These schools are in the activity of teaching tolerance. That sounds like a good thing. But it isn't.

The purpose of schools is to teach children how to think, not what to think.

Like it or not, tolerance for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders is a personal choice that everyone has to make on their own.

The school should be in the business of teaching facts, not opinions.

They should teach that people with the alternative lifestyles exist, are due to the genetic makeup of the person, and have the same fundamental rights as everyone else. That should be the entire scope of the lesson.

Students presented information, in a factual manner, should decide for themselves. There should be no bias in the information present.

The reason that there should be no bias in the way the information is presented, is that there are schools that will choose to present the information with the opposing bias. Be honest, Christian fundamentalists hate gays because the bible tells them to (yes, it's subject to interpretation).

If you allow the schools to choose to present with a tolerance bias, you will have schools presenting with a bias against tolerance.

Instead, if the facts are presented in an unbiased manner, more often than not, tolerance will be the result.

Hatred of those different than you is a learned trait, not an inherent one.

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Schools are not allowed to propose that children learn what is essentially untrue and hateful propaganda. Neither should parents insist that professional teachers berate even their own children with lies.

Yes, the most important factor in schools is to teach children how to learn, to reason and to critique everything, not to prescribe a list of what to think.
An Ethics class is preferable for teaching how to treat your neighbors fairly than any religion ever dreamed.

It is a fact that various parts of the Bible conflict with other parts and that, taken as a whole, it is a collection of stories of ancient Middle Eastern belief systems, written as literature.

Let the public schools serve only for an integrated public education. Parents and pastors who want to mandate a religious beliefs education for their own children should set up their own religious schools. It is never going to be acceptable to teach religious propaganda in public schools in America.

I am a religious person and I certainly would not want anyone else to teach my children or anyone else's how to think about my own religion. Sensible people know what a minefield that could become. It's an obvious attempt at brainwashing for political and social gain.

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"As American society becomes more gay-friendly, so must public schools."

Another real winner of an article. How many is that in a row now?

Schools are not built, nor is individual academic progress achieved by basing anything at all on ones sexual orientation or preference. There are no requirements to even mention sexual preference to gain any type of degree. Again, as with your other articles, you mix sexual matters with politics, and now education. None of which has any direct connection whatsoever.

School is for education, not for being "friends" with anyone based on sexual orientation or preferences.

--rjs

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What the author is advocating is social engineering in schools- not education. This kind of mucking around with the curriculum has contributed to the decline in the quality of our public schools.

When public money is spent for the education of our children here are the priorities:
1- Language skills (reading, writing and research).
2- Computational skills (mathematics and analytic skills).
3- History & Political Science.
4- Natural & Applied Sciences.
5- Art (Music, Visual Art, Theater).
6- Human health and fitness (Phys Ed).

That's It. Not the knuckle-dragging right's agenda and not the granola left's agenda.

Like an earlier post, the idea should not be teaching people what to think. What is needed is practice and instruction in the processes of critical thought- not indoctrination.

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"Schools are not built, nor is individual academic progress achieved by basing anything at all on ones sexual orientation or preference. There are no requirements to even mention sexual preference to gain any type of degree."

What you're suggesting is that educational materials should have no mention of families or love relationships of any kind. Because when a book tells a story about mom, dad, and kids it is likely portraying a heterosexual family. Heterosexual is a sexual orientation. Along with bisexual and homosexual. And asexual, some would add.

Kids of non-heterosexual families need to see their families positively represented in school books and films in the same way that kids of non-white families need to see themselves reflected. Gay kids need to read books with gay characters so they don't grow up feeling like freaks and hide themselves in shame until their parents find them hanging from a belt in their bedrooms. (Sorry for this image, but a high percentage of youth suicide is related to being tormented about nonconforming sexuality.)

For god's sake, sexual orientations are simply variations on a theme much like handedness. We've got righties, lefties, and the lucky ambidextrous.

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...instead of on the pro's ("you will approve of my lifestyle choices") and con's ("we hates us some king on king action") of Kings and Kings living happily ever after, I suspect we might just elevate this discussion beyond silliness, in a matter of a few short years.

Can the child read? Can he or she add at a grade-appropriate level? Are they still in that sort of business at the public school level? If not, be prepared to find alternatives--they can be found aplenty.

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