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To ban the teaching of Gay History would be like banning the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement. If you don't teach these things, children will be asking questions they can't get answers for, leaving them to find out on their own and risk getting misinformed. Additionally, they are basically ostracizing the children of same sex couples, leading the other children in school the think there's something wrong with it.

I'm proud to say that I live in New York, who just recently allowed Gay Marriage to be legal.
Its a HUGE step in the direction of social equality and human rights, and yes, its history. Everything is history, from the whole spanning of Aids to the rise of communities and cultures.
I think it should be taught. It's human, social, economic, and civil history in all senses, and should be treated that way.

Nightmare Boy, your point was amazing and I completely agree.
I think it's dumb to make a big deal about the fact that certain people in history were gay if it doesn't relate to their contribution. I mean, it's one thing to say, "This is so-and-so, they did such-and-such, and, oh, by the way, they were gay." Why emphasis their orientation if it's unnecessary to do so?
I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm against this, because I really am glad that people are taking measures to increase tolerance of the LGBT community, but I question whether this curriculum is going to highlight these sexualities just to make some people happy or whether it's only going to be in relation to the contribution that was made.
I'm not even sure if this made that much sense, haha, but I tried.

Yes, I think so. Homosexuality is one of the few things Im interested in

I think it GLBT history should be taught in schools because it's important for gay teens to learn about important historical figures that were gay. Young people need good role models they can see themselves in. It's one of the same reasons that was given for implementing units on the history of other minorities and I think it applies here too.

Gay history is the history of man, period. Whether or not they want to admit it studying any sort of history is going into gay history as well. : P

Poot wrote:

I couldn't agree more. It's the same reason I have issues with having an entire month dedicated to black history. It's ALL history. Why do we need to give one ethnicity an entire month to celebrate their own history, but no one else? It honestly just makes it seem as if blacks are the most important ethnicity in the US. If people truly wanted equality, they'd teach history as history. Not put certain moments in history above others.

But that's the thing, the majority of people pushing for this don't want equality. They want superiority. They want to be able to stand out from everyone else and say, "I'm more special than you." Teach history as history. And as nightmare boy said, if they happen to be gay...cool. If not...cool.

That's ignoring the fact that "teaching history as history" in the past basically meant excluding anyone who isn't straight, white, and male outside of historical events that specifically revolved around civil rights, in which case, events are mentioned, but not names or specific accomplishments. The same thing often applies to women in history, but although March is Women's History Month, it isn't a regular celebration in public schooling.

It would be wonderful if teaching an unabridged, unbiased view of history and world events was the standard in American public schools, but it isn't. Outside of Black History Month and studies of the 1960's, there were no mentions of black people even EXISTING in any of my history classes except during the civil war (where no non-white person was mentioned by name), to say nothing of Asian, Latino, or any other minority, who might as well never have existed in the first place as far as my history curricula were ever concerned. I saw more persons of color in my science classes than I ever did in history.

I agree that homosexuality and "gay history" is kind of a misnomer, mainly because homosexuality isn't a race or a religion, and didn't become any sort of unified culture until very recently in human history. However! Homosexuality has existed in every part of the world, and I think bringing that fact into common knowledge would do wonders for tolerance. I do think it wouldn't kill anyone to be able to say "This man was a great writer who contributed many literary works, and he happened to be gay, left handed, and had a notable preference for peanut brittle over raisin bread." But I think it's probably asking a little much to make a kid's grades dependent on whether he remembers the sexual preference of the people in his history book.

As to "wanting superiority", no, and that's an extremely privileged statement. Wanting four weeks out of the year when the majority gets the other 48 is not asking for superiority, it's asking for a brief step up to the podium because they know they won't ever get the floor. Especially in the case of LBGT youth, who have extremely high suicide rates and are very commonly victims of extreme bullying, there are so few legitimate role models outside of pop culture media. Every schoolbook with names in it will give any straight white boy someone to look up to, but there are very few people for a gay/lesbian teenager to read about and find any reassurance that maybe, this thing that I am, that people hate, is not so bad, because this person is awesome.

Living in Tennessee, I'm surprised I didn't hear much about this bill, seeing it is such a large issue.

In all honesty, I don't think it's appropriate or that it really matters. I think we should look at accomplishments of people in general. Their sexuality is just a side note, a kind of trivia, not something that needs to be elaborated. I feel the same way about "Famous African Americans" and "Native American Heroes." As harsh as it sounds, I don't care about their ethnicity or sexual orient, just what they did.