By Lorraine Gabbert. San Jose Spotlight.
San Jose officials are standing with LGBTQ+ communities against discriminatory organizations causing conflict in local schools.
Councilmembers Pam Foley and Omar Torres drafted a resolution supporting LGBTQ+ students in response to efforts by Informed Parents of Silicon Valley to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes and encourage parents to opt out of LGBTQ+-supportive school curriculum.
The resolution will be presented at the San Jose City Council meeting on Oct. 24 for a vote.
Foley said hate speech and misinformation are unacceptable and the city needs to take a stand.
“The allegations portrayed in these groups’ distributions are inaccurate and desperately misrepresent what is happening in our schools,” Foley told San José Spotlight.
The resolution says Informed Parents of Silicon Valley is trying to prevent schools from carrying books or teaching curricula about gender identity and LGBTQ+ families, as well as social and emotional health and racial justice. It references an incident on Sept. 1 when members distributed literature at local schools, including Bagby Elementary School in the Cambrian School District.
Maria Noel Fernandez, a parent at Bagby Elementary School, said Informed Parents of Silicon Valley confronted her with incendiary bookmarks on Sept. 1 while she was driving her son to school.
“Informed Silicon Valley Parents and their partner, the Values Advocacy Council (which advocates for Judeo-Christian values in public policy issues), have a history of harassing not only the LGBTQ+ community and communities of color,” she told San José Spotlight, “but our children and parents, through a targeted campaign focused on instilling hate in our schools, the only place every child and family should feel safe.”
In a letter to the City Council, Informed Parents of Silicon Valley said the resolution violates the city’s ethics code by “touting demonstrably dishonest claims about us, allowing partisan bigotry to override basic fairness, and creating an environment that would restrict citizens’ basic First Amendment rights.”
The group also threatened to sue the city. Informed Parents of Silicon Valley said the resolution is not responsible, fair, honest or open and elected officials are spreading misinformation about it.
“It is vital to note that no legal finding has ever determined whether any Informed Parents volunteer harassed anyone,” the group said in its letter to councilmembers. “All we want is for parents to be able to exercise their right to opt out of curriculum they deem inappropriate for their children, a right enshrined in the California Education Code.”
Informed Parents of Silicon Valley did not respond to requests for comment.
Foley said her office was told that members of Informed Parents of Silicon Valley distributed literature in the San Jose and Franklin-McKinley unified school districts urging parents to remove students from curriculum aimed at increasing acceptance and understanding of LGBTQ+ children and families.
Members of the group distributed flyers before the Franklin McKinley School District board meeting on Sept. 26 and attended the meeting to protest the censure of board member Marc Cooper.
Foley said Informed Parents of Silicon Valley is misrepresenting reality. She said the isolation and marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community puts students at risk. The group said it is not anti-LGBTQ+ and denied harassing parents in schools on the specific date mentioned in the resolution.
Foley said she expects the council to take action after ensuring the resolution is based on a solid legal foundation, and she believes it is.
“The attached resolution reaffirms that the City of San Jose is a welcoming and supportive place for the LGBTQ+ community,” she and Torres said in the resolution, “and makes clear that hate and efforts to marginalize LGBTQ+ people have no place in our city.”
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, ayou administeredred by the CaliFornia State Library.
You may be interested in: Silicon Valley meetings disrupted by virtual hate speech
