King and King: A Controversy

This case, as reported in the Boston Globe, has generated some interesting discussions.

At the center of a federal lawsuit filed last week by two sets of Lexington parents over the discussion of homosexuality in public elementary schools is the question: Do parents or public schools have the final say in deciding what morals, values, and principles should be taught to children, and at what age should those lessons take place?

From Ann Althouse:

The more serious question is not the legal one, but a matter of policy: Should schools do more to accommodate parents with traditional values?

Before I saw Althouse's post, I started a discussion at Epinions Addicts, which in turn led to these two ("What Is The Standard?" and "How Much Power Should Parents Have?"). It's worth noting that the discussions in EA include everyone from evangelical Christians to atheists.

The debate seems to return to statements that just miss the core issues. One of the major ones, and the linchpin of the Massachusetts case, is "values." I think that word should be banned from rational discourse -- send it back to the fundie "think tanks" where it belongs. It no longer has any meaning, if it did to start with. In this particular instance, "marriage is between a man and a woman" is not a "value." In and of itself, it's a recipe for a 50% divorce rate. "Values" is used to describe whatever the speaker supports or believes, without reference to larger social ideals. (That lack of referent is core to the use of the term -- if the Christianists actually had to relate their "values" to our larger social ideals, everyone would see what slimy creeps they are.) (A footnote: just because someone sincerely believes something doesn't mean I have to ascribe it any weight. If it's going to have significance in my eyes, it has to have a basis somewhat more substantial than "I really believe this." I don't think I'm alone in this -- consider your own reaction the next time someone bases an argument on their beliefs. Chances are, you wind up just writing them off.)

There is a fair amount of sentiment expressed in these discussions that boils down to "I want the schools to teach my values," which translates simply as "the schools should be echoing my religious beliefs." No. I said it in one of these threads, and I repeat it here: teach your kids your beliefs yourself. That's not the schools' job.

My take, after following these discussions for a while, is much simpler -- which is perhaps why this conclusion has escaped so many people: schools, as part of their mandate, teach social values -- what are commonly known as "social norms" and "social ideals." Hard work, fair play, that sort of thing. In broad terms, these social ideals are embodied in the laws of a society, so that we have laws against stealing, lying (libel and slander), murder, and the like. Those activities violate our social norms. The norms and ideals, however, if a society is alive at all, are generally in flux, as is the case with social attitudes toward homosexuality in the US at present. In Massachusetts, gay relationships are on the same footing as straight relationships: legally recognized and socially supported (more or less). So if "Cinderella" is acceptable, "King and King" has to be acceptable.

Next thing that occurs to me, and the impetus for my original thread at EA, is the idea that teaching about gay relationships is somehow "sex education," as the parents in this case maintain. This, of course, fits in with the Christianist pattern: heterosexual relationships are about love and breeding (make your own decision about which is more important). Homosexual relationships are only about sex. It's just another way of dehumanizing the "other." Anyone who stops to think about it for more than five seconds is going to realize that gay people are people first. They fall in love, they want to spend their lives together, some of them even want to raise families. Just like real humans. (Yes, bigotry is a pernicious and subtle thing.) (It occurs to me that Christianists see human relationships purely in terms of sex anyway -- think about the whole procreation argument. So maybe it's not prejudice -- maybe everyone is just a sex machine.)

If parents really want to take responsibility for their children's education, they should be prepared to sit down and actually talk to the kids about what they believe and why they don't always agree with others. Maybe that's just asking too much.

There may be more on this later. I have a feeling the debate is not over.

Update, 5/10/06: The discussion at Ann Althouse is very interesting, and worth wading through. Even Paul Cameron has been dragged into the mix.

(An additional comment, subcategory: MSM: The Globe describes the Liberty Counsel as "a nonprofit litigation, education, and policy organization in Orlando, Fla., that is dedicated to advancing religious freedom and traditional family values." This is inaccurate, and merely parrots the Liberty Counsel's own press materials. The Liberty Counsel is a right-wing Christian supremacist group of lawyers who are busily filing lawsuits on every pretext they can find. Most of their suits seem to fail, if they ever come to trial. They do, however, have a lot of money.)