The 50 Spot: Sex Education in Schools

A conservative legislator in Rhode Island thinks that efforts to update the sex-ed curriculum in the Ocean State amount to indoctrinating kindergartners with homosexuality, an Arkansas woman allegedly gets evicted from her apartment because of her sexual orientation, and a newspaper in North Dakota lends its editorial voice to efforts to expand North Dakota's statewide anti-discrimination law to include sexual orientation. More below in the 50 Spot.

Rhode Island: In order to help schools do the job they're supposed to do, lawmakers in Rhode Island have proposed a bill that would make consistent the type of sex-ed students in public schools receive. As Dr. Sarah Fox told the Providence Journal: "Whatever is going on in the schools is not doing the trick. When you look at the teen pregnancy rate in a place like Central Falls, the rate is over 9 percent. That is not acceptable. Clearly schools are not doing the job they are supposed to." But the proposal has been met with criticism from some anti-LGBT politicians, who believe that efforts to change state law governing sex-education in classrooms is tantamount of peddling homosexuality. Blah. Here's what State Rep. Jon D. Brien told the ProJo: "This opens the door for agenda-driven teachers who want to indoctrinate young children into their way of thinking at a very young age and begin to insert the ideas of homosexuality and contraception into children." Wow, that's some old-time paranoia speaking. A public hearing on the bill is expected this afternoon.

Arkansas: It is legal for landlords in Arkansas to evict tenants for being LGBT.  Sound unust?  It is.  But that isn't stopping a landlord in Fort Smith from allegedly throwing out two tenants because one of them - a lesbian - refused to remove a "gay pride" message that was on her car.  The landlord is disputing the claim, but these types of issues are EXACTLY why it's so important that anti-discrimination statutes - like the one that Gainesville voters overwhelmingly approved yesterday - get on the books.  No landlord should have the right to throw someone out because their car says "Gay Pride" on it.  As the girlfriend of the evicted tenant told 5News: "You shouldn't hate on us for our sexual orientation, if we're happy, that shouldn't be anybody else's business."

North Dakota: The Assistant Editor of the Jamestown Sun weighs in on efforts (via a bill in the State Senate known as SB 2278) in ND to expand a statewide anti-discrimination law to include sexual orientation.  "Forty below is not the only reason potential North Dakota residents choose to live elsewhere. There’s also the stigma that this rural state is a backward one where minorities are not welcome and people who are different from the norm should look to other states. We have a chance to prove this image wrong with Senate Bill 2278."