California to teach gay history and rights in school

[civ_king]

Which is why it is absurd to try to blame Galileo instead of the RCC for deliberately holding back scientific progress for over 50 years in this specific case, and ceturies in the general case. At least they aren't so hopelessly provincial anymore and deliberately stand in the way of scientific progress, as they did in the past.

He was actually informed to not even discuss the matter. Shame on the RCC for being so incredibly backwards.

So he was specifically admonished to not even discuss the matter and confined to his house so he couldn't do so, but he could receive visitors so it wasn't really so bad?

This was an incredibly dark day for all of humanity, much less the RCC which embarrassed itself beyond belief. At least they finally learned their lesson for holding up scientific progress merely because it disagreed with scripture, so they aren't quite so hopelessly backward as the creationists still are.


Are you claiming this well-documented atrocity didn't exist?

lack of stellar parallax was the knockout blow delivered to heliocentricism Before Christ, it was why few people believed Galileo because he was using a theory proven wrong ~2k years prior!

mea culpa, I mixed up the quote

He could work on other stuff, plus he was given servants who he didn't even pay for.

Copernicus was supported, he was tactful, people wanted him to publish his research, .OTOH Galileo was an arrogant prick and reaped what he sowed.

The Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina prompted the papal authorities to decide whether heliocentrism was acceptable. Galileo was summoned to Rome to defend his position. The Church accepted the use of heliocentrism as a calculating device, but opposed it as a literal description of the solar system. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine himself considered that Galileo's model made "excellent good sense" on the ground of mathematical simplicity; that is, as a hypothesis.

No, I'm not arguing it didn't happen, I'm saying how horrific it was

High school never gets past the 1950s they simply don't have the time in the year. So gay rights and history really can't be covered unless school is extended.

precisely

 

[Formaldehyde]

lack of stellar parallax was the knockout blow delivered to heliocentricism Before Christ, it was why few people believed Galileo because he was using a theory proven wrong ~2k years prior!

That is patently false:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

The angles involved in these calculations are very small and thus difficult to measure. The nearest star to the Sun (and thus the star with the largest parallax), Proxima Centauri, has a parallax of 0.7687 ± 0.0003 arcsec.[7] This angle is approximately that subtended by an object 2 centimeters in diameter located 5.3 kilometers away.

Not to mention, the RCC accepted the heliocentric model for centuries before it was finally proven to be false much later.

You simply cannot rationalize this travesty away. The RCC was wrong to persecute Galileo for speaking the scientific truth as it was known at the time, just as it is wrong today to claim that modern scientific advancements and discoveries are an abomination for disagreeing with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

At least the RCC finally learned their lesson to not deliberately stand in the way of all of human advancement merely because it disagrees with creationist passages in the Bible. It is just a shame that they persecuted so many brilliant people like Galileo before they finally learned that lesson.

 

[.Shane.]

If we had more time in the school year I'd gladly have it covered when pertinent

As I indicated in my post (that you quoted) there are contexts where it is pertinent and valuable.

 

[Formaldehyde]

My American History classes had time specifically set aside for "current events" so we wouldn't run out of time before discussing the past century.

 

[Japanrocks12]

Any history class worth anything will cover actually relevant issues related to the scope of the class, and gay rights are not only relevant, but critical to understanding social issues in the American 20th century. If you can't understand this, then you don't know history.

 

[Ajidica]

On the subject of the stellar parralax, Tycho Brahe had demonstrated it in the late 17th century. Kepler then went on to mathematicaly prove it.

 

[civ_king]

That is patently false:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

Not to mention, the RCC accepted the heliocentric model for centuries before it was finally proven to be false much later.

You simply cannot rationalize this travesty away. The RCC was wrong to persecute Galileo for speaking the scientific truth as it was known at the time, just as it is wrong today to claim that modern scientific advancements and discoveries are an abomination for disagreeing with a literal interpretation of the Bible.

