This week, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network released a new study evaluating the effectiveness of implementing LGBTQ-inclusive curricula in schools. Previous studies have already shown that having an inclusive curriculum helps make schools safer for LGBTQ students, but this study shows that other factors can impact just how effective the inclusive classes can be.

For example, if teachers do not have the proper resources, including professional development, supplemental instructional materials, or updated textbooks, the LGBTQ curriculum was more difficult to implement. This is especially true in the absence of administrative and community support, requiring teachers to shoulder the burden of the materials to implement the lessons. Though California’s FAIR Education Act is now law, schools there have not taken the necessary steps to produce the new resources. In addition, the study found that LGBTQ-inclusive curricula that are implemented school-wide across multiple subject areas had a much bigger impact than curricula introduced in just one class.

The study concludes that more must be done to study the impact and implementation of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, recruit a coalition of stakeholders to support that implementation, and provide the tools and resources necessary to do so. Read the full study.

Conservatives have been outraged about the passage of California’s FAIR Education Act (SB 48) last year, which mandates that schools develop curricula that are LGBT inclusive. Last year, they attempted to challenge it with a referendum, but failed. Now, they have failed again to overturn the law with a ballot initiative. LGBT-inclusive education isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

It’s important to remember the significance of SB 48. Anti-gay forces in this country regularly allege that homosexuality is a threat to children, encouraging parents to feel like they need to protect their children from learning about even the existence of gay people, lest they be “indoctrinated” or even molested or “recruited.” Consider the situation in Erie, Illinois, where parents objected to a children’s book that on one page pointed out that some families include same-sex parents. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) argued that through GLSEN’s inclusive curriculum, students could be “indoctrinated into homosexual behavior.” Here is a quick recap of other negative responses to the FAIR Education Act:

- RANDY THOMASSON: “Realize that the raft of school sexual indoctrination mandates imposed on all children in California government schools amounts to mental molestation.”

- Signature collectors said that overturning SB 48 would protect children from child molesters.

- The campaign to overturn the law argued that kids will learn about Chaz Bono instead of George Washington.

- NOM’S JOHN EASTMAN: Evil will be with us always, and it requires constant vigilance to defeat… We need to be involved in the immediate defense of threats against marriage, but also take a long-range view by educating the next generation about the importance of the issues we’re confronting.

But despite the backlash against the law, which hasn’t even been implemented in all school yet, research has shown it will make an important difference. GLSEN analyzed data from its 2009 school climate survey and found that having LGBT-inclusive curricula helped students feel safer, experience less victimization, miss less school, and define their peers as accepting. The California Safe Schools Coalition similarly found that inclusive curricula helped students perform better academically and feel more connected to their schools. Conservatives know that learning the basics about sexuality is the key to ending anti-gay stigma, which is why they stand opposed at every opportunity.

A new study released last week by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the California Safe Schools Coalition (CSSC) examines the impact of LGBTQ-inclusive curricula on school climate. The results confirm that not only do inclusive curricula foster a safer environment, but the effect is amplified if the messages are supportive as opposed to “neutral/mixed” or not supportive. Not only did LGBTQ students feel safer, but they also performed better academically and felt more connected to the school, their teachers, and their future.

Inclusive lessons had a slightly different impact. In physical education classes, for example, “neutral/mixed” inclusion of LGBTQ lessons still had a negative impact on students’ perceptions of safety, but when there were supportive lessons, it had the most significant positive impact. Conversely, in Health and Sexuality courses, any inclusion of LGBTQ issues/people had a positive effect on school climate (click to see full size):

The study also confirmed the huge impact that gay-straight alliances (GSAs) can have. Students who benefited the most from inclusive curricula were members of their school’s GSA, including higher GPAs and a stronger sense of school belonging. Unsurprisingly, LGBTQ students with neither inclusive curricula nor a GSA had the most negative perceptions of school safety.

None of these results are new. GLSEN similarly found a significant positive impact from inclusive curricula, and the Family Acceptance Project found that GSAs mitigate depression and even help improve college academic performance. These results are important as hate groups like the Family Research Council continue to attack California’s FAIR Education Act with old debunked scare tactics, attempting to deprive LGBT youth of the opportunity to learn about their own identities and feel safe in school.

(Click on the graphs to see them full size.)

GLSEN has released a new research brief based on data collected for its 2009 school climate survey, which found that 9 out of 10 LGBT students had felt unsafe in school at some point because of their identity. The new report (aptly titled “Teaching Respect”) examines the impact when a school offers a curriculum that is LGBT-inclusive — that is, that it includes positive representations of LGBT people, history, and events. Resoundingly, such curricula can greatly reduce the levels of anti-LGBT victimization while improving levels of peer acceptance. In addition, students with such programs feel safer coming to school and are more comfortable talking to their teachers about LGBT issues. Here are a few of the effects an inclusive classroom has on students:

• They are half as likely to experience high levels of victimization based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
• They are 20 percent less likely to feel unsafe in school because of their identities.
• They are half as likely to miss school because they don’t feel safe attending.
• They are 20 percent more likely to feel comfortable discussing LGBT issues with a teacher.
• They are 24 percent more likely to report that their classmates are accepting of LGBT people, and are thus less likely to hear homophobic language.
• They are twice as likely to report that their peers intervene when they hear homophobic remarks.

In 2009, only 13 percent of students reported that they had an inclusive curriculum in their school. Surely, the passage of California’s FAIR Education Act last year could help increase this number, but proposed “don’t say gay” measures in Tennessee and Missouri threaten threaten to make classrooms even less welcoming for students.

