California has done it again

[ecoli]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070330b.html

 

Do you realize that this bill will make it unlawful for textbooks in California to make references to the word "mom" and "dad"? Because, obviously, any aknowledgement of hetereosexuality threatens the welfare of the gay community.

[insane_alien]

wait wait wait, please, tell me i'mnot seeing what i think i'm seeing. because either they've been taking some pretty bad drugs or i have. and i'm quite confident that i haven't.

 

what i think i'm seeing is that they are banning references to normal parents you know, the way its been for a few thousand million years since whatever ancestor of ours stopped splitting in two to reproduce.

 

realising that what i just said might be interpreted as extremely homophobic to these people i will add that i have nothing against gay parents and that the kids would probably have had it explained to them by their parents.

 

i mean seriously, what is the ratio of heterosexual parents to homosexual parents? it'll be hundereds of millions to one or something. quite the minority. ...<yadda yadda yadda BIG RANT yadda yadda blah>

 

yeah i could go on like this but its too damn hot to do anything.

 

<edit> no. wait i just seen this in the article and got me angry all over again

 

"[The bill'] means good-bye to textbooks that say you're either a boy or a girl,...

 

oh come on now. this is basic classification. go into any biology lab and ask any biologist about the genders of the human race and they'll tell you male and female. its not hard. next they'll ban books that say all the colours of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet because it discriminates against brown, black, grey, white, pink and cyan.

 

or how about books that list the species, or the elements i mean ffs get some damn common sense. GRArhh

</edit>

 

<edit edit>

alright i finished the article and don't feel the need to rant more at this time

</edit edit>

[Sisyphus]

It didn't say that in the article you linked to. The closest thing I see is:

 

"[The bill] means good-bye to textbooks that say you're either a boy or a girl, that marriage is only for a man and a woman, and that the natural family is a father, a mother and their children," CCF President Randy Thomasson said in a press release.

 

Aside from not being at all the same thing as "outlawing references to the word mom and dad," it is from the CCF president, who wants to paint it as poorly as possible. If the best scare-scenario he can come up with is textbooks that have to acknowledge the possibility of gay marriage, then I'm really not impressed.

 

At worst, this is a publicity stunt and a redundant law, but it doesn't look like it will actually change anything. Or as the Gubernator aptly put it, it provides "vague protection when current law already provides clear protection against discrimination...based on sexual orientation."

[ecoli]

It didn't say that in the article you linked to. The closest thing I see is:

 

sorry... that bit was from John Gambling.

 

I hope I didn't help blow this story out of proportion. I can be a victim of sensationalism at times, if I'm not careful.

[foodchain]

sorry... that bit was from John Gambling.

 

I hope I didn't help blow this story out of proportion. I can be a victim of sensationalism at times, if I'm not careful.

 

I would not say you are overreacting, just probably showing either that you don’t pay much attention to American politics, which is a good thing in some regards, or your position really on the issue, which is also fine. Politics for what its worth is a back and fourth tuggle war, such as the conservative parties will say don’t do anything about guns, its against the constitution, but that same party will be quick to involve religion in government and fund it with millions of tax dollars, which of course I am sure has absolutely nothing to do with the separation clause right?

 

Its a bloody partisan battle, and of course all the respective politicians know what’s best for everybody, that’s why America is constantly in a state of utopia, its just that no one notices it.

 

My personal stance is I find it all rather silly, the topic that is or what its about. I mean even if you pull it out of textbooks, are you going to make having moms and dads in public illegal, so for the idea of influencing thought that way seems a bit silly, the only positive benefit about it is making something public, like public education, more fitting of maybe the American public, which includes although at a contested level, a population of homosexuals. The funny thing I find about this is various politicians in America, typically in the right wing, would or have passed ideas on about camps in which homosexuals could be put in to make them “normal”, then of course this party will talk about minimal government intrusion into private life, I think adults deciding what other adults they would like to have a relationship with as something rather private, but then again I am not an all knowing politician.

[grifter]

insane_alien is defiantly speaking from my corner of the ring, even though this article is sensationalizing the argument, it still is startling, that a civilized nation (so speaking) is allowing this [insert profanity] to become state law. What is becoming of this world around us, political correctness has gotten way out of control...

[Sisyphus]

Ok, am I the only one who actually read this bill? You're damn right it's sensationalized: the entire substance of it is expanding the legal definition of gender from only genetic to include self-identification, for the purpose of including it under existing non-discrimination laws. There is nothing about "banning references to mom and dad" or anything like that.

