afloweroutofstone:

tilthat:

TIL Alabama law requires teachers to lie to students and teach being gay is illegal.

via reddit.com

This is completely true in spirit, but false in a highly technical sense, and that technicality sheds light on important things in U.S. law. 

Alabama state code requires teachers to teach not that being gay is illegal, but to teach “that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.” That matters because it’s actually half correct: Alabama is one of the 17 states that still has a state law against sodomy on the books. This does not encompass all of what would could be called “homosexual conduct,” but is a law clearly primarily aimed at gay people. Plus, another shockingly broad subsection of Alabama law which bans “deviate sexual intercourse” would probably be interpreted so as to arrest people for other forms of same-sex sexual interaction.

No state can actually enforce these laws because of Lawrence v. Texas, but it is technically true that “homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state”; this is why the Alabama law on education can claim to require teachers teach this “in a factual manner.” The purpose of the law is to terrify gay people into the closet, but it’s actually made worse by the fact that the teaching isn’t techncially wrong, and has previously been entirely correct, within our lifetimes!

Also worthy of note: laws requiring sex education teachers to either portray same-sex attraction as harmful and/or illegal or not to acknowledge it all are known as a “no promo homo” laws, and Arizona, Louisiana, Mississipi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas also currently have them on the books.