Same issue arises, but you have a different person in charge.  In little league practice wouldn't the responsibility for looking after children's well being fall to that of the coach?

The other issue that I haven't seen brought up is what if the teacher feels that homosexuality is a sin?  How can that be dealt with?  I know the ideal of the benevolent teacher guided only by the morals of tolerance is a great idea, but I know a lot of teachers might not buy into that.

I can see having a cirriculum-wide acceptance program possibly succeeding in MA, but what about in AL or GA?  What about TX, VA or UT?  What does the argument change to in those areas?

Ok, so here's the thing.  I was that "5%" child.  And it sucked.  People freaked out.  People threw rocks at our house, unscrewed mom's distributor cap on her Land Cruiser, called Child Protective Services, made fun of me, broke my toys, even hit me.  All because they weren't sure how to deal with my situation.  This was in 2nd grade.  It just got worse from there until my mother decided to move to Tucson when I was in 5th grade to preseve both of our sanity and my chances of not ending up a barefoot, pregnant, uneducated, repressed trailer wife.  Granted we did live in a small town in a very conservative state.

Here's the thing; there is now a national organization of children of lesbians and gays.  Why?  Because we all share that bond.  That experience of  being a total freak in school.  The ridicule, the harrassment, the generalized fear of telling anyone about our lives.  I felt like an alien, even in a progressive, LGBT friendly city like Tucson.  Once we moved here, I made 4, count them 4 friends with similar parents.  My mother was very active in the community, worked with the Lesbian and Gay theater company here locally, helped at the Gay Pride picnic, even volunteered on the domestic abuse crisis line at the LGBT community center.  And yet, I knew 4 other children in similar situations.  Four.  Out of a community more than 50,000 strong.

It wasn't until high school that I began to finally find friends my own age.  Most of my peers tended to freak, run, point, or throw rocks (both figuratively and literally) before that.  I've been told that my mothers are going to hell.  That I'm going to hell simply because they raised me.  That I'm an abomination unto God.  That I'm a freak.  I've been asked, from age 7 on if my mom or her significant other "touched me inappropriately."  I had to sit in a CPS office and be interviewed by a guy I didn't know, because my neighbors figured that if I was living with *gasp* lesbians, then I was going to be sexually abused.  At least that guy, after interviewing myself and my mother had the sense to say "Your neighbors are going to continue to try and punish you for this.  I suggest you move."

My mother came out to me when she found her first girlfriend.  I hesitate to phrase it that way, because "coming out" implies all these big things that seriously never happened.  Mostly what happened is my mother said "We're moving in with Liss, because she and mommy fell in love," and I said "Cool, can I go back outside and play?"  I was 6, and it was the summer before 2nd grade.  I do think that in places where there will be a higher instance of same-sex parents, it's very important that the children know it's perfectly normal.  Otherwise, children will have to go through what I had to go through.  Children should not be made to suffer for who or what their parents are.  Children suffer enough already simply by being near other children.  "Ewww, what's that on your face?"  "They're freckles.  My whole family has them."  "HAHA!  MUTANT!  Don't play with the mutant, guys, he's a freak." 

If the community I was in had treated homosexuality as just something that happened, I doubt very much I would have felt so alone and excluded.  I doubt I would - to this day - hesitate at all to tell people about my mother and her wife.  But they treated us like vermin, and sinners, and jerks, so I still struggle to tell people who my mother is and what she's like, even though I have the best mom I could ever have hoped for.  I wouldn't wish that on ANY child.  If reading a book like this one helps children get over that initial "eww, that's different, smite it with rocks!" impulse, then I'm all for it.  Unfortunately, in my experience, knowing that this sort of thing exists isn't enough to make people accept it, and may even push them the other way.  New experiences tend to overwhelm the human animal, and when overwhelmed the human animal either runs away, or fights back hard.  I don't think we want that kind of backlash from this.

**edited because no matter how many times they hit me, it's still only one of the things they did.**

I'd also like to make the point that there is a lot of "kids will" and "kids think" and kids this, kids that going on.

Does anyone actually have any evidence where this has gone incredibly wrong?  Cuz I have seen it go right: It's Elementary: Talking about Gay Issues in Schools and haven't heard anything from the "other side" besides fear and speculation.

Maybe we should just sterilize everyone with gamma rays and start growing fully matured adults in vats.
That'll solve this whole "children" problem real easy.

Hey, I'm just doing what they told me in school!
"When faced with a problem, keep an open mind, and be sure to consider alternative solutions!"

What kind of a fucked up nation do we live in where a bear and a robot cannot live together and raise a child without some bigoted asshole hassling them? And what about the robot bears? Do they just not exist?

It's not at all a cheap shot.  Teaching evolution in some communities provokes the same reaction that this fairly benign book produced in yours.  It's simply a reference to what happens when people's personal prejudices color what they see and how they respond to things.

You said it yourself.  It's the parents that are the problem, not the kids or the book itself.  So why let those people who cannot disassociate close same-sex relationships from rampant ass-sexxxings dictate the process of how kids will be taught, and why let those people's reactions dictate your own response to the book?  If your kid had just read the book, and you had the chance to see that it was no more than two princes ruling a kingdom together, and you weren't basing your response on the fact that it was likely to cause a fuss, how would you feel simply about a book in which a nonsexual prince chose a nonsexual prince instead of a nonsexual princess?  You said yourself that your daughter didn't come home full of curiosity about homosexuality, that the problem was in the outcry and community response.

That's worth thinking about, asking if you're making a decision based on the hysterical reactions of others or on the real effects something actually had on your child.

Well the documentary focuses on the children and their reactions.  It shows some kids being like "my parents don't like gay people" or "that's wierd" so it doesn't just blow sunshine as you put it.  IIRC, it shows some interviews with parents who are for and against it and it also talks with some teachers who are for and against it. 

The reason you keep repeating yourself is because you keep missing the point entirely: the "sexual" aspect does not exist in the book, in the minds of the children, in the presentation, or even in the concept of homosexual relationships.

It's certainly not something that people will accept, and it's definitely not a good move on the part of supporters of gay rights at this time, but that does not change the fact that objections to it are based in prejudice.

And a Hispanic friend of mine was taunted all through grade school for her race (she was in Texas).  If you're in a society where racism is common, kids will come out racist if you don't say anything.