more proposal 8

As I was writing the previous blog, I began to really think about how issues like the ones raised by Proposal 8 impact schools. I wondered how much these issues are talked about in a school setting, if at all. While searching around for more information, I came across an article that I found very interesting that seems to answer a few of my own questions.
The California Progress Report had an article titled Schrag: Yes on 8 Campaign Tries to Scare and Mislead Voters into Writing Ban on Same Sex Marriage into California Constitution before the proposal passed. The article describes how the campaign in favor of Proposal 8 ran a TV ad that featured a law professor from Pepperdine University. In the ad, the professor cited a federal appellate court decision in Massachusetts (where gay marriage is legal) which affirms a lower court ruling denying parents of a couple of young children the right to be notified when gay marriage is discussed in their classrooms. This really stands out to me for a few reasons.
First, the court rulings in that case are very interesting. For one of the kids in the case, the court said, "(T)here is no evidence of systemic indoctrination. There is no allegation that Joey was asked to affirm gay marriage."In the case of the other kid, the court ruled that the books were read in his classroom "do not endorse gay marriage or homosexuality, or even address these topics explicitly, but merely describe how other children might come from families that look different from one's own." The object of the books, the court said, was tolerance toward different lifestyles and different kinds of relationships. Further, the court ruled that "Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them. …" I think this is so important because it directly relates to what we talk about in class. During the last class session, we were discussing whether or not controversial topics can be discussed in class. Here, the court ruled that literature that includes issues such as same sex parents do not need to be left out of the classroom. What I liked most was the fact that the court used the words "shield individual students". We should not be shielding students from these issues, and instead, we should be talking about them.

Secondly, the article really pointed out how misleading media can be. The TV ad that this article focuses on talks about these two cases as if the schools were telling the students that they need to agree with gay marriage when in fact, the literature and discussion presented to the students was just increasing awareness of the types of families that students could come from. Of course, advertisements from the other side may have been just as misleading, as most media and propaganda for political events can be. But what this showed me is that as a future teacher, I must pay close attention to the media that I am seeing. It is crucial to not believe every ad, and to really look into what information these ads are presenting.

Overall, I thought that it was interesting to see just how much current events such as Proposal 8 relate to my life as a future teacher. To me, the article represents what obstacles I may face as a teacher. The court cases mentioned occurred because students were introduced to diversity and their parents were outraged by it. Balancing providing students with awareness of the world around them with respecting their home life and possible "shielding" from parents will be a constant struggle that as teachers, we must deal with on a daily basis.