The education policy committee in the California State Senate will hear testimony today for and against the FAIR Education Act, introduced by State Senator Mark Leno. This act would, “prohibit discriminatory education and ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are fairly and accurately included in instructional materials,” according the the press release from the GSA Network and Equality California, the two sponsors of the bill.

Basically, LGBT people and historic events in the LGBT movement would legally have to show up in school textbooks. In what capacity? Leno hopes that the LGBT struggle will show up in textbooks as a civil rights movement, highlighting important events, like when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses in 1972.  "Imagine how different the interaction among students would be if, in an age-appropriate fashion - this issue of homosexuality and this issue of the LGBT community is all a part of a civil rights movement. Not unlike other civil rights movements,” said Leno.

"I think we’ve all been horrified by this ongoing phenomenon, if not crisis, of bullying going on within our schools, leading to tragic suicides among our LGBT youth in the past couple of years,” said Leno. “And it seems to me that as human beings, it’s not uncommon that we fear and dislike that which is uncommon or unknown to us.”

Leno contends that dealing with this fear of the unknown could help eliminate peer violence in schools. “If we were to better educate our students so that there would be more familiarity with those who are different from the societal norm, children would grow up with a more understanding and  accepting attitude, and there would be more respect from students on school campuses,” he said.

By: Joseph Christopher Rocha

This week I joined hundreds of gay and lesbians veterans (even one active duty gay vet currently stationed in Iraq), flooded the halls of U.S. Capitol as part of Veterans Lobby Day on Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT). But our stories of valor and patriotism were not all received by willing and interested ears.

Three years ago Don't Ask Don't Tell silenced me from reporting repeated abuse by fellow soldiers and my unit chief, all because they suspected I was gay. But when I told my story to Congressman Dan Lungren's (R-CA) Legislative Director Kevin Holsclaw, he dismissively replied, "The Representative does not support social experiments in our armed services." One floored comrade recounted how the most pressing inquiry on Representative Dana Rohrabacher's (R-CA) mind regarding DADT, was whether or not she had ever "engaged in homosexual acts" during her career.

by the audacity of representatives and their staffers to look veterans in our eyes and tell us they couldn't care less about our mental health, job security and human dignity, I hurried off Capitol Hill, hoping my one o'clock might be more fruitful.

I dialed the 202 number as I exited the cab and hurried into a coffee shop across from the White House. Inside I scanned the crowd. What does a Deputy Director to the President even look like?
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SYRACUSE, NY-- You may have seen members of the Open Air Campaigners bringing their version of Christ's love-- the one that hates all things gay-- or similar crusaders out and about, holding signs proclaiming homosexuality a sin. Julie Zeilinger's fbomb, the teenage feminist blog, highlights a recent story about Syracuse University student Chris Pesto who took offense to one of the Campaigners appearing on his campus and retaliated with a sign of his own:

This woman was wearing a ankle-length corduroy skirt, which, as we all know, is a fashion nono. So, in order to make her feel uncomfortable, I stood next to her and held a sign that said Corduroy skirts are a sin! I don’t think I have ever drawn so much attention in my life. SO many people asked to take a picture with me, I got laughs, high fives and there were the few that even cursed off the woman standing behind me.

More of Chris' own words, Julie's take, and reports from Syracuse University over at fbomb.

We met Joseph Rocha at an anti-Prop 8 rally in San Francisco back in May. Little did we know at the time that his story would prove to be so compelling. This week we asked Joseph to share his story with the audience of KQED-FM, and he produced the following Perspective.

By: Joseph Christopher Rocha