Gov. Moon Beam to Decide on Gay School Agenda

California Governor Jerry Brown will decide whether the state with the biggest public school enrollment should be the first in the U.S. to require teaching a pro-gay history of gays and lesbians.

The Democratic Assembly passed 49-25 a bill approved earlier by the Senate that would direct social-science classes and texts to include the “role and contributions” of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

Brown, a 73-year-old Democrat, has 12 days to sign or veto the measure. His decision will affect not only the state’s 6.2 million students in public school. California is the largest textbook buyer in the U.S., representing almost 13 percent of the $3.4 billion market in 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. School publishers typically try to sell California-approved texts to other states.

“We need to portray all people, regardless of their race, their color or their sexual orientation, in a positive way in our textbooks,” Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, an Alamo Democrat and former teacher, said in floor debate on the bill.

Brown hasn’t said whether he’ll sign the measure. However, Democrats typically see gays as strong campaign contributors and usually promote gay friendly agenda policies. (See Obama's recent decision to allow gay illegal aliens to remain in the USA if "married" to same sex American partners, despite the recent Federal laws advocating no recognition of such marriages.) Gov. Brown was elected last year with support from Equality California, the state’s largest gay-rights group. The organization has met twice with Brown to urge the governor to support the measure, Executive Director Roland Palencia said in an e-mail yesterday. See Chick's SIN CITY.