Saturday, July 16, 2011

Twitter Watch: History Lesson

I was just on Twitter and I noticed that someone I follow (kylelj89) was being hounded by someone (AmericanElephant) about a California education bill. For those who don't know, Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a bill that would require California public schools to teach the contribution gay people have made to society here in America. Surprise surprise, the right is in an uproar over this, AmericanElephant included apparently. A particular post he made got my attention (and one that requires a response beyond 140 characters):

This reminds me of the question "why is there no straight pride parade" I hear every June. Well, just like life is pretty much a straight pride parade, history is also implicitly straight, since people assume, unless told otherwise, that historical figures are heterosexual...just like people are today. Fact: the majority of people are straight, today, yesterday, and tomorrow. However, despite the vast majority of historical figures being straight, some significant ones are not. The idea behind this bill is that we point out people of the past who were gay and tell what they have contributed to society so that kids who are growing up and starting to figure out that they are different have someone to look up to and are less likely to feel ashamed of who they are. These kids will have role models and they will know that they too can contribute to society, even (or especially) in the face of bigotry. Just like I growing up and being African-American had the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., kids growing up gay today will have the likes of Harvey Milk. This is a good thing and hopefully other states will do something similar.

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