May 24, 2009 / 15:58 pm
A California school district decision to mandate a new curriculum requiring children as young as five years old to be taught about homosexual and transgender communities has prompted significant protest from parents who charged that a "political agenda" is pressing age-inappropriate material upon their children.
The Unified School District in Alameda has proposed a curriculum with the stated intention of addressing bullying, respect and acceptance. The curriculum includes a 45-minute Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) lesson once a year from kindergarten through fifth grade. The kindergarten lesson will focus on the harm of teasing while the fifth graders will study sexual orientation stereotypes, Fox News reports.
Second grade course material includes a children’s book about homosexual penguins trying to create a family. The book is titled "And Tango Makes Three."
Protesting parents in Alameda, a suburb of San Francisco and Oakland, said the curriculum is definitely not age-appropriate and the issues are best learned at home. They were also angry they will not be allowed to keep their children out of the classes.