A bill requiring public schools to teach the “historical contributions” of gay and lesbian Americans has been approved by the California legislature. 

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who has not yet indicated whether he will sign it, has only days left to decide whether to sign the bill or not. 

The bill prohibits any school material or instruction that reflects adversely on homosexuality and prohibits parents from removing children from classes over offensive material.

Bill SB 48 was sponsored by openly homosexual state senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and passed in the Democrat-controlled Assembly by 49-25, with all Democrats voting for the bill and Republicans opposing it. The legislation passed the state Senate in April.

If the bill is signed into law schools would have to introduce the curriculum after the bill becomes law in January.

Republican critics have accused the measure of amounting to indoctrination of school children.

GOP Assemblyman Tim Donnelly said he was offended as a Christian that the bill was being used to promote the gay rights agenda in public schools.

“I think it’s one thing to say that we should be tolerant,” Donnelly said. “It is something else altogether to say that my children are going to be taught that this lifestyle is good.”

Reaction to the bill from pro-family and parental groups was swift, with Concerned Women for America (CWA) calling the legislation “another step toward complete normalisation of transgenderism, homosexuality and bisexuality through the public schools.” 

CWA severely criticised the lack of an opt-out provision for parents who don’t want their children exposed to the homosexual agenda-driven curriculum.

The Catholic primate of California, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, also said the bill poses a serious threat to parental rights.

“There was a time not too long ago, when American society encouraged family values and tried to strengthen the bonds of parents and children. Recent events in our state and nation remind us that’s not always the case anymore,” said Gomez, writing in the LA archdiocesan newspaper The Tidings.

Gomez said forcing schoolchildren to learn about historical figures and their sexual orientation without parental consent “amounts to the government rewriting history books based on pressure-group politics. It is also another example of the government interfering with parents’ rights to be their children’s primary educators.”

However, the California Department of Education has indicated that the state’s financial crisis would preclude the purchase of new textbooks (re-written to include homosexual history) for several years.

Meanwhile, a Catholic charity in the US state of Illinois has won the right to keep serving nearly 2,000 foster children in Illinois for at least another month.

A circuit court judge yesterday refused to let the state cut ties with the agency which is refusing to place children with same-sex and unwed couples.

Despite the state’s arguments that no contracts exist because state officials already declined to renew them, the judge ruled that contracts made between the state and Catholic Charities of Joliet, Peoria and Springfield up until June 30 would remain intact.

The judge set 15th of August as the date for a full hearing on the issue. In the meantime, he said, children in Catholic Charities’ care will not be shifted to other social service agencies because that could risk “irreparable injury”.

Catholic Charities argued the state’s interpretation of the civil union law is discriminatory because it would require them to place children with same-sex or unwed couples. Such an action would violate religious protections built into the law, said attorney Tom Brejcha, who represented the group.

Brejcha argued the legislative debate for the civil union law shows legislators considered services provided by Catholic Charities as protected.

“The law says it doesn’t regulate or interfere with religious practice,” Brejcha said. “Religious practices (were) defined on the floor of the Illinois Legislature as including the rendition of social services. That’s what the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount are all about. Frankly, we’ve been incredulous.”