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发帖数: 29846 | 1 NC School District Okay With Gay Marriage Fairy Tale for Third Graders
By Emily Richards | June 19, 2015 | 12:57 PM EDT
(CNSNews.com)— A public school district in North Carolina is allowing the
use of a controversial fairy tale about gay marriage to be read in its
elementary schools despite widespread community opposition.
Omar Currie, a former 3rd grade teacher at Efland-Cheeks Elementary School,
read King & King - a book about two gay “princes” who fall in love and get
married - to his third grade students in April after he said one student
teased another by calling him “gay” in gym class.
Currie resigned this week after the parents of three students filed written
complaints to the school media review committee. Meg Goodhand, the assistant
principal at the school who loaned Currie her copy of the book to read to
his third grade class, also resigned.
However, after several heated public debates attended by hundreds of people
- in which Orange County sheriffs were on hand to keep the peace - the
school review committee upheld the use of the book.
Two parents appealed the committee’s decision not to ban the book to the
Orange County school superintendent. But a meeting scheduled for Thursday
night, which was expected to draw hundreds of attendees, was cancelled early
Thursday morning.
A spokesman for the school district said that the appeals were withdrawn for
unknown reasons, and that the school’s decision to allow the book to be
read to elementary school students will stand.
However, the school’s principal created a new protocol that teachers must
submit a list of books they intend to read in class to parents in advance.
Currie objected to the new policy. "This egregious policy creates an undue
burden on teachers, and it hurts students," he said at one of the public
meetings. "Here in Orange County, I repeatedly heard from school officials
that the book might have been appropriate to read in a more progressive area
without parental consent, but in Efland we need time."
This is not the first time King and King has caused controversy. In 2006,
parents in Massachusetts sued their school district after the book was read
in class. A judge dismissed the lawsuit.
“I was told that it’s controversial, which means all LGBTQ families are
controversial,” Currie said in an interview with The Raleigh News &
Observer. “How insulting it is for those families.”
Alhough he was not disciplined for reading the book in class, Currie told
the Associated Press that after discussing the issue with his same-sex
partner, he decided he could not stay at a school where he felt unsupported.
Since resigning, he has interviewed for five teaching jobs, including one
with the Durham Public Schools.
Dozens of parents and community members on both sides let their opinions be
known at the public meetings.
“(You're) infiltrating young minds, indoctrinating children into a gay
agenda and actively promoting homosexuality to steer our children in that
direction,” one reportedly said.
But a Currie supporter said: “I appreciate the fact that the teacher was
willing to address this issue and was willing to approach this topic in his
classroom.” |
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