instructional materials no longer exclude the contributions of LGBT Americans,” Leno said. He went on to thank Brown for recognizing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community.
Although many in the LGBT community are celebrating, others are angry. The Traditional Values Coalition, “the largest non-denominational, grassroots church lobby in America” according to its website, has made it a priority to squash the bill.
“It is an outrage that Governor Jerry Brown has opened the classroom door for homosexual activists to indoctrinate the minds of California’s youth, since no factual materials would be allowed to be presented,” Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of TVC, said in a statement Thursday. “By signing SB 48 today, California’s classrooms, textbooks and instructional materials will all become pro-homosexual promotion tools. If parents don’t already have their children out of public schools, this should cause them to remove them.”
California parents are not the only ones who need to worry about the effect this bill will have on their children. As California is one of the nation’s largest suppliers of textbooks, public school students in other states are bound to be affected by the FAIR Act.
“I feel sorry for those states because we’ve not done a good job defending our families and our children, and we have the wrong kind of people in Sacramento,” Earl DeVries, a former candidate for the California Senate, told onenewsnow.com. “And this is the consequence of our lack of involvement.”
DeVries disagreed with Brown’s assertion that the bill is an important step forward for the state. “Well, it really isn’t,” he contends. “Of course their ultimate agenda is to normalize homosexuality, [but] the Lord says that’s wrong. And we are going to be suffering the consequences of those decisions now.”
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