This story hasn't made it far beyond the Boston area (although I did see it on the Yahoo news page last night), but I thought it was interesting enough to mention here.
In Lexington, MA, a parent is suing the school system over their reading of the book "King and King" in class. The book is exactly what the title suggests--a story about a king who chooses to marry another king, and not a queen. The parents of a student are suing, claiming that they have the right to be notified of books with controversial themes prior to their use in classrooms. More on the flip.
Obviously, not everyone in this country is comfortable with gay themed literature. It's fair to say that plenty of families in Lexington, even as liberal as the town is, probably feel this way. Should this give them the right to remove their children from classes which they find objectionable? No, it should not.
The parental right to choose how to educate children is a well grounded right in America. Supreme court cases such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Meyer v. Nebraska confirm that a parent has the right to send a child to the school of their choice. However, none of these precedents suggested that parents have a right to alter curriculum or remove their children from certain classes. Public schools are pluralistic. More ideas will be presented in their halls than will be presented in, say, a private religious institution. This is not to say that private parochial schools are not good educators. However, the flow of ideas at a private school is likely to be more limited than at a public school, simply because of the smaller student body, selectiveness, and possible religious affiliations.
Public schools have a tricky task presented to them. They need to teach without preaching one viewpoint. Logically, this should imply that schools should not teach about anything regarding homosexuality, because it is very difficult to seperate ideology from mere mentions regarding the issue. The problem with this is that in the case of gay rights, silence is an endorement of the anti-gay position. If a child asks a teacher "is homosexuality normal?" the teacher needs to answer the question. He or she cannot simply say "I don't know, ask your parents." The reason gay rights are such a controversial issue is because of a lack of education. As people become more educated, gay rights will surely become less of an issue, as education breeds tolerance.
If a parent has an objection to gay themed literature in a classroom, or any controversial topic for that matter, the parent has the right to send their child to a school where the topic is not covered or treated in the way desirable to the family. However, in a public school system, run by elected officials, parents don't get to pick and choose what their children hear, and they shouldn't. Sometimes children should be exposed to viewpoints other than those of their parents. If parents can remove their children from classes they don't approve of, while still taking advantage of the public school system, this principle has been destroyed. Public education should be leading the way by teaching reason. Parents who don't want their children exposed to reason have that right, but if they choose to make this decision, they should not expect to take advantage of the pluralistic public school system.