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Published: August 16, 2007

And the Republicans were silent

SB 777 -- a “Stealth Attack” advances through the California legislature.

The California legislature is expected to approve this month a bill redefining “gender and “discrimination” in a way that poses a moral threat to California’s schoolchildren. According to Catholics for the Common Good (ccgaction.org), the bill, SB 777, would “promote discrimination against the Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality.”

Termed the "Student Civil Rights Act," the bill’s intent, says the its author, Sheila Kuehl, is to protect California students from "bullying and harassment" and to "ensure a safe learning environment."

The legislation’s main impact, however, would be to prohibit any "instruction, school activities, or instructional material" that "reflects or promotes a discriminatory bias against" homosexual, transgender, or bisexual persons.

“Prohibiting bias” might sound innocuous, explains Catholics for the Common Good, until you understand what homosexual interest groups perceive as “discrimination” and “bias.” By these terms they refer to any recognition of the natural complementarity of male and female, the historic universality of marriage between male and female; normal human sexuality, traditional sexual ethics, and the natural family.

“For seven years, lesbian state senator Sheila Kuehl has been trying to pass a homosexual curriculum teaching affirmatively about gay, lesbian, and transgender issues from K-12,” Randy Thomasson of Campaign for Children and Families, told California Catholic Daily.

“This bill requires textbooks, instructional materials, and school-sponsored activities to positively portray cross-dressing, sex-change operations, homosexual ‘marriages,’ and all aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality.”

Moreover, said Thomasson, “silence on these sexual lifestyles will simply not be permitted. Schools or school boards who fail to cooperate with the program would be sued by the attorneys at the California Department of Education.”

“Lawsuit is the enforcement mechanism,” says Peter LaBarbera (AmericansForTruth.com), “and most people don’t realize what that means: the text will not define the law. The lawyers and courts will define the law.”

According to Catholics for the Common Good, law professor Francisco Valdes argued in the California Law Review that “Christianity itself is the cause of the oppression of gays, lesbians, transgender persons, and women.”

One international law expert cited by CCGaction.org, speaking in favor of a resolution strikingly similar to SB 777, explained, "Any time a teacher says that heterosexuality is in any way desirable, that is an act of homophobia. To teach in favor of the family is to abuse those who have traditionally not been able to participate in it."

These samples of the looming liberal legal consensus are pertinent precisely because the language of SB 777 is so vague. This ambiguity guarantees that school boards and teachers will proactively present all “sexualities” in order to avoid expensive lawsuits.

What’s worse, according to Thomasson, is that while Republicans in the legislature have generally voted against SB 777, not one of them has, to date, spoken out publicly against it. Thomasson warns that if it passes the Democratic-dominated legislature, as expected, without debate and on a swift party-line vote, only Governor Schwartzenegger’s veto will be able to stop the sexual restructuring of classroom instruction for California’s 6 million schoolchildren

© California Catholic Daily 2007. All Rights Reserved.