janbtucker.com Blog: THE DETECTIVE'S DIARY

Back in the 60s, when I was in elementary and middle school (then called Junior High) in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), California text books had finally gotten around to being more inclusive of the history of ethnic minority groups, rather than simply teaching history from a white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) perspective. As an example, the contribution of African Americans, such as Crispus Attucks, began being taught to all Californian students. Reading about how Attucks died in the days before the American Revolution brought pride to the black students in my classes at Pacoima Junior High and understanding to non-blacks. No more would their contributions to history be unknown and their heroes anonymous.

There were also Lesbian and Gay students I knew at the time but they weren’t out of the closet back then. I expounded in more detail about that era in my prior entry at:

http://janbtucker.com/blog/2010/08/06/gay-pride-gay-civil-rights-pride/

Suspected LGBTI children were, as they are now, subject to ridicule and bullying. For that matter, when girls were perceived as too athletic or guys as too effeminate, they were bullied whether or not they were LGBTI.

Those children then and now deserve to live with dignity and to have pride. They need to know of role models of people like themselves who have contributed positively to society, just like ethnic minorities. So just like California children began to learn of the courage and contribution to history of Crispus Attucks, Senator Mark Leno’s SB 48, the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful” (FAIR) Education Act, which will require the teaching of LGBTI history in California public schools. Today that legislation was signed into law.

One person they will likely learn MORE about is Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus Henry Ferdinand Von Steuben, who during the Revolutionary War served as Inspector General of the Continental Army and eventually as Chief of Staff to General George Washington. Americans already learn about his critical role in disciplining, training, and organizing the Continental Army at Valley Forge in the darkest days of the American Revolution. But how many people know that he was Gay? How many people know that the day Von Steuben arrived in Valley Forge, the Continental Army was conducting a court martial of an American officer for having consensual sex with a private?

There are those in society who criticize and oppose this bill. They oppose it because they are afraid. They are afraid of history, they are afraid of science, they are afraid of books, they are afraid of education. Thankfully there are enough people who are not afraid of them who fought for this latest issue of the LGBTI civil rights movement.