New Dispute Over Gay Books Erupts At Mass. School

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/04/042006book.htm

A Lexington, Massachusetts elementary school that was at the center of a dispute with a parent last year over a gay themed book is once more under attack.

This time the book is "King and King".

A teacher read the book to second-graders at the Estabrook elementary school as part of a lesson about weddings. Following the reading the teacher noted that same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts and some children have two mommies and others have two daddies.

King and King is aimed at elementary school children and helps teach diversity. The book, by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland, tells the story of Prince Bertie who searches for love through a bevy of eligible princesses before falling for Prince Lee.

[MADem]

1. Gee, high falutin' Lexington, with their fancy schmancy school system

Guess the neighborhood is getting so pricey, they're pushing all the liberals out....

[Lexingtonian]

9. Ahem. Very funny.

We townies here like to blame the fact that Estabrook school is essentially in Bedford.

There is actually a set of pretty sharp political/class/demographic lines here in town. Route 128 (yes, we still call it that) is one of them. Estabrook takes most of its students from the high tech engineer and medical and academia and management sort of people on the eastern side of the highway, but the school itself sits on the western side among people who are more low end white collar and Hanscom AFB-affiliated, i.e. military and in part from RedStatia. There's an inevitable class/culture clash there. But whatever the school principal is doing, he or she isn't in command of the situation.

We do have at least 15 married ss couples in town with children in the town school system.

[MADem]

10. Well, hell, don't take offense, I was SURPRISED that this was happening

there. If I thought it was par for the course, I'd have said, "Oh, well, LEXINGTON...an ember of red in a blue state" or something along those lines.

[Lexingtonian]

12. Oh, no actual offense taken.

I just get these questions a fair amount about why my little 'burb is where the nutcases find and grab at their opportunity to freak out.

Basically, we have a School Committee that has a strongly polarized strong majority Democratic town (70/30 Democrats) with angry Republican outlier areas around the edges. We do have a Town Meeting with crusty old Yankee attitudes about not going out of the way of a fight, let alone submitting to the bullying or ravings of outsiders of marginal sanity and lack of comprehension of the local situation and its conventions.

Out here in the Boston 'burbs no other school system is willing to be the flashpoint for this. I don't fully understand why ours is willing, but the Parker business resulted in firming up resolve a la in for a penny, in for a pound. I doubt our School Committee, Superintendant of Schools, principals, the oversight boards, and such set out to be that, but I'd guess that their colleagues and peers in other towns told them that ours was the best possible and fairly inevitable battleground for such fights. Some school system or set of them in eastern Mass. had to take on outbreaks of these wackos and defeat them at that 'but what can we tell the children' level.

[jackster]

2. too bad - if you don't want your children to be exposed to LIFE

then home school them or send them to a private school

same-sex marriage is the law of our land here in MASS - it SHOULD be recognized

God, I'm proud to call this place my home sometimes

[BlacknBlue in Red NC]

4. I miss my old MA home.

Doomed to be here in disgustingly red NC.

Anyway, didn't this line give at least some hope: School superintendent Paul Ash said that Lexington schools are committed to "teaching children about the world they live in."

I agree; one parent makes an uproar? Get real!

[wtmusic]

3. Because it "infuriated parent Robin Wirthlin" that's a dispute?

In my kids' classes there's an infuriated parent about something or other at least once a day

[ThomCat]

5. God forbid that kids get anything but white-washed

fundamentalist approved fairy tails.

[Ian David]

6. I saw this on the news and said to myself...

"Lexington... why did it have to be Lexington?"

Well, now parents will need a permission slip to read any book where anybody falls in love or gets married.

[Ian David]

7. I'm buying my daughter a copy of King and King

There's also a sequel:

King & King & Family
by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1582461139.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


ISBN:
1582461139 (More details...)
Condition:
Standard
Dustjacket:
Standard
Available at:
Montgomery Warehouse

Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Join newlyweds King Lee and King Bertie on their journey into the noisy jungle. The kings are greeted by wild animal families, but the royal travelers suspect that something more significant awaits them in the trees. King & King soon discover that there's no adventure more wonderful than starting a family of their own.

More:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-1582461139-3





King & King
by Linda De Haan

ISBN:
1582460612 (More details...)
Condition:
Standard
Dustjacket:
Standard
Available at:
Burnside

Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Once there lived a lovelorn prince whose mother decreed that he must marry by the end of the summer. So began the search to find the prince's perfect match, and lo and behold...

...his name was Lee.

You are cordially invited to join the merriest, most unexpected wedding of the year. King & King is a contemporary tale about finding true love and living happily ever after, sure to woo readers of any age.

More:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-1582460612-5

[xchrom]

8. lol -- are you TRYING to give conservatives heart attacks?!?

[bigmonkey]

11. I miss my old home too.

It sure felt like a progressive place when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. It was nice that the anti-imperial historical figures "had your back," so to speak.

I protested the 1970 bombing of Cambodia on Lexington Green, where the British shot some guys on their way to Concord 230 years ago just yesterday. Now, I fear Lexington's infiltrated by wealthy fundies, no longer quite the multi-class community I grew up in. Still, I miss it. I hope most folks there are still heavily influenced by reason.