Students’ physical and mental health hang in the balance. Negative community attitudes, bullying, stigma, and victimization can lead to depression, substance abuse, and suicidal thinking that can last a lifetime. In contrast, students who are supported when they come out experience significant emotional benefits, and gay-straight alliances in schools can enhance the effect. Conservatives insist that young people must be “protected” from homosexual indoctrination, but the research is clear that acknowledging and supporting LGBT students is what’s best for them.

Image from the website of anti-gay hate group Sons of Thundr

Yesterday, ThinkProgress LGBT noted that a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identifies 27 active anti-gay hate groups, up from 17 in 2010. Sadly, the 11 groups new to this list from last year richly deserved the dubious honor.

They are:

• United Families International (Gilbert, AZ): This group backed the sodomy laws ruled unconstitutional in the Lawrence v. Texas case and has argued “No one is ‘born that way.’ Policies that would normalize homosexuality by equating homosexual behavior with innate characteristics such as race or ethnicity should be opposed.”
• Save California (Sacramento, CA): The group is leading the charge to repeal California’s FAIR Education Act, hoping to stop teachers from “kidnapping the brains of kids” by teaching about the contributions of LGBT Americans. Save California’s head, Randy Thomasson, blamed a bullied and murdered gay teen for his own death.
• Sons of Thundr (Faith Baptist Church) (Luthersville, GA): The church’s website feautures a “sodomites can be saved” section which claims “ALL HOMOS ARE: SICK, BRAIN DAMAGED, PERVERTS!”
• You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide (Annandale, MN). Bradlee Dean, the group’s president and CEO, has said, “The gay ‘movement’ is part of a sexual revolution that has stripped sexuality of all moral significance for an entire generation. We cannot accept the physical prosecution of homosexuals and we cannot accept the proposal that homosexuality is either private or moral,” but notes he is opposed to actually executing LGBT citizens.
• Parents Action League (Champlin, MN): A small group of parents in the bullying-riddled Anoka-Hennepin School District want to require schools to teach that AIDS is a gay disease and to promote harmful and ineffective ex-gay therapy.
• Jewish Political Action Committee (Brooklyn, NY): This group claims that marriage equality in New York State has created a “surge” of child molestation and distributes signs that say “G-d sent AIDS to punish male gays.”
• Mission: America (Columbus, OH): Lead by Linda Harvey, who has been dubbed “the most homophobic woman in America,” this group has discouraged the hiring of gay and lesbian employees and claimed that “there is no proof” that gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered people even exist.
• Windsor Hills Baptist Church (Oklahoma City, OK): The church’s pastor, Tom Vineyard, argued against an employment non-discrimination proposal by making the bizarre claim that half of all murders in large cities are by gay people.
• True Light Pentecost Church (Spartanburg, SC): On the church’s blog, it warns that “The sub-human culture created by the anti-christ and magnified by the Sodomite/Lesbian movement,” has “brought end-time prophecy to a final state,” and encourages followers to “fight the great sodomite/lesbian army.”
• Tom Brown Ministries (El Paso, TX): Pastor and exorcist Tom Brown led the charge in El Paso to rescind an employment non-discrimination law he felt was “condoning immorality.” He also preaches that “homosexuality is actually an emotional, psychological disorder brought on early in childhood.”
• Public Advocate of the United States (Falls Church, VA): Run by Loudoun County, Virginia Supervisor Eugene Delguaido (R), this group is infamous for its over-the-top anti-gay fundraising letters, including comments like, “As homosexuals die off due to AIDS, the remaining AIDS carriers prey on children to replenish the ‘Homosexual Community.’”

The SPLC observed that the advances of the LGBT equality movement “seemed to set off a furious rage on the religious right, with renewed efforts to ban or repeal marriage equality and what seemed to be an intensification of anti-gay propaganda in certain quarters.” These hate groups clearly are among those quarters.

Opponents of California’s FAIR Education Act are approaching the deadline for collecting signatures for a referendum repealing the law that would require schools to include the contributions of the LGBT community in curricula. It’s unclear whether the “Stop SB48″ group will successfully collect enough verified signatures, but what is clear is the manipulative strategies they are using to gather those signatures. One signature collector suggested that signers were helping protect children from child molesters. Another alleged that the bill requires teaching about morality and upholding gay people as “role models.” Watch video of these disingenuous campaigners:

The Courage Campaign has filed a complaint that the Stop SB48 campaign is violating California Elections Code, Section 18600, which reads:

Every person is guilty of a misdemeanor who:

(a) Circulating, as principal or agent, or having charge or control of the circulation of, or obtaining signatures to, any state or local initiative, referendum or recall petition, intentionally misrepresents or intentionally makes any false statement concerning the contents, purport or effect of the petition to any person who signs, or who desires to sign, or who is requested to sign, or who makes inquiries with reference to it, or to whom it is presented for his or her signature.

(b) Willfully and knowingly circulates, publishes, or exhibits any false statement or misrepresentation concerning the contents, purport or effect of any state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition for the purpose of obtaining any signature to, or persuading or influencing any person to sign, that petition.

Read the full complaint and co-sign it.

Anti-gay groups like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Family Research Council are ramping up their effort to overturn California’s FAIR Education Act — which requires the schools to include the contributions of LGBT people to history and culture. Jeremy Hooper notes that the repeal campaign have issued a scare flier suggesting that students will be required to learn about Chaz Bono at the expense of historical figures like George Washington:

But the law doesn’t narrow the curriculum — it expands it. In fact, the state has successfully incorporated lessons about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans all without sacrificing the contributions of the founding fathers.

If the groups gather 504,000 valid signatures by Oct. 10, voters will vote on whether to repeal the FAIR Act at the June 2012 ballot.