Jack And Jack and Jill and Jill

By Richard Lacayo

Daddy's roommate is a congenial children's book about a boy in a not-so- unusual position: his parents have divorced. The rest of his story is a bit more unconventional. His father is living with a new companion named Frank. Kids who turn the pages will learn that the two men live together. They "work together," the text explains. They "eat together." And one other thing. They "sleep together."

The text and pictures in Daddy's Roommate may give off a warm glow, but glowing books can light fuses. The book is on the recommended reading list of a new first-grade curriculum in New York City -- sort of a gay companion to Jack and Jill. And that has led to a bitter fight about when and how to teach children about homosexuality, a question that schools all around the country have begun -- very cautiously -- to confront.

Developed to foster respect for all races, ethnic groups and religions, the New York City teachers' guide called "Children of the Rainbow" is mostly unexceptional. It suggests presenting folklore through Chinese tales; or, for music class, the Mexican hat dance. But in a segment on the importance of families, it reminds teachers that some of their pupils may come from households in which one or both adults are gay. And its original wording urged teachers to encourage first-graders "to view lesbians/gays as real people to be respected and appreciated." Among proposed -- but not required -- readings, the guide suggests Daddy's Roommate, along with Heather Has Two Mommies and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride.

When more than half the city's 32 local boards balked at introducing first- graders to the notion of same-sex couples, chancellor Joseph Fernandez agreed that they could hold off until the fifth or sixth grade. But the board of District 24, in the largely blue-collar borough of Queens, refused that offer. Board president Mary Cummins labeled portions of the guide "dangerously misleading homosexual/lesbian propaganda." Even after Fernandez softened the guidelines concerning homosexuality, District 24 board members refused to meet with him. Last week the exasperated chancellor suspended them. In their place he appointed trustees who will now meet with parent groups to try to adopt a compromise curriculum. "It is very important," he insists, "that children learn early on that there are different family structures out there than the traditional one."

While New York appears to be unique so far in attempting to raise the subject with first-graders, schools all over the country are discovering reasons to consider teaching about homosexuality at some grade level. In AIDS- awareness programs, pupils have been putting teachers on the spot with questions about gay life generally. Some teenagers are coming to the realization, usually an uncomfortable one, that they are gay themselves. And with gay-bashing assaults on the rise among adolescents, school administrators interested in curbing bigotry are trying to teach kids the meaning of the word homophobia.

Though a few states, including California and Massachusetts, are thinking about statewide guidelines on how to discuss homosexuality in the classroom, most of the change is taking place at the city or county level. After a 1989 federal study showed that one-third of adolescents who kill themselves are young people struggling with their sexual orientation, school officials in Virginia's Fairfax County decided to expand their wide-ranging family-life education program. "We had a moral obligation to combat a devastating trend," says Gerald Newberry, coordinator of the county's family-life education programs. "We needed to communicate to our kids that people are different, and that we don't choose our sexual feelings -- they choose us."

Now Fairfax ninth-graders see a video called What If I'm Gay? Originally broadcast on network TV, it concerns three teenage boys who are friends, including one who is struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality. For , homework, students are encouraged to ask their parents what they would say if one of their children had a gay friend. In the human-sexuality course he teaches in Alexandria, Virginia, Larry Gaudreault concentrates on the accumulating evidence that sexual orientation may be in some measure biologically determined rather than a freely chosen "life-style." "We try to dispel the myth that homosexuality develops later in life as a result of one's environment," he says.

Fairfax permits parents to have their children excused from classes in which homosexuality is discussed, an option that school officials say only about 1.5% of parents exercise. Wayne Steward, 17, a gay senior, is convinced that such programs work toward eliminating prejudice. "When students don't understand what differences there may be ((among people))," he says, "they can let fear cloud their judgment."

In Seattle this year, the public health curriculum will include for the first time a two-lesson segment for juniors and seniors on sexual orientation. In lower grades, teachers and administrators are being trained to take seriously any incidents of antigay graffiti and name calling. "School buildings are not automatically going to be safe and comfortable places for kids unless adults take an active role in making them that way," says Pamela Hillard, coordinator for sexuality and HIV education for the Seattle public schools.

In the future the notion of the gay-positive classroom may go further, to examine the contributions that gay men and women have made. Arthur Lipkin, a Harvard University research associate, is developing a curriculum to help high school teachers incorporate information about gays into history, literature and psychology lessons. A series of lessons dealing with the history of gays over two centuries was recently tested among 10th-to-12th-grade social-studies classes in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The kids were riveted by the subject matter," reports Lipkin, "because they don't ordinarily see it discussed as a serious academic subject."

It might not be controversial for high school seniors to consider whether Tennessee Williams' sexuality fueled the outsider lyricism of A Streetcar Named Desire. But telling six-year-olds, however gently, that some other six- year-olds have two mommies is still a red flag in many households with just one. Some parents involved in the New York City controversy fear that exposure to the subject might predispose young children toward homosexuality. Others simply don't want to teach their kids that gay couples are acceptable. "We're asked to park our values about life-style at the door," complains Joanne Gough, a nurse and mother of three children. And a lot of parents are wary of raising premature questions about sexuality in any form. "A six-year-old child cannot understand homosexuality," says Louise Phillips, a New York City attorney who is the mother of two school-age youngsters. "Every parent I spoke with said their six-year-old cannot understand the nature of adult heterosexuality."

When is it too soon to open discussion about differences in sexual orientation? "As early as kindergarten, such things as appreciating differences and respecting all people can be taught," insists Dr. Virginia Uribe, founder of the Los Angeles school district's Project 10, which uses counseling and support to discourage lesbian and gay teens from dropping out. "And as kids get older, teachers should be prepared to respond to the questions they have. Kids don't have any big prejudices to start out with. They learn those things."

That kind of controversy is one reason that most schools are still wary about dealing with the issue at any grade level. Project 21, a San Francisco- based organization that favors teaching about gay and lesbian issues, mailed out questionnaires asking 35 Midwestern school districts what assistance they provide for gay students. Only 10 responded. "Most districts want to avoid the whole topic," says Robert Birle, the organization's Midwestern-states coordinator. "But if schools get beyond looking at gay youth as the problem and look at the homophobic atmosphere instead, we'll get some positive results."

In New York some gay students have been so badly harassed that the city supports a separate minischool for gay teens who might otherwise drop out. "Gay and lesbian issues need to be raised in the schools because of what we see in our work," says Frances Kunreuther, executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a nonprofit organization that operates the 35- student school under city auspices. "The amount of violence gay kids face, the harassment, the rejection by their families." The angry and sometimes distorted debate over the Children of the Rainbow curriculum in New York, she says, "is really a great example of why we need the curriculum." And a fair example too of why it won't be easy to get one.

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington, Sylvester Monroe/Los Angeles and Elizabeth Rudulph/New York