A bill passed by
California lawmakers would have prohibited the use of
language in school textbooks that is discriminatory
toward gays, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to
sign it. Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that the
state's education laws already prevent discrimination
and that the bill "would not strengthen this important area
of legal protection from bias based on sexual orientation."
The bill, which won final passage last week,
would have expanded current antidiscrimination laws by
prohibiting any negative portrayals of gay
people in textbooks and other instructional material.
An original version would have required social science
textbooks to include the historical contributions of
gay people, but the California assembly amended it in
an effort to avoid a veto from the Republican governor.
The bill's author, openly lesbian state senator
Sheila Kuehl, called the veto "inexplicable.... I am
extremely disappointed that the governor chose to
respond to a small, shrill group of right-wing extremists
rather than a fair-minded majority of Californians who
support this reasonable measure." AP)