Obama Declares June LGBT Pride Month

In a presidential proclamation on the White House website, Barack Obama has lauded what he calls “the determination and dedication” of the LGBT movement by proclaiming June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.”

President Barack H. Obama”The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress,” Obama states in the official proclamation, “but there is more to be done. LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect.”

The proclamation, released on Monday, credits the LGBT movement with being a factor in more Americans who ascribe to those groups “living their lives openly today than ever before.”

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Gay Pledge Cards Given to Kindergartners

A California school system refuses to say what action, if any, it will take after it received complaints about a kindergarten teacher who encouraged her students to sign “pledge cards” in support of gays.

During a celebration of National Ally Week, Tara Miller, a teacher at the Faith Ringgold School of Arts and Science in Hayward, Calif., passed out cards produced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to her class of kindergartners.

The cards asked signers to be “an ally” and to pledge to “not use anti-LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender language or slurs; intervene, when I feel I can, in situations where others are using anti-LGBT language or harassing other students and actively support safer schools efforts.”

The school has acknowledged that the exercise was not appropriate for kindergartners.

Parent Adela Voelker, who declined to be interviewed in depth for this report, said she was furious when she found her child’s signature on one of the cards. She said she contacted a non-profit legal defense organization specializing in parents’ rights.

Meanwhile, a school board member, Jeff Cook, says some type of action should be taken.

“We have a general rule that all instruction should be age appropriate, and this clearly was not,” said Cook, who has served on the school board for five years.

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