Inspired by juis' great diary today, "tolerance/bullying: GLBT youth in schools" I have put out these ideas on a much needed reframing on some issues that the right-wing's logic-twisting rhetorical machine ("if you don't let us discriminate against you, than your are discriminating against us!") has seemingly gained some traction on lately (read juis' diary for details on how scared educators are on this topic).
This diary addresses both GLBT issues and the abstinence crap in schools
Their frames:
By telling us we can't gaybash or worse, teaching us that we should accept gays and their sexuality, public schools are violating our constitutional right to our anti-gay religion. By teaching anything other than absitinence-only in sex-ed, public schools are discriminating against our religion which says all pre-marital sex is bad.
The frames we must put out:
By trying to force public schools to not teach lessons of tolerance and basic respect for all citizens and by trying to force the schools to not teach the scientifically recognized truth that some people are just "wired" to be gay and that this is psychologically normal and healthy for them, people from the anti-gay religions are forcing their religion on the public schools by telling the schools what they can and can't teach. The public schools need to be religiously neutral, so they should fulfill the non-sectarian goal of making this a comfortable environment for everyone.
Saying that schools can teach people not to bully on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity while leaving out sexual orientation (just because some people from anti-gay religions don't want to hear this) is religious discrimination against gay students. A school that does not have sexual orientation as part of an anti-bullying curriculum or an anti-discrimination rule is giving in to the sectarian demands of some, in a way that discriminates against others and is therefore religious discrimination.
When people from the anti-gay religions say that schools cannot teach about gay sexuality in sex ed, they are forcing the confines of their religion on the school and preventing it from remaining religiously neutral, preventing the school from teaching basic scientific facts about all students, and teaching all students how they can stay safe, healthy, and alive. The anti-gay religious parents are fostering not only discrimination but disease and death by preventing the schools from teaching students (gay and/or straight, depending on what exact sex ed curriculum they are trying to censor) how to safely deal with their own sexualities and how to have sex in ways that keep them disease free. It is unamerican, unconstitutional, and immoral to force schools to discriminate against different sexual orientations because your personal religion doesn't like those sexual orientations. It is unamerican, unconsitutional, and immoral to force schools to keep students in the dark concerning how to keep themselves alive and healthy, simply so the schools will fit within the context of your personal sectarian religion.
Parents who object to their kids hearing such lessons can write a note and get their kid out of such lessons, but it is unconstitutional of them to demand public schools not teach such lessons to any students, simply so the schools can be confined by these people's sectarian beliefs.