MACS wrote:The 100% FACT of the matter is this... less than 2% of the world's population is gay, lesbian, trans, what-the-fk-ever...
So why, in the name of all that is holy and good in this world, is it so important to teach our children about this when they're in grade school, middle school, or even high school?? Think about that.
It is not the government's responsibility to teach our children anything but reading, writing and arithmetic. Parents should be teaching the rest.
I'll share some general thoughts of mine as if we were talking in person, but I have no interest in getting more involved in the specifics of Florida's debate...
It's my opinion that the least important thing is what is the percent. Most of what I've heard/read over recent years places the number about double your stats, and that's still a tiny amount of the population...even accounting for so many still fearful of being counted and/or in denial (shameful). So what if N. Korea has zero, right?
But I've spent most of my life believing that the minority, especially a tiny minority, make up the percent of the population for whom rights are most fragile and for whom protection
from the majority is most critical, in America. It's a box that must be checked or we are being dishonest about much of our claims about "All Men".
Bear in mind that even the numbers you are using are far more than the number of Jews on the planet, just to use an example that is close to my heart. Just my perspective. Yet most fair minded educated citizens consider knowledge of the history of my people a lesson on what not to repeat. Never Again. Never again should we hide who we are in order to avoid persecution. Make that never again should anyone...
I am not an expert on what should or should not make up the curriculum in public schools, even if the subject is reading lists for specific courses like American authors of the south in the late 19th century. Yet I don't disagree with questions about appropriate age for subjects dealing with sexuality and all that encompasses. But I also don't want to close closet doors again as that marginalizes and hides and shames an admittedly tiny percent of the population that had just started to feel safe enough to come out. I don't want laws specific to any group. Local debate can handle local curriculum...C-Bid Law of proximity and stuff applies here.
Of course you're correct that parents should be teaching lots of stuff instead of leaving it to the schools. I happen to have had the good fortune to have lived with a 35 year plus specialist whom you've met and raised a now 10 year veteran and head of the English department at the local high school who say parents ain't even teaching kids to respect the classroom authority figure so they waste time teaching manners, respect, discipline...all the stuff that should be prerequisites to entering school in order to be taught in the first place. I've drifted, sorry.
I guess I could sum up my thoughts more clearly by saying if we really had been living as prescribed in the Constitution (and Bill of Rights) this thread wouldn't have even existed.