If the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance and the Christian Coalition have their way, this November you will be asked whether public schools can condone or support homosexuality.
Or you might be deciding whether public schools can allow free speech.
Then again, you might be voting on whether individual lifestyles are a matter for the government to legislate.
Depending on how you frame the issue, you might be voting on all of these. Because right now backers are stepping up efforts to qualify a ballot measure for the November election that would prohibit any discussion in Oregon schools that “encourages, promotes or sanctions” homosexuality.
While OCA President Lon Mabon has the right to bring the matter to voters’ attention, voters should turn this possible ballot measure down. Banning any discussion that “encourages, promotes or sanctions” homosexuality in public schools attacks free speech, ignores underlying issues of adolescent development and does not promote the tolerance that keeps societies functioning.
There’s no denying it’s a hot issue. All over the country, Americans are figuring out ways to frame the sensitive issues of homosexuality. Can homosexuals marry? Can they adopt? Can they be protected under the law like other minorities? Do they have special rights?
And for all the national discussion, Oregon has had its share. The OCA has put other ballot measures to Oregonians in the 1990s limiting the rights of homosexuals. One, in 1992, asked the Oregon state government to discourage homosexuality. Another, in 1994, asked Oregonians basically the same question only in softer language.
Both were defeated (56 percent “no” in 1992, and 52 percent “no” in 1994). But it seems that the OCA hasn’t got the message yet: Oregonians don’t want the government to legislate such personal morality.
This time the stakes are perhaps even higher. Public schools, while less open than universities and colleges, are unique and special places to learn about other people, oneself, society and culture — along with history, math and geography. For public schools to have limits on what kind of discussions can take place is dangerous, especially when one kind of discussion in particular is singled out for prohibition.
The OCA and the Christian Coalition are worried that being sensitive to homosexuals and bisexuals in public schools sends the message that being gay is a good way of life. Well, the flipside to that is that banning it would express that homosexuality is a bad way of life — and public schools are not supposed to decide that for anyone.
Moreover, the topics of sex, gender and character — all of which encompass certain aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality — come to light every day in public schools. Whom someone asks on a date, whom someone’s parent is living with, whom someone likes as a celebrity role model — these subjects are crucial to teenage living. To shut one out damages the development of young adults and ignores the reality that such subjects will be discussed anyway.
With the emotional problems facing teenagers today, it would be a shame for guidance counselors to have to turn away a student who is struggling with sexual issues just because the law tells counselors they can’t be supportive or even “sanction” any feelings.
There is irony in that the backers of the measure want private matters out of public schools, but they are fine with discussions of morality and sexuality that fit their definition of normal and acceptable. The government should leave personal matters alone. If anything, the government and schools should be accepting of all types of people, because all types of people make up the very fabric of this country.
You can’t ignore a whole segment of the population. And you can’t hide reality.