 

How about instead of flipping out about what opponents of the bill say is in it, we look at the bill itself:

 

The text of it is here:

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_20070223_introduced.html

 

Yes, I know the "political correctness is out of control" bandwagon is a fun one, but that's the whole problem. It's so commonplace to exaggerate PC stuff that it becomes conventional wisdom that there is this big problem that everyone can get outraged about, and it doesn't even exist! The big irony of it all is that the most politically correct position you can take is to complain about political correctness!

 

Thing is, I would even vote against this bill. I think it's too vague and too redundant, and I think there should be a legal distinction between biological and non-biological categories, even if both should have the same status. But those ridiculous alarmists destroy their own credibility by intentionally clouding the issue, and it really pisses me off.

[Dak]

lol @ multiple gramma fixes in the amendment

 

does it actually expand the definition? it looks like it just 'undefines' it. I'd guess that the definition of 'sex' would now be either a matter of common law, or defined elsewhere, but it's just a guess.

 

the only problem i can see with defining sex biologically is that a male--> female transexual will still be genotypically Xy (i.e., male) and vice-a-versa, so it's possibly better to not define it that way (tho defining it anatomically would have worked).

[Sayonara]

Yes, I know the "political correctness is out of control" bandwagon is a fun one, but that's the whole problem. It's so commonplace to exaggerate PC stuff that it becomes conventional wisdom that there is this big problem that everyone can get outraged about, and it doesn't even exist! The big irony of it all is that the most politically correct position you can take is to complain about political correctness!

 

My favourite bit is where everyone starts blaming the "gay community" for this non-existent "ban", even though 99.999% of gay, lesbian, and transgendered people are as unaware of its existence as we all were before we looked at this thread.

 

People really are awesome. "I am morally outraged at the thing that I haven't checked!", brilliant.

[Sayonara]

the only problem i can see with defining sex biologically is that a male--> female transexual will still be genotypically Xy (i.e., male) and vice-a-versa, so it's possibly better to not define it that way (tho defining it anatomically would have worked).

For the past three decades or so it has become increasingly academically accepted that a large part of healthy self-identification with respect to gender is psychological rather than just genotypic. What this bill intends to address (or part of it, at any rate) is that the continued teaching of how "traditional" family units should be composed creates a myth of normality, thereby opening the door wide for the institutionalised ostracism of anyone who does not fit into this rigid pattern.

 

Creating a society of true equality is very difficult to do because you have to change deeply-rooted social attitudes on a massive scale, often swimming against the tide of conventional social wisdoms (such as an education system that tells children to take Mummy, Daddy, Jane and Tommy as being the norm).

 

This bill will be a very small drop in the ocean, but it will help make life better for everyone if it is executed properly and not used as a political whipping boy.

[Dak]

hang on, are we talking about a proposed bill or a proposed amendment to an existing bill?

 

iow, in sisyphus' link, are the strikken and inserted bits the proposed change, or is the entire bill the proposed change (with the strickken/inserted bits the latest modification to a proposed bill)

[Realitycheck]

For the past three decades or so it has become increasingly academically accepted that a large part of healthy self-identification with respect to gender is psychological rather than just genotypic.

 

Sorry to stear this off topic for a sec, but I did some research on this, and while psychology is the end of the line for this argument, it appears that developmental hormone levels play into this quite a bit.

[ecoli]

Thing is, I would even vote against this bill. I think it's too vague and too redundant, and I think there should be a legal distinction between biological and non-biological categories, even if both should have the same status. But those ridiculous alarmists destroy their own credibility by intentionally clouding the issue, and it really pisses me off.

 

which leaves it open to interpretation, so theoretically, stuff like the OP and source was talking about could come to pass... assuming it would be held up in the courts, which I'm not sure about.

[Glider]

Sorry to stear this off topic for a sec, but I did some research on this, and while psychology is the end of the line for this argument, it appears that developmental hormone levels play into this quite a bit.

True, but not really relevant. I think what Sayonara was referring to is the academically acknowledged difference between 'sex' and 'gender', where sex refers to 'male' and 'female' whilst gender refers to 'masculine' and 'feminine'. Sex is a dichotemous biological (genotypical) state and gender is a sociobehavioural construct consisting of a number of gender traits that can exist in combination. Gender is the construct that forms a part of a person's self-identity and may or may not be congruent with their sex.