At least the RCC finally learned their lesson to not deliberately stand in the way of all of human advancement merely because it disagrees with creationist passages in the Bible. It is just a shame that they persecuted so many brilliant people like Galileo before they finally learned that lesson.

I'm not arguing that stellar parallax doesn't exist, but rather that stellar parallax was unproven during Galileo's time thus he could not fix the hole in his "theory"

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yet the RCC adopted exactly the same theory 25 or so years after his death, and it was their official position for the next couple of centuries until it was finally disproven.

I really don't know where all this revisionist hatred toward Galileo started, but I think it is disgusting. The RCC should be apologizing for holding up the advancement of mankind for so long instead of trying to now rationalize it.

Galileo was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. Such people should never be vilified merely because they disagree with the accepted status quo at that time. After all, it is to be expected by people who are clearly far more advanced than their contemporaries.

 

[BuckyRea]

High school never gets past the 1950s they simply don't have the time in the year. So gay rights and history really can't be covered unless school is extended.

Poppycock. I go to the end of the Cold War, plus both Gulf Wars, 9-11, and the debt crisis before we get to the NCLB testing barrage. Once standardized testing is over, I cover post Cold War, the environment, and the rise of hip hop--and even have a little time to go over recent Mexican history just to make my kids happy.

The secret is getting into the Depression by Christmas. I mean the Great Depression, not the seasonal blues. We all get that no matter what we try.

 

[Mango Elephant]

Considering the amount of time my 8th grade U.S. history teacher devoted to various minorities in America including Blacks, Mexicans, Chinese, and Irish (yeah, I know, Irish) I'm sure we could've spent a day on gay rights (but we did spend about 20 minutes on it).

 

[Ajidica]

In APUSH we were just in the middle of the Industrial Revolution and by the end we were doing the 'decades a day' routine.

But at the end of the year we did the decades project and that was interesting.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Considering the amount of time my 8th grade U.S. history teacher devoted to various minorities in America including Blacks, Mexicans, Chinese, and Irish (yeah, I know, Irish) I'm sure we could've spent a day on gay rights (but we did spend about 20 minutes on it).

You are actually complaining your teacher mentioned the Irish, who used to be the most vilified group of European immigrants until the Italians eventually took their place?

If they don't mention Europeans who failed to assimilate in our supposedly multicultural country, don't you think you might get a false impression that it is everybody else's fault?

 

[Ajidica]

Yeah, but they were Irish so they were a bunch of poor, drunk, hillbilly papists who had too many kids. Do we really care about them?

 

[civ_king]

Yet the RCC adopted exactly the same theory 25 or so years after his death, and it was their official position for the next couple of centuries until it was finally disproven.

I really don't know where all this revisionist hatred toward Galileo started, but I think it is disgusting. The RCC should be apologizing for holding up the advancement of mankind for so long instead of trying to now rationalize it.

Galileo was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. Such people should never be vilified merely because they disagree with the accepted status quo at that time. After all, it is to be expected by people who are clearly far more advanced than their contemporaries.

This "revisionist" hatred toward Galileo started at roughly the same time Galileo was made a saint and martyr by enemies of the Church

Considering the amount of time my 8th grade U.S. history teacher devoted to various minorities in America including Blacks, Mexicans, Chinese, and Irish (yeah, I know, Irish) I'm sure we could've spent a day on gay rights (but we did spend about 20 minutes on it).

Why should they spend any time on filthy blacks who spend their days trying to screw white women, or filthy Mexicans who come to destroy the pure culture of America, or the damn Chinese who plot to steal our land through their slits, or the filthy unwashed savage papists called the Irish, or the feral disguisting criminals called the Irish?

-------------------------
Be aware that everything above the line is purely a parody of American views towards these minorities and is to highlight the plight of these minorities.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Poppycock. I go to the end of the Cold War, plus both Gulf Wars, 9-11, and the debt crisis before we get to the NCLB testing barrage. Once standardized testing is over, I cover post Cold War, the environment, and the rise of hip hop--and even have a little time to go over recent Mexican history just to make my kids happy.

