Yesterday, my Leadership 323: Local and Global, class (one of the classes required for a leadership minor at UTM, if you know of a student who might be interested, send him or her my way), watched as the House Education committee passed a bill that if signed by the Governor, would make it illegal for a teacher of reproductive science to mention anything other than “natural heterosexual reproductive science”. We also had a speaker on campus yesterday, Brad Palmertree, who discussed this and other legislation designed to keep our state’s K-12 education cleansed of the notion that there are members of an LBGT community among us. If you ever want to watch live committee sessions, go to these links:
Senate Education Committee live video link
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/videowrapper/default.aspx?CommID=178
House Education Committee live video link
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/videowrapper/default.aspx?CommID=110
With such ludicrous bills being contemplated I hope it is no surprise at the bullying and ignorance in the high schools. This ignorance will find its way to college campuses (or it might already be too late). Has anyone told the legislators that not talking about an issue does not make it “go away” or help people understand one another. On the positive side maybe they will pass legislation that says we can have guns on campus or have guns in cars on campus. Maybe that will solve everything.
That was mentioned at Times Talk on Wednesday…a nice combination, guns and hatred of people for their sexual orientation.