Mark Carlson of the [1] Lutheran Office of Public Policy brought me up to speed on this. Senate Bill 48, introduced last December 13 by Senator Mark Leno (D–San Francisco) is the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, which would amend the California Education Code to include social sciences instruction on the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and prohibit discriminatory instruction and discriminatory materials from being adopted by the State Board of Education.

Senator Leno is introducing this bill on the Senate floor on Thursday morning. Go to [2] http://www.calchannel.com and click on Live Webcast, Senate Floor Session. It’s not exciting television viewing, but it’s useful if you want to see how our legislature actually conducts itself. If you really want to see change, get involved by contacting your representatives and sharing your views on matters of public policy. To make it easier, download the [3] Pocket Directory of California State Government from the LOPP web site.

Leno, who is openly gay, has been a responsible proponent for legislation that would not only benefit LGBT citizens of California but contribute to a social and political environment of authenticity, justice and understanding between people of all sexual orientations.

SB 48, by the way, has already passed the Senate Education Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee.  And for more background on this bill and a lot of other important pending legislation, I recommend Equality California’s web site, [4] www.eqca.org.

—Dan Hooper