Historical requirements
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill today that requires history textbooks and teachers to discuss the contributions of gay, lesbian, and transgendered Americans. Everybody who has read this blog knows that I strongly support full legal, economic, and political equality for all sexual orientations. I cheered the court decision overturning Prop. 8 (though it is still being appealed), the elimination of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, and the New York legislature's legalization of gay marriage last month.
But this is a bad idea. I don't like legislators dictating the content of historical discussions. I didn't like it last year when conservative Texans enacted textbook standards "stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light," in the words of the New York Times. Historians were up in arms about those new requirements. They seem to be greeting California's new law with, in most cases, shrugs, and, in a few cases, cheers.
I certainly wish all historians would discuss the LGBT community's accomplishments. I bring the struggle for gay rights into numerous lectures in both early and modern American history as a way to compare old issues to today. I agree that most Americans are woefully ignorant of LGBT contributions to our collective history. But that inclusion should come out of professional judgment, not from legislators' demands.
To quote every elementary school teacher in the universe: two wrongs do not make a right. Just because Texas conservatives did it does not mean California liberals should do the same thing.
But this is a bad idea. I don't like legislators dictating the content of historical discussions. I didn't like it last year when conservative Texans enacted textbook standards "stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light," in the words of the New York Times. Historians were up in arms about those new requirements. They seem to be greeting California's new law with, in most cases, shrugs, and, in a few cases, cheers.
I certainly wish all historians would discuss the LGBT community's accomplishments. I bring the struggle for gay rights into numerous lectures in both early and modern American history as a way to compare old issues to today. I agree that most Americans are woefully ignorant of LGBT contributions to our collective history. But that inclusion should come out of professional judgment, not from legislators' demands.
To quote every elementary school teacher in the universe: two wrongs do not make a right. Just because Texas conservatives did it does not mean California liberals should do the same thing.