The secret is getting into the Depression by Christmas. I mean the Great Depression, not the seasonal blues. We all get that no matter what we try.

The Great Depression by Christmas?

You must have really breezed through the 19th century.

 

[MeteorPunch]

As long as it's optional.

 

[Mango Elephant]

Why should they spend any time on filthy blacks who spend their days trying to screw white women, or filthy Mexicans who come to destroy the pure culture of America, or the damn Chinese who plot to steal our land through their slits, or the filthy unwashed savage papists called the Irish, or the feral disguisting criminals called the Irish?

-------------------------
Be aware that everything above the line is purely a parody of American views towards these minorities and is to highlight the plight of these minorities.

Along the same lines, why should they spend any time on the gays who steal the rainbows and unicorns from little girls and spread AIDS and who steal traditional marriage from traditional families?

 

[aronnax]

I don't understand why you couldn't just include the Gay Rights movement as part of a broader aspect of the Civil Rights Movements of the 50s, 60s and 70s as well as women's rights in 1910-1940?

In fact you can have your WWII and your Great Depression and so on and the Civil Rights Movements as a Chapter about itself, describing the rise of the suffragette movement, one or two key figures and then you have your Black Rights Movement. Poster Girl Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bus Riots and so on. And then for one lesson, talk about Gay Rights, Harvey Milk, Stonewall Riots and Gay Liberation Day.

A lesson on Civil Rights should focus on the Civil Rights part rather than the gay part. And I would consider the Stonewall Riots an important part of American History, a classic example of a group of people who were refused their rights as citizens and the actions they took against them.

 

[Camikaze]

I find the argument against teaching gay civil rights on the basis of not wanting to indoctrinate to be quite odd. Not only does it seem to suggest that people disagreeing with something is reason for it not to be taught, it actually assumes some sort of advocacy.

It's not at all incorrect that there is some agenda pursued in the teaching of gay civil rights history, but there is an agenda in all teaching. Here the agenda is to make gay civil rights more mainstream; to make homosexuality more normative to the general public's eyes. There's no use in denying that, because it's absolutely true. That is the entire point.

But I find it odd that there is so much focus on that particular agenda, and not on other agendas, or reinforced representations in teaching. Why is history in US schools focused on America? There is an agenda within that, and a reinforced representation of nationalism and statism. Why is history as taught in schools Eurocentric (both that within the realm of domestic history and other history)? There is an agenda within that, and many reinforced representations that should surely be of far more concern in the world than worrying about gay rights becoming more mainstream.

And, don't forget, there is an agenda within excluding the teaching of gay civil rights history which reinforces representations.

The priorities here are odd.

 

[civ_king]

Along the same lines, why should they spend any time on the gays who steal the rainbows and unicorns from little girls and spread AIDS and who steal traditional marriage from traditional families?

Because the discrimination happens early enough that we can actually get it covered and we only spend an hour total on them combined

I don't understand why you couldn't just include the Gay Rights movement as part of a broader aspect of the Civil Rights Movements of the 50s, 60s and 70s as well as women's rights in 1910-1940?

In fact you can have your WWII and your Great Depression and so on and the Civil Rights Movements as a Chapter about itself, describing the rise of the suffragette movement, one or two key figures and then you have your Black Rights Movement. Poster Girl Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bus Riots and so on. And then for one lesson, talk about Gay Rights, Harvey Milk, Stonewall Riots and Gay Liberation Day.

A lesson on Civil Rights should focus on the Civil Rights part rather than the gay part. And I would consider the Stonewall Riots an important part of American History, a classic example of a group of people who were refused their rights as citizens and the actions they took against them.

When did the Chinese violently riot and get their rights which allowed them to prosper?