Combating prejudice through education

Last week in Massachusetts, a concerned father took a cheap shot at martyrdom when he refused to post bail after being arrested for trespassing on school property. Care to guess what made this man plant himself outside his son's kindergarten classroom?

He was apparently outraged by a booklet his son brought home that introduced all the different kinds of families. Since gay marriage is thankfully legal in the New England state, the booklet of course included same sex couples and their children.

What an outrage. How dare public education attempt to combat prejudice through knowledge.

The real outrage in this situation is that the purpose of public education, involving heightened awareness through learning, could be so blatantly neglected.

With the growing diversity of both national and global culture, it remains the responsibility of the school system to provide its pupils with all the appropriate skills needed to be conscious, contributing members of our society. Educators have no place in robbing students of the familiarity and tolerance gained from being neutrally exposed to the variety of people they will someday encounter.

The booklet handed out at the Massachusetts elementary school was hardly propaganda, as the father told reporters, it was merely meant to inform, as is the essence of education. Also claiming that homosexuality was a sin, he insisted that the school inform him immediately the moment being gay was mentioned anywhere near his son. The teachers agreed to do their best.

We are now brought to the important distinction between imparting knowledge and placing a value judgment. While public education must be free to accomplish the former, it also must not inhibit the family's privilege to influence the latter.

The truth of the matter is that homosexuality is a scientific fact and therefore warrants acknowledgement in our school systems' curriculum. As with all other scientific facts, such as evolution and racial distinctions, families are obviously entitled to apply their own religious and moral standards to these realities

That said, let's be realistic here -- an American student who never encounters a gay person is rapidly becoming a rarity and the chances of them meeting gay peers, authority figures or even relatives are more than likely. Being equipped only with the information that homosexuality is a sin, the student would be helpless to deal with the situation in an intellectually responsive manner.

Public education would have in effect done a disservice to the student.

On a note closer to home, Lake Washington High School is doing a disservice to its students every Sunday night. That's right, the high school is sanctioning weekly "anti-gay" therapy session led by the openly homophobic Rev. Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible School.

Now, that's propaganda for you.

It's preposterous to think a school would actually allow this kind of discrimination, bound to have devastating social and personal effects on specific students, to thrive upon its grounds.

Except of course if the principal happens to be a member of the Antioch Bible Church.

Preventing school systems from fulfilling their duty to share information and expose students to the social and scientific realities that exist both outside and inside the classroom becomes the promotion of ignorance. An ignorance that our constantly expanding culture just cannot afford. An ignorance that can ruin lives and destroy democracy.