http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/11/MNFG13F1VG.DTL&type=politics&tsp=1

A group of San Francisco first-graders took an unusual field trip to City Hall on Friday to toss rose petals on their just-married lesbian teacher - putting the public school children at the center of a fierce election battle over the fate of same-sex marriage.

A parent came up with the idea for the field trip - a surprise for the teacher on her wedding day.

"She's such a dedicated teacher," said the school's interim director Liz Jaroslow.

But there was a question of justifying the field trip academically. Jaroflow decided she could.

"A teachable moment" she calls it. Many outraged parents call it an "indoctrinating moment".

Michael Savage remarked how the children should have been learning about real history like Columbus Day, instead of being put in this indoctrination.

2 families had the guts to opt out their children. Their children were forced to remain at the school in another classroom.

Some of the children at the event were given politcal buttons to wear "No on 8", refering to the Proposition 8 to change the California Constitution to say that marriage only occurs between a man and a woman.

Of over 2400 reader comments, many were "Oh isn't this wonderful", but a few people's comments against this were allowed to stay in the comments for the article:

• pls....leave the children in school where they are supposed to be..learning abour the three Rs....let this couple get married on there own time....teachers with a agenda/keep them out of the classroom....leave it to the parents
• If each same-sex wedding causes 3 conservatives to have heart attacks, and there are four couples waiting to be married, and there are four ambulances that can each get a heart attack victim to the hospital and return in 20 minutes each, how long will it take to perform all the services while ensuring that each stricken conservative can receive adequate care? (For extra credit, how could we design a more equitable, efficient and socially valuable health care system?) There, kids, answer that for math lesson, and we can take the rest of the day off!
• This IS overt indoctrination and it makes no difference how any adult views gay people. It is not the job of teachers to take it upon themselves to socialize children and young adults, or form their political and cultural opinions for them. That is the partent/guardians job. I guess all the kids had to have permission slips to go. Wonder if there were any parents who did not like it but were scared to say no. Don't want junior to be an outcast in class. I remember being in third grade and being told that Ronald Reagan was going to get us all killed in a nuclear war. Uh, stick to the ABC's and 123's please. Don't ram your ideology down my kids throat.
• So would everyone be as happy about this story if the children were attending a public event like a Church service or a political event like a Yes on Prop 8 rally? It's funny how everyone is supposed to be tolerant...unless it comes to being tolerant of those with a Judeo-Christian belief or a traditional family lifestyle. I must ask where are we going and why do I feel like we're all in this big handbasket?
• To use Tax Payer dollars so that little kids have to be programmed into the Agenda of this pro-gay movement to me is something that I would support filing a law suit to prvent it from happening again. I don't care what people do on their own time, but to take time to force kids to view stuff like this during school hours is a misuse of the public's funds, many of which ar shaking their heads and saying "see, we told you what was going to happen." Leave the kids alone! Use my property taxes to educate, not indoctronate!
• I'm sorry, I'm a little confused here. The article refers to the marriage of "Erin Carder and her wife Kerri McCoy". If Kerri is the "wife", what does that make Erin??? a) the "husband" b) the "man", c) the "master" d) the second wife (isn't this polygamy?) d) the bumper e) the bumpee f) Party A d) e) none of the above f) all of the above g) insufficient data to determine. This might be a good question on the new new citizenship exams... Better yet, lets just go back to normal. Please
• When I was an elementary school student in San Francisco Public Schools in the early 1960's we did some strange things also. Our kindergarten teacher at Lakeshore School made us pray over our milk and graham crackers before we ate them. Can you believer that!!! What evil!!! Thank you Gavin and SF schools for reindoctinating us into the tolerant society that we are.............unless my grandchildren want to pray in school.
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