The number of male schoolteachers has reached a 40-year low Newsweek reports.

Roughly one-quarter of the three million teachers in the U.S. are male, according to the National Education Association (NEA).

In elementary schools, nine percent of teachers are male, down from 18 percent in 1981, reports the NEA.

The Newsweek article should bother not just men, but gay men. In addressing the factors for the decline in male teachers, the magazine reports that men find themselves “hampered by a stereotype: They are widely assumed to lack nurturing skills, but when a teacher does have a caring personality, some parents assume he is gay and object to him in the classroom.”

Newsweek features a male teacher who was subject to a complaint by a parent who wanted her son removed from his class. The parent believed the teacher was “gay” and did not want him to be a role model for her son.

Ironically, the teacher is straight and married.

The incident is hardly an isolated event; education lawyers have grappled with this for years.

Even though California has laws protecting teachers from bias based upon being gay, parents still pressure principals to remove their kids from a teacher’s classroom. Most gay teachers seldom complain because they would prefer not to have a hostile parent harassing them.

The problem is much worse in the rest of the country, where there are few laws protecting male teachers from such bias. Principals can refuse to hire male teachers on the grounds that the teacher is gay or perceived to be.

That’s one reason why Congress needs to enact federal laws prohibiting bias based upon one’s real or perceived sexual orientation.

Mike Aguirre is investigating KPBS

City Attorney Mike Aguirre is investigating KPBS because a viewer complained that the station canceled “Full Focus,” a local show devoted to civic affairs.

The reality is that there is some cause for concern. Every few months, PBS solicits pledges from San Diegans to support “local programming.” The problem is that KPBS’s local programming seems to consist of Tom Fudge’s radio show (“These Days”) and the weekly radio/TV show called “Editors Roundtable.”

The City Attorney does investigate “consumer” complaints to ensure businesses, including non-profits, comply with anti-fraud laws.

If our local PBS station is nothing more than a conduit for national programs, then it should say so. But it should focus on local issues because it is one of the few media outlets in San Diego that usually is “fair and balanced,” and not operated to reflect the views of its right-wing ownership.

My gripe with KPBS is that “Editors Roundtable” has been around for years, but there has never been an “openly” gay editor on the show, let alone one who edits a gay paper. The show has featured editors/reporters from dozens of publications, just not anyone gay.

Car dealership ‘ministry’ closes

During the course of the last 20 years, most people active in GLBT rights in San Diego know that local businessperson Bob McClellan has been an adamant opponent of gay anything.

Unlike other advertisers on hate radio, McClellan didn’t just place ads, but he professed support for the radio-host’s anti-gay views. And he offered his car dealership for use as a phone bank for anti-gay efforts.

He ran an ad in the homophobic News Notes, published by avowed anti-gay activist (and Reader publisher) James Holman. McClellan’s ad referred to his car dealership as his “ministry.” He offered buyers professing to be evangelical Christians a discount.

Not surprisingly, those who found McClellan’s politics inseparable from his business practices boycotted him.

Now his business is closed because of declining sales.

One can admire a man like McClellan for his zealous advocacy for his views. But mixing his politics and his religion with his business was illegal, particularly pricing cars based upon the buyers’ “religious” orientation.