Panel Approves Ban on Gay Bias in Schools

After hearing graphic testimony about taunts and threats against gay and lesbian students, an Assembly committee voted Tuesday to approve legislation banning discrimination against homosexuals in California public schools.

The 8-6 vote by the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee approving the bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), marked the first time such a bill has been passed by a legislative committee. The vote opened one of the first fractious debates of the 1997 legislative session. The final outcome remains unclear, although the bill is considered likely to receive support in its next two committee stops in the legislative process.

Kuehl, the Legislature’s first openly gay member, argued that the legislation merely adds gays and lesbians to the categories of students who already receive protection from discrimination aimed at a person’s race, religion, education, national origin or disability.

The bill would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation for the protection of students, teachers and other school employees. Anti-gay bias would be prohibited in campus programs and activities, including classroom instruction.

The measure will now be heard by the Assembly Education Committee.

Republican opponents attacked Kuehl’s measure--contending that although ugly incidents occur, further legislation is unnecessary because state laws in many instances already ban discrimination against gays and lesbians on campuses.

Additionally, they charged that the measure threatened academic freedom by prohibiting teachers from offering instruction that “reflects adversely” on protected groups such as gays and lesbians. Proponents have called that fear groundless, saying that despite race protections in the law, for example, teachers can still teach the history of racist hatred of African Americans and other minorities.

Among the harshest attacks on the Kuehl bill came from the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition.

The bill’s intent, said Sheldon, was to make it part of accepted school curriculum for “a child to self-identify with homosexuality as a viable life alternative.”

Another opponent, Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon), argues that the measure could lead to “homosexual quotas” being established by schools fearful of lawsuits by “pro-gay attorneys” arguing that their clients were underrepresented in California schools.

Prior to the vote, the Higher Education Committee heard a number of anecdotes spelling out hate and threats aimed at homosexuals on campuses, including instances at Cal State Northridge related by Tom Piernik, director of student development and international programs at the campus.

One gay student leader became the object of constant ridicule and threats to his safety, Piernik said.

“[He] was so concerned he started carrying a baseball bat for his own protection” at the campus, Piernik said.

A student who was on the women’s basketball team “was ostracized by her teammates on and off the courts and had to leave the team” when her sexuality came into question, Piernik said.

A student leader from Northern California said he was threatened with death simply because he was gay.

The Kuehl bill was the first of the slow-starting legislative session to deal with gay and lesbian concerns. Others are scheduled to follow, including reintroduction of a bill that would grant some rights to same-sex domestic partners that are now enjoyed by married couples.

Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed similar legislation in 1994, and a year later another such bill was killed in Republican-controlled Assembly committees.

This year, a domestic partners rights bill has been introduced by Assemblyman Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles).

Last year, legislators clashed on proposed legislation that would have prohibited California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Three such bills, by Republican authors anticipating that Hawaii was about to sanction same-sex marriage licenses, were debated and, ultimately, defeated.

The Capitol’s biggest flare-up over gay issues occurred in 1991 with Wilson’s veto of a bill that would have banned discrimination of gays and lesbians in housing and employment.

Believing the newly elected Wilson was prepared to sign the bill, homosexual groups descended on the Capitol by the thousands when they learned otherwise and staged daylong protest demonstrations.