News/Commentary

Blue state mandates forced LGBTQ indoctrination in all public schools

March 22, 2024 | | Print Article

Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed a bill into law this week requiring all public schools to teach so-called LGBTQ history.

The bill, SB 5462, specifically “requires the state’s education agency, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, to update learning standards to include lessons on LGBTQ+ history and contributions,” according to The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine.

The bill goes into effect in 2025.

“The contributions of gay Washingtonians deserve recognition, and just as importantly, students deserve to see themselves in their schoolwork,” the bill’s Democrat sponsor, state Sen. Marko Liias, said in a statement.

“That leads to better attendance, better academic achievement and better overall quality of life, ensuring success for all our students,” he added.

Using so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a framework, SB 5462 also requires that schools implement curriculum “for other underrepresented groups, including racial and ethnic groups, those with disabilities, and varying socioeconomic backgrounds,” according to The Advocate.

The bill also “encourages diversity in all topics, even sciences and math — for example, fictional people in practice problems are suggested to be diverse in race and gender instead of being solely white men.”

The ultimate goal is to eliminate any alleged bias from the schools’ educational materials and to inject “inclusive learning standards and instructional materials” into the system, the bill itself reads.

Dovetailing back to the LGBTQ+ history part of the bill, supporters believe that offering such a curriculum will help gay/trans students.

“In schools where students learned about LGBTQ+ people, history and events, LGBTQ+ students were less likely to hear homophobic or transphobic remarks and less likely to miss school because they felt unsafe,” The Seattle Times reported, citing a 2021 study from GLSEN.

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“Those students also had better mental health and academic performance, the survey found. Additionally, LGBTQ+ middle and high school students who learned about LGBTQ+ history or people in class reported lower rates of suicide attempts in the last year,” the Times added, this time sourcing a study from the Trevor Project.

“A positive school environment [has] a large impact on the health and well-being of students, even more so than work and home environments,” Jaelynn Scott, the executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, told the Times.

The American Bar Association agrees.

“Lack of such support can adversely affect their academic motivation and can lead to sadness, feelings of disconnectedness, and even suicidal ideation,” the ABA reportedly noted in a July 2022 report.

“When LGBTQ students perceived their schools to be as safe as did straight cisgender students, the disparities in outcomes were reduced, though not eliminated,” the report continued.

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Six other states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon — boast similar “representation” laws on the books.

As for Washington State’s bill, it passed with zero support from Republicans, who argued that the bill weakens local control.

“This bill erodes local control and those relationships with those families, and that’s primarily the only reason, I think, I need to vote no on this bill,” state Rep. Travis Couture said in a February House floor debate. “And as we look at our lack of enrollment, our failing bonds, our failing levies, I think that that deserves extra attention.”

“People are pulling their kids from the schools because of cumulative policies — policies like this and many others. And it’s not that we don’t want to celebrate the diversity of our students and all the different people in our state. We do want to celebrate those things. But those aren’t the only things that are happening sometimes in our state in different areas and different jurisdictions in some of this curriculum,” he added.

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“Parents are concerned about books that are pornographic in nature. Parents are concerned about materials that disparage the United States of America. Parents are concerned that their kids are learning that certain races are less than others as a part of this material,” he continued.

Listen:

Responding to all this, conservative social media users were quick to cry foul, arguing that the Democrat legislators in Washington State are doing too much and all for the wrong reasons.

Look:

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Vivek Saxena
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