Also known as the "If we ignore them, maybe they'll go away" bill

/the stupid, it burns

Certainly this will create many jobs for the people of Tennessee.

TFA says that it would preventing teaching kindergarten students about homosexuality.

I have two kids in early elementary and I support that. I don't think we should be teaching kindergarten kids about heterosexuality or homosexuality. They don't need to teach them that parents mean one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Teach them that their family are the people the live with that love them and look after them, their parents are the ones responsible for them, how many sides a triangle has and why it is important to wash your hands after you pee and not to hit your classmates.

TN isn't really trying to prevent a gay agenda, it is that they want to continue promoting a traditional Christian one.

It's true. I heard them say "gay" in the Flinstones' theme, and *boom!* I was sucking dick. It was OK, though. The playpen gave it a rough trade/prison sex kinda feel.

CitizensUnited: this doesn't quite make up for Al Gore, but nice to see Tennessee get something right once in a while.

Censorship is such an American value.

whidbey: mrshowrules: TFA says that it would preventing teaching kindergarten students about homosexuality.

I have two kids in early elementary and I support that. I don't think we should be teaching kindergarten kids about heterosexuality or homosexuality. They don't need to teach them that parents mean one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Yeah well you know what?

How about letting teachers teach? What a concept.

Good teaching means teaching the right material according to the stage of development. At Kindergarten, the only thing the should be teaching in terms of sexuality is knowledge of what their private parts of their bodies are and that people are not allowed to touch them there. Pushing a socio-political agenda that is not age appropriate is just as wrong as preventing a socio-political agenda. I agree, let the teacher's teach because teacher's know what is age appropriate.

CPennypacker: mrshowrules: TFA says that it would preventing teaching kindergarten students about homosexuality.

I have two kids in early elementary and I support that. I don't think we should be teaching kindergarten kids about heterosexuality or homosexuality. They don't need to teach them that parents mean one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Teach them that their family are the people the live with that love them and look after them, their parents are the ones responsible for them, how many sides a triangle has and why it is important to wash your hands after you pee and not to hit your classmates.

TN isn't really trying to prevent a gay agenda, it is that they want to continue promoting a traditional Christian one.

Which they shouldn't be doing

I agree.

Call 'em freaks until they string up. It's tradition.

A Dark Evil Omen: mrshowrules: TFA says that it would preventing teaching kindergarten students about homosexuality.

I have two kids in early elementary and I support that. I don't think we should be teaching kindergarten kids about heterosexuality or homosexuality. They don't need to teach them that parents mean one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Teach them that their family are the people the live with that love them and look after them, their parents are the ones responsible for them, how many sides a triangle has and why it is important to wash your hands after you pee and not to hit your classmates.

TN isn't really trying to prevent a gay agenda, it is that they want to continue promoting a traditional Christian one.

"Traditional Christian agenda" bullshiat aside (since it is not the State's prerogative to push religion), I'm fine with what you're saying if that means that family makeup should be treated agnostically (in other words, instead of schoolbooks for kindergardeners talking about mom and dad they mix and match, and the like). If you're saying "don't talk about heterosexuality and homosexuality per se but continue treating heterosexual relationships as completely normative", that's not okay.

And that is what I suspect you and TN are saying.

Then you missed it. Don't teach Christian or Progressive issues regarding sexuality to kids in Kindergarten. Because of where the kids are developmentally at that age. My issue is age. I'm faulting TN on creating a false boogey man (see Sharia Law) when it comes to pro-gay agenda at that age. It is bullshiat. Being concerned with this in Kindergarten is like being concerned with Sharia law in Oklahoma. I think I just did poor job explaining it.

At that age, you teach concepts of basic social constructs ("These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood", what a family is, what parents are"). You don't need to be talking about sexual preference (Sylvie has two mom's) because the kids don't care. They are more interested in knowing if you have a cat or dog at your house and how big it is. Social-diversity issues like that become much more important in middle-elementary school and you really don't need to spend much time and that either but at that point it makes more sense to explain variations in families and relationships. They have enough context to absorb the information.

mrshowrules:
At that age, you teach concepts of basic social constructs ("These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood", what a family is, what parents are"). You don't need to be talking about sexual preference (Sylvie has two mom's) because the kids don't care. They are more interested in knowing if you have a cat or dog at your house and how big it is. Social-diversity issues like that become much more important in middle-elementary school and you really don't need to spend much time and that either but at that point it makes more sense to explain variations in families and relationships. They have enough context to absorb the information.


"Sylvie has two moms" is not talking about sexual preference, it's talking about different kinds of families, and kids of that age definitely are learning that different people have different kinds of families. Just like kids learn that some children only live with their mother or with their father, or are being raised by grandparents, or live with a parent and stepparent, they learn that some kids have two mommies and some kids have two daddies and all of those things are different kinds of families. Sex isn't part of the equation at all.

In any case, kindergartners figure out a lot. When I was four, I knew that the father of my friend down the street only had one leg because he got the other one blown off by a land mine in Vietnam. I'm pretty sure that if I could handle that rather gruesome information at four, I would have been quite capable of handling the nice sweet information that some kids have two dads or two moms who love them very much.

FWIW, here's the relevant text from the bill

As it was originally written:

(1) The general assembly recognizes the sensitivity of particular subjects
that are best explained and discussed in the home. Human sexuality is a
complex subject with societal, scientific, psychological, and historical
implications; those implications are best understood by children with sufficient
maturity to grasp their complexity.
(2) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no public elementary or
middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual
orientation other than heterosexuality.

Section 2 is being replace with the following:

(2) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, any instruction or materials
made available or provided at or to a public elementary or middle school shall be limited exclusively to natural human reproduction science. The provisions of this subdivision shall also apply to a group or organization that provides instruction in natural human reproduction science in public elementary or middle schools.

They tried something like this in Oregon some years back (in either 2000 or '02... I forget precisely). It would've banned reference to homosexuality entirely in schools. Teaching about gay victims of the Holocaust or the Stonewall Riots in a history class would've been illegal. Thankfully it failed.

mrshowrules: TFA says that it would preventing teaching kindergarten students about homosexuality.

I have two kids in early elementary and I support that. I don't think we should be teaching kindergarten kids about heterosexuality or homosexuality. They don't need to teach them that parents mean one dad and one mom or two dads or two moms or whatever.

Teach them that their family are the people the live with that love them and look after them, their parents are the ones responsible for them, how many sides a triangle has and why it is important to wash your hands after you pee and not to hit your classmates.

TN isn't really trying to prevent a gay agenda, it is that they want to continue promoting a traditional Christian one.

Erm, is this really an issue? Are there people "teaching" sexuality to kindergartners? Also, we're not a Christian country, so I don't know how your religious views are pertinent to public schooling.

This whole argument seems to be tackling a non-existent problem.