The California law requiring public schools to acknowledge the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in history lessons will live on without challenge another few years. A petition drive to get a ballot measure on the 2014 ballot to repeal the law failed to get the half-million signatures it needed by Monday's deadline. It seems there weren't enough bigoted volunteers or church folk to get the thing done, and they finished with just 446,000 signatures from the ignorant.
Senate Bill 48, which was authored by Sen. Mark Leno and passed last year, took effect in January and requires that public schools across the state provide "a study of the role and contributions of both men and women, Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and members of other ethnic and cultural groups, to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society." The adoption of study materials to this end, i.e. new textbooks, has been suspended until 2015, and according to the AP, most school districts have not implemented any new curricula yet.
The repeal effort began a few years ago, and the Stop SB48 campaign primarily targeted churches. They previously failed to get enough signatures before the deadline to get on the 2012 ballot, and now they will not be on the 2014 ballot either.
