Conservative critics have successfully focused the debate surrounding California Senate Bill 1437—which seeks to ban anti-gay school curriculum, and was recently passed by the state senate—on the specific policy changes they say the law would impose.

Political analyst and radio talk-show host Carol Platt Liebau, for example, recently argued in an American Spectator editorial that the bill would require teachers to emphasize the sexual orientation of historical figures, whether or not it’s pertinent to a nuanced discussion of their lives.

“[SB 1437] requires the insertion of sexual preference into California and American history, even when the information is completely superfluous,” Liebau wrote. “Ironically, the label often serves to circumscribe too narrowly the achievements of those to whom it's applied.”

Others worry the bill would require schools to expose young students to sympathetic depictions of homosexuality, thereby instilling unnaturally tolerant attitudes toward the gay community.

According to the Campaign for Children and Families’ website, “by forbidding schools from adopting educational material that ‘reflects adversely’ on these sexual life styles, SB 1437 mandates these sexual life styles be taught and promoted to impressionable schoolchildren.”

Some have gone further, citing hypothetical, draconian curriculum changes such as the elimination of sex-specific terms such as “mom” and “dad” from textbooks; the elimination of sex-specific sports teams; the elimination of sex-specific social activities, such as the nomination of prom kings and queens; etc.

The California Family Council website even implied that, under this law, students would be allowed to interchangeably attend class “as a male or female” using “the school bathroom that reflects their status on that day.”

Considering the seemingly inoffensive and open-ended language of the bill, the specificity of these charges is, at the least, striking. Robin Podolsky, press secretary to State Senator Sheila Kuehl, the author of the bill, called them “just silly.”

“It may be a question of redesigning some specific curriculum on the local level to meet the needs of the law. But, it’s not inflexible; school districts would still have a lot to say about their home curriculum,” she said

In fact, SB 1437 would merely extend an existing California law that prohibits curriculum or school activities that “reflect adversely” on certain minority groups to include the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

“The law already requires the inclusion of the contributions of men, women, black people, Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Pacific Islanders…” Podolsky said. “So while I gather that from a libertarian perspective people might have a principle problem with any legislation like this, the law already mandates diversity and already prohibits discrimination.”

Podolsky also discounted the claim that the sexual orientation of historical figures was irrelevant.

“We hear, for example, all the time in history books about George and Martha Washington. Frankly, I’m not really convinced, other than having been married to George Washington, what Martha Washington’s contributions are and why we find out about her,” she said. “We hear about the heterosexual stuff about historical figures as a matter of course, and you could ask what’s germane about that, either… I think also because [homosexuals] are a minority, [the sexual orientation of gay historical figures] is particularly relevant because whatever contributions they made would have been made given that circumstance. Which is kind of inspiring, one hopes, to young people dealing with these issues.”

The true crux of this debate has little to do with paper tigers (such as prom bans) dreamed up by creative conservative PR gurus; it’s really a question of whether or not gays are entitled to civil rights, like racial minorities, as Barbara McPherson, Legislative Affairs Coordinator at the California Family Council clarified in a telephone interview.

“There is a disagreement about whether sexual orientation reaches the same level of need for protection as a racial group or gender,” McPherson said. “People disagree on whether it’s an immutable characteristic or not; that’s the basis on which you are protected [as a legitimate group].”

But because that core belief—which clearly underlies much of the opposition to this bill—is too radical for mass consumption, conservatives have largely concealed it amid accusations of “micromanaging curriculum,” their media-palatable battle cry du jour.

“This is sort of a micromanagement bill,” McPherson said. “… Presently local school boards, teachers and so forth, do have some flexibility about what they are able to teach, what they can’t teach, what their priorities are. This bill would mandate that that would be taken away from them.”

It’s a classic bait-and-switch tactic that’s worked like a charm, winning over even traditionally moderate voices such as The Los Angeles Times and The Sacramento Bee editorial boards.

“It is, forgive us, a textbook case in political meddling,” a recent Los Angeles Times editorial said of the bill.

But more to the point, this strategy has provided Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—under considerable pressure from the right—with a convenient excuse to preemptively pledge to veto the bill if approved by the State Assembly.

“The governor’s position is that we already have adequate procedures for setting curriculum, and that it’s not the job of the legislature to micromanage what our children learn,” said Katherine McLane, Schwarzenegger’s Deputy Press Secretary.

Podolsky offered a different interpretation of the governor’s decision.

“This is a cynical, political ploy,” she said. “Governor Schwarzenegger is pandering to the extreme right wing. We think he knows this is a very benign bill.”

Furthermore, his willingness to declare opposition to the bill at such an early stage is significant and unexpected.

“He’s never been a noticeable homophobe,” she said. “He talks a good game. But, it seems that when it’s a matter of political calculation, he regards the LBGT community as expendable.”