Saturday, April 21, 2018

Illinois Lawmakers To Mandate LGBTQ History?


                Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill that would force public schools to add a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender section to history courses, according to the Chicago Tribune. Schools would also be required to use textbooks that portray the LGBTQ community as an integral part of a properly diverse society. Naturally, LGBTQ advocates are pushing hard to see that the measure comes to fruition. Opponents of the proposed bill believe such decisions should be made at the local level, not through state government, and that those who hold traditional Christian views are being ignored.
                Some advocates of the measure say that like-minded students are being deprived of the role models they deserve, and that children should have a “full understanding” of the historic figures they learn about in school. The plan has already won preliminary approval from both the House and Senate committees, the Tribune’s report said, and is expected to be debated further in the coming weeks. 
                An anonymous source supplied me with a copy of an American History textbook that would be approved going forward if the bill should pass. Duty compels me to share a few excerpts from this tome. First up, an excerpt from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a months-long meeting that took place in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall:

                General Washington pranced into the room, saying, “Boooys? Who’s ready for a little gaiety? Oooh, Mr. Hamilton, your outfit is to die for! I don’t know about the rest of you fellows, but I could use a little Mr. Hancock about now…tee-hee!”
Ben Franklin, sage of the age, rose slowly and replied, “Well, George, you know what I’ve always said: ‘Early to bed and early to rise’…if you know what I mean, big guy.”
And here is a snippet recounting the making of the first American flag:
Betsy Ross was widely credited with making the first American flag in 1776, though this is now a matter of some dispute among historians. What is not in doubt, is that she was a non-binary, transgender woman. Ms. Ross alternately identified as Betsy Ross and Ross Betsy depending on her gender identity at any given time, which was quite fluent indeed. Ms. Ross is believed to have sewn the first LGBTQ flag in 1779. Ross, born in 1752, apparently identified as gender-fluid from a young age, but stayed in the proverbial ‘closet’ (along with many other historical figures) until 1778, as society was insufficiently welcoming to those outside the arbitrarily rigid gender norms of the day.
Asked by Patrick Henry why she decided to come out, she replied: “Seeing the ‘Stars & Stripes’ and the Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags flying so proudly, I thought to myself, ‘let your own freak flag fly, Betsy!’”
I’m sure it won’t be long until the Illinois legislature praises Swarthmore University and introduces a bill requiring all Sunday-schools in the state to include that school’s “Queering the Bible” course in their instruction plans.


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