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Referendum Campaign Launched to Overturn California's Pro-Homosexual “Anti-Bias” Law

Must raise more than US $500,000 and gather 433,971 voter signatures by end of year

By Hilary White
 
SACRAMENTO, California, November 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Defenders of the traditional family are launching a campaign to overturn a recently passed law in California that they say will install homosexual indoctrination in schools. The law, that was introduced as Senate Bill 777, says, “no teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that promotes a discriminatory bias” against people based on sexual orientation.
           
Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “This will mean getting rid of 'mom and dad' in textbooks or adding homosexual couples.”
 
Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for the Capitol Resource Institute said the law bans school texts and activities that would exhibit any bias against homosexuality. Family campaigners must raise more than US $500,000 and gather 433,971 voter signatures by the end of the year.
 
The homosexual activist group, Equality California sponsored SB 777, benignly named the “Safe Place to Learn Act”. The new law is however anything but benign and considered to be a totalitarian-type repression by its critics. It will require “the California Department of Education to regularly monitor what steps school districts have taken to ensure compliance with the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000.”
 
The bill, nicknamed the “sexual indoctrination bill”, was passed in May in the Senate and in September in the Assembly by a 42-19 vote. It comes into effect January 1, 2008. 
 
“S.B. 777 is an astounding assault on traditional values in California, especially for religious students,” said Karen England. “These types of laws that favor someone simply because of their sexual orientation will inevitably result in reverse discrimination against religious students.”
 
Gay activists denied that the law will impose new curriculum or language into the schools, saying it only “clarifies existing laws.” But in September this year, the state Senate of California voted 22-15 to pass an initiative, the project of homosexual activist and state Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, to substitute the term "two persons" for "man and wife" in all state references to marriage.

While Christian and other groups work to raise the signatures needed for the California referendum, homosexual activists are answering by spending millions of dollars on television advertisements promoting legalization of same-sex marriage, thought by many to be the next step. Geoff Kors of the Equality California Institute said the moment is ripe for public opinion to sway in favour of changing the law.
 
“In California, we are really at a tipping point,” Kors told the San Diego Union Tribune. “People have thought about this intellectually but we want them to think about it emotionally. We want to talk to people about love and commitment.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed same-sex “marriage” legislation last month, saying it must be up to voters or the courts to decide the issue.
 
A recent Field Poll showed that 51 per cent oppose same-sex marriage, with 43 per cent in favour. Proposition 22, which defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman, won approval from 61 percent of voters in 2000. But family rights campaigners are seeking a constitutional amendment that is less susceptible to legal challenge.
 
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Terms "father", "mother, "wife", "husband" Being Legally Suppressed in More Nations by Homosexuals
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07111407.html

California Senate Votes to Impose Same-Sex "Marriage" on State
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07091009.html ;
 
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Marriage Could be Eliminated in Future
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07082702.html

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