The Evesham school district in Marlton has a curriculum on diversity that includes a film about children and their families. Some vocal parents are incensed that the film - "That's a Family!" - includes children and their same-sex parents. The film, which was designed for K-8 students, has one particularly horrifying part showing a child saying "They adopted us and they love us."
Can you imagine our children being exposed to THAT?
Garden State Equality has posted a video of a news segment that ran yesterday morning on NBC 10 Philadelphia:
The coverage of the story is pretty irresponsible and shoddy. The NBC 10 anchor ends with an unsubstantiated assumption: "Apparently we assume that the kids came home with even more questions."
It's possible. I suppose it's possible they went home and asked why their parents are bigots. Or maybe they wanted their parents to explain how it's possible to have one black and one white parent. If I had to guess, they just gained a better appreciation for the diversity of their classmates, but NBC 10 would rather scare parents with thoughts of kids going home and asking about sex because otherwise, would this even be a story?
Some parents seem to be projecting their own predjudices onto their children, confident that like them, their children will also find the concept of same-sex couples outrageous. I tend to think we give children too little credit. They already have friends who live in married, divorced, and single parent families, interracial and mixed-religion familes, adoptive parents, grandparents as guardians, and yes, same-sex families. Teaching them that all their classmates are loved by their parents is not difficult for them to understand, though the same can't be said for some of their parents.
Take Action
The school board is under attack for teaching children about diversity. There are two things you can do to help.
2. Join Garden State Equality at the next school board meeting of the Evesham School District on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 8:00 pm, 25 South Maple Avenue, Marlton.
