SSM IN SCHOOLS: From the San Jose Mercury News

...As the national debate over same-sex marriage ricochets from California to Massachusetts, students, teachers, administrators and parents are scrambling to define how to discuss the issue on campus -- and whether to incorporate the subject into lesson plans.

Educators walk a fine line: Their role is to educate students about the world around them and to help those students arrive at opinions of their own, whatever the teacher's views might be. But when a topic is as highly charged as same-sex marriage, they run the risk of politicizing the classroom, and offending parents who would prefer the subject not be discussed.

Most Bay Area districts have not formally adopted gay marriage as part of their curriculum, in part because the debate is evolving so swiftly. The California Department of Education has not taken a position. ...

''Are there any teachers who think homosexual marriage is wrong who are leading the discussion? I doubt it,'' said Randy Thomasson, founder and executive director of the Campaign for California Families, a statewide organization that opposes gay marriage. ''Children are being indoctrinated to support gay marriage behind parents' backs.''

In Palo Alto last month, the Palo Alto Council of Parent Teacher Associations passed a resolution opposing any laws or amendments to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It became perhaps the first PTA board in the country to support gay marriage and urge the national organization to follow suit.

At many Bay Area high schools, teenagers are driving the conversation on their own.

In a poll conducted by the Woodside World, the student newspaper of Woodside High, 65 percent of 223 students surveyed believe that same-sex marriages should be legalized in the United States. Other high school newspapers have run editorials pro and con. ...

The San Francisco Unified School District is thought to be the first public school system in the country to develop a Civil Marriage Debate Teacher's Guide. The classroom exercise, developed in recent weeks, asks students to argue both sides of the issue, regardless of personal opinion. The district celebrates Gay Pride Month in April.

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