Alberta parents’ rights bill advances

Alameda school board adopts plan to halt anti-gay bullying

School district leaders have approved lesson plans for kindergartners through fifth graders that aim to curb anti-gay bullying.

Trustees voted 3-2 on Tuesday to adopt the Safe Schools curriculum, which supporters say will help children of gay parents feel welcome at school and help end anti-gay teasing and bullying on the playground.

The lessons also aim to provide a safe environment for children to learn, as well as to offer a framework for teachers to break down stereotypes and teach kids about different types of families.

“The need for this is real,” said Beth Kromer, a fourth-grade teacher at Ruby Bridges Elementary School.

Brian Harris, a 16-year-old student at the Alameda Community Learning Center, told trustees that he has been called anti-gay epithets on campus.

“I have been harassed by other students in the classroom and I have even begun to consider just stopping and giving up on life,” Harris said.

Opponents of the curriculum said it would undercut parents’ rights to teach their children about relationships and sexual orientation, and that it pushed a political agenda without addressing ways to help other groups who may be singled out at school.

Trustee Trish Spencer, who voted no, said she was concerned that lessons about other vulnerable students were not on the table.

See Alameda school board adopts plan to halt anti-gay bullying San Jose Mercury News

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/alameda-schoo…

Gay parents row splits French government Indopia

A French bill granting rights to stepparents sparked a row in government today when a minister described it as an under-handed way of recognising gay parents and vowed to fight the measure.

Housing Minister Christine Boutin, a staunch Catholic and vocal opponent of gay rights in France, said the proposed legislation contained provisions on homosexual couples that were surreptitiously included.

“I will not accept that we recognise homosexual parenting and adoptions by homosexual couples in an under-handed way,”said Boutin in a statement.

“ Recognising the status of stepparents will lead to the de facto recognition of homosexual parenting and adoptions by homosexual couples,”she said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy last month announced the new legislation giving stepparents rights over the children they raise, saying it would bring the law in step with the modern reality of reconstituted families. See Gay parents row splits French government Indopia

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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/gay-parents-r…

LGBT Rights: The Civil-Rights Struggle of Generation Y

I’ve always felt connected to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. As a child, my family shared with me their stories of growing up in rural South Carolina during a time when being spat at or being called the N-word was more than just a common occurrence–it was applauded. And I, as a 23-year-old Black man, have had my own run-ins with racists and bigots, albeit not as severely as it was for my parents.

See LGBT Rights: The Civil-Rights Struggle of Generation Y
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