From an article by the AP (and via Marriage Matters):
“They have no business using our public schools as part of this campaign,” Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo said Tuesday. “Our schools have nothing to do with this measure. They are trying to create some sort of fear in our schools related to sexual orientation.” […]
David Crowe, the Restore America founder, said Castillo “hasn’t done her homework…. There is plenty of information out there, plenty of evidence to show that even right now, homosexuality is being encouraged in our school systems.”
When asked, Crowe said he could not immediately cite any specific instances in Oregon.
“The point is, this is what will come if Measure 36 does not pass,” he said.
In fact, there are no state statutes that require districts to teach on such topics, said David Conley, an education professor at the University of Oregon.
“There is nothing in state statute that even remotely implies that schools would have to teach a specific curriculum around those issues,” Conley said. “It is entirely a local school district’s choice. It is something you would have to take up with the 198 local school districts.”
Translation: The backers of Ballot Measure 36 are worried that they’re going to lose the vote, so they’ve decided on a strategy of implying that public schools are going to subject your children to graphic discussions of gay sex, and/or try to recruit children to “the gay lifestyle.” It’s the recycling of old anti-queer bigotries, to try and stir up hatred and resentment.
If this ballot measure passes, it will be nothing to do with the “protection” of marriage; it will be a simple, straightforward endorsement of bigotry.
Full disclosure: I’m not going to be voting on this, as I’m in CA.
I understand that this is a ‘scare tactic’ because people don’t want their children to be taught some ‘gay agenda’. But heck, if somebody called me with this fake poll I would respond that I’m MORE LIKELY to vote for it if it pushes the ‘gay agenda’. I wonder if they have recieved that sort of feedback at all.
Oh, I just respond at random to push polls. Give them totally contradictory answers, politely, and imagine them going bat-shit crazy. No skin off the nose of the minimum-wage Sunita or Indira on the other end of the line, just a nuisance for the analysts of that data they get by interrupting your day.