Assault on Calif.'s Gay Education Bill Begins

One day after California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill mandating that LGBT accomplishments be taught in public schools, a conservative group launched an effort to overturn it.

The Capitol Resource Institute, which has a self-described mission to "educate, advocate, protect, and defend family-friendly policies in the California state legislature and at local government levels," filed paperwork on Friday to begin the referendum process to overturn California's Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act. The group's legislative director, Paulo Sibaja, filed the request for a title and summary for a ballot referendum with California's attorney general. The institute will have to collect 433,971 signatures to get the repeal measure on the ballot, where voters will decide whether to keep or nullify the FAIR Act.

Mark Leno, the gay state senator who introduced the FAIR Act, called the institute "extremist" and told the San Francisco Chronicle he doubted the group would be able to cull the needed signatures.

The FAIR Act requires that California public schools add the contributions of LGBT Americans to social sciences curricula -- the contributions of other minorities, like African-Americans and Latinos, were previously mandated.