Feb 29, 2008  |  By: ZACK ROSEN  | COMMENTS     

The long debate over a gay-inclusive sex-ed curriculum in Montgomery County, Md., demonstrates that teaching kids about gay issues can be thorny territory. But lesbian director Debra Chasnoff’s 1996 documentary “It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues In School” was created to show adults that children are capable of understanding, and can benefit from, basic education on gay issues. Released on DVD for the first time on Feb. 19, along with its 2007 follow-up “It’s Still Elementary,” the film had an impact in its time and is still relevant today.

The original “Elementary” was directed by Helen Cohen and Debra Chasnoff (who won an Academy Award in 1992 for her documentary short “Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment”). The filmmakers interviewed various teachers, who were including gay topics in their classrooms, and the students themselves, who appeared generally nonplussed and nonjudgmental on the existence of gays.

“By eighth grade it’s not uncommon for kids in our culture to absorb strange ideas,” Chasnoff says in an interview. “Younger children are very open-minded and they haven’t completely absorbed the notion that gay equals bad. They either don’t know what it means or they hear the word tossed around and they’re not sure.”

The difficulty of teaching gay issues in school is addressed throughout the film. Chasnoff says that administrators are jumpy about filming in school (every kid requires a permission slip) and about the issues at hand because “it just takes one parent to make a big stink about it.”

Georgetown Day School, an independent pre-kindergarten through high school in Washington, incorporates the film into both its staff training program and parent education seminars. The school enrolls the children of many same-sex families and uses the film to help those children feel more comfortable at school.

“People equate talking about sexual orientation with sexual behavior as opposed to identity,” says Elizabeth Denevi, the school’s straight co-director of diversity. “It’s an abstract concept, not sexual behavior. No child at our school should have to explain their family structure, we use [the video] to make sure that families come in all shapes and sizes.”

“STILL ELEMENTARY’S” RELEASE coincides with a tragic event that reminded the filmmakers of how important the movie’s message remains.

Lawrence King, 15, who was known to arrive at his Oxnard, Calif., school wearing makeup and other feminine attire, was allegedly shot in the head on Feb. 12 by a 14-year-old classmate, Brandon McInerney. King was removed from life support two days after the shooting and prosecutors are attempting to charge McInerney as an adult while police investigate the hate crime angle.

“You hear kids saying we need tougher hate crime legislation, but with a 14-year-old the best deterrent is prevention,” Chasnoff says. “The boy who shot the gun — what if he had been in elementary school and every year there was some lesson where the teacher talked about gay kids and he got his stereotype challenged and he learned that gays and lesbians aren’t disgusting people and not to be upset by other boys that don’t dress like he does?  I want to puke every time we hear conservative leaders wanting to censor reading a book about two mommies in school or any curriculum acknowledging GLBT exists. Lawrence’s life is over and the kid who killed him, his life is ruined, too.”

There will be a screening of the films on April 26 during the D.C. Rainbow Families conference in Takoma Park, Md. (www. rainbowfamiliesdc.org).