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Outraged parents in Alameda, California, want the chance to tell their children about gay penguins when they think their kids are ready to hear about it, and don’t think the school board should put this awesome power in the hands of teachers.

Alameda school officials had high hopes the new elementary school curriculum would teach respect and help reduce bullying related to gay and lesbian individuals and families.

So they created lesson plans that talked about teasing and explained the different definitions of family – even throwing in the true story of Roy and Silo, two same-sex penguins in New York.

Shocked that the school board would empower second-grade teachers to talk with their students for forty-five minutes about a subject so sacred to the parent-child bond — gay penguins! — parents have enlisted some high-powered assistance from the state capital:

"This is a parents’ rights issue," said Brad Dacus, president of the Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute, which is actively opposing the curriculum. "It’s really a cheap attempt at indoctrination. It’s not really age appropriate to be addressing sexual orientation and transgender issues at such a young age."

Or penguins! Especially gay penguins (or "same-sex" penguins, as the San Francisco Chronicle coyly calls them) who become adoptive parents when a female penguin neighbor can’t care for the egg that hatches little Tango. This kind of shocking anomaly exclusive to the penguin world is best left to parents, of course, who know best when their own children are ready to hear about the racy lives of same-sex penguin parenting.

Penguin parenting! What’s next? Penguin disco!  Penguin raves! Penguin cross-dressing! Penguin nuns!  Penguin orgies!  Penguin promiscuity! Where will the penguin lifestyle indoctrination end if teachers can delve into the shocking penguin underworld without parental involvement or supervision? In forty-five minutes!

And who is this Pacific Justice Institute, so ready to assist distraught parents in another case as well, this one in Castro Valley, California, where the Institute protested the involvement of a lesbian minister in a Day of Diversity presentation?  Why, the Institute attended to these parents’ interests before any parents even protested!

Pacific Justice Institute’s Web site features endorsements from media personalities Bill O’Reilly and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese. The organization’s president is Brad W. Dacus, a former legislative assistant to former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas.

It’s a long road from legislating the deregulation of complex Master-of-the-Universe financial derivatives to banning books on penguin parenting, but it’s good to know that you’ve got O’Reilly and Schlessinger and Meese on your team, isn’t it, Mr Dacus? Because that’s who I turn to for my penguin-related elementary school curriculum questions.

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