California high school creates gay history class

A California high school is incorporating a gay history course into its curriculum.

Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco is adding a new college preparatory course that will “explore the American experience through a lens that isn’t usually discussed in traditional U.S. history classes,” focusing on the gay rights movement, teacher Lyndsey Schlax said in a video on the school’s Web site. The class, “LGBT studies,” will look at the legalization of same-sex marriage, the U.S. military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy and the history of major events such as the Stonewall Riot.

“This is history. This is an experience that happened,” Schlax told the San Francisco Chronicle. “How can we not teach history? That’s what we do.”

The course will be coupled with another class on ethnic studies, which will explore minority groups in the Unites States, such as African Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans and Native Americans, Schlax said.

The course will not teach students how to have sex, school officials told the newspaper.