Having been raised in a conservative religious tradition, I can understand Ms. Balde’s discomfort. Seeing sexual orientation as one part of our community’s diversity was a process for me. But if we are to promote mutual tolerance, it’s important to realize that it is precisely the people we’re uncomfortable with who need our tolerance.

And if we are seeking to protect children of all targeted groups, we need to acknowledge that children who don’t fit gender stereotypes are as vulnerable as Muslim children. If Ms. Balde were to turn around the terms of the lawsuit she’s been pulled in on, she might think about whether or not teaching about Muslim families is also “health education.” How would she, and the families she serves, feel if families choose to “opt out” of lessons on her culture?

Finally, I hope Ms. Balde will take a deeper look at her lawsuit’s sponsors, the Pacific Justice Institute, especially their web site, where they boast about opposing Muslim-tolerance curricula in Southern California.

I hope the curriculum advisory experience will be a positive one for Ms. Balde, and participants with similar discomforts, and that they will drop their adversarial attacks in favor of the hopefulness of working together for positive solutions.

Thank you for this interview and insight into where Ms. Balde is coming from. Your question about treating gay parents with the same respect that she advocates for Muslim parents showed that she is not committed to equality. Giving Muslim parents rights that you are unwilling to extend to gay parents is bigotry, plain and simple.

Unlike others who have responded, I think it is very unwise for the AUSD to have Ms. Balde participate on any curriculum committee while suing the district. She isn’t participating as an equal member on such a committee, because she has the power to withdraw from her lawsuit, if she gets what she wants. This puts all other non-litigant members of the committee at a severe disadvantage.

I thought this new committee was designed to incorporate other protected groups into the curriculum, not to “revamp” Lesson 9. I sincerely hope that this isn’t some back door way of allowing people like Ms. Balde to “revamp” Lesson 9 out of existence.

I would hope that she would eventually come to honor having “different” people, including gays and lesbians, visiting her children’s classrooms. It is equally important that other parents honor her presentations of her own faith and culture in the classroom for the same purpose–to educate Alameda’s children about the amazing and rich diversity of our various heritages and experiences.

Will she still pursue the lawsuit now that the new district effort is underway?

Thanks for this. This interview is very instructive and Ms. Balde is probably one of the best examples of a conscientious and involved parent who is stating clearly what is for them a conflict in a way that even LGBT supporters can find sympathetic. At least I did.

Your question at the end about comparing gay parents speaking to kids at school to Muslim parents coming to speak to children is a good one. Many people want to put this issue in a frame of LGBT advocates trying to pedal a life style. If they are opposed to the curriculum I would expect they might violently object to a gay parent speaking directly to kids in the classroom about themselves.

But many religions are expressed in strong terms where by proponents view all other religions as seriously wrong headed, and many religious parents go well beyond teaching “this is not what we do” to a full on rejection of other faiths as condemning a person to hell. Yet if we are to teach plurality and diversity in the public schools, how could one argue that it is harmful or wrong to have the facts of these differing religious views explained in an education setting?

I view homosexuality as a personal manifestation which may have environmental factors, but which is also undoubtedly something many if not most LGBT people simply come to regard as how they are born, and thus is “natural”. Religion on the other hand is something I can relate to as a natural manifestation of human beings longing for a sense of spiritual purpose, but to this agnostic all religion is entirely a fabricated structure of myths created in our minds and therefore is not “natural”. I do not feel my children would be at risk of becoming Catholic by having the religion explained to them in school because Catholic kids were being bullied.