Well, not exactly, but when I read about organizations trying to encourage families to home school by using bigotry, it really pisses me off.

Of course, one of the main “selling points” when it comes to home schooling is the fact that each individual family can decide for themselves what is best to teach their children. Although, the reasons to home school are as varied as the many patterns of snowflakes, the fact that religious bigots get more media play when it comes to home schooling than people who home school for more eclectic reasons really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s hard enough to dispel the myths about home schooling without also having to defend the fact that not all home schoolers are Fundamentalist Christians, much less Christian, at all. In fact, one of the reasons I balked at home schooling, when my husband first brought it up, 9 years ago, was because I did not want to be associated with Fundies and I was a practicing Christian, at the time.

The “Campaign for Children and Families” based in California, is calling for California parents to “stand for family values” by encouraging them to home school their children and pull them out of California public schools, as they prepare to push their “homosexual agenda” through “sexual indoctrination” on California school children. They are against two new laws passed in California that are designed to educate kids about homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals and teach tolerance of same.

I do agree with this group on two main issues that are actually outside their main angst (the “homosexual agenda/sexual indoctrination”). One is, since there is no opt-out option for parents who disagree with the idea of their children being taught about the lives of GLBT people and because the courts have basically said that parents do not have a say over what public schools teach, those are good reasons for an individual family to decide to educate their children at home.

What I have a problem with, is this organization using “this” hot button issue to try drive families from the public school system. I find that using fear of “teh gays” a reprehensible way to introduce new families to the idea of home schooling.

For our family, fear OF religion was probably the kicker that got me off the fence about the idea. I had already started homeschooling, but I was still insecure with the idea, since it was still very new. Although I was religious, at the time, I was slowly coming to the idea that a lot of churches (that I attended) were teaching bigotry of some kind; even bigotry of people of other Christian churches. I eventually got fed up with going to church because the message always seemed to be about fearing “them” rather than finding “God”. My husband and I had talked about home schooling, at length, before we got married. He had been home schooled most of his school life, but he was a sickly youth during his elementary school years and his family was also Jehovah’s Witnesses. We spoke at length about how we would not fit the “Fundie” mold of home schoolers, but I was still, unsure.

Then the Columbine High School massacre happened and Colorado’s religious leaders and religious legislators starting calling for the possibility of reinstating school prayer as a mandatory start of every school day. This group of religionists had already succeeded in passing legislation that would have explicitly allowed Colorado to discriminating against GLBT people, so I was a decidedly amped up that maybe, if I sent my kids to school, that they would soon be forced to pray (but whose prayer?) when they went to school.

Don’t get me wrong, even as an atheist, religion does come up in our school lessons, like when we talk about the words, “In God We Trust”, on our money or when we talk about the “Pledge of Allegiance”; even when we discuss religious holidays, like Christmas. But, I see that as my job as a parent, not just a home educator. It is not the schools’ business to make sure my kids pray or know a Muslim from a Jewish person. It is not the schools’ job to make sure they have a “well-rounded” religious education. But, that’s, as my mother used to say, “a personal problem”. It is not a problem that I deemed appropriate to try to rally other public school parents around. With the other problems that my family already had with the public school system, not wanting religion as part of their curriculum, was just one of many kickers, even though I still believed in God, at the time I made my final decision.

We live in a very diverse world. Our family consists of black people, white people, Latino, and Asians. I have gay and bisexual family members, who I love, dearly, so it bothers me that there are people out there who would deny these family members rights and also teach their own children that these people, whom I love, are not worthy of respect. I teach my kids that it’s OK to be gay. I won’t love them any less. I teach them that GLBT deserve rights and respect, as much as heterosexuals do. My kids have sat in my living room and played with one of my best friends, who is a cross-dresser, and while he was dressed as a woman. It doesn’t bother me. My kids and I have nothing to fear from him or others like him, and I believe, neither does anybody else. I believed this even when I was religious.

My main concern, in home schooling my children, is whether or not they are learning the fundamentals (like reading, writing, and arithmetic), in general. I prefer to teach them history, rather than bigotry. I want them to know that our school is a safe place from bullies and bigots and that they can rely on one-on-one instruction that the public school system and its overworked teachers cannot provide. I don’t mind reinforcing the “homosexual agenda” in our “school”, if it means that my children will grow up understanding that “ALL PEOPLE were endowed by their Creator, with inalienable rights“, not just white people, not just religious people, and not just “straight” people.

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