A bill that has been sent to the floor of the California Senate would require textbooks used in public schools to include information on the roles and contributions of gay people throughout history, a move that could affect the content of instructional materials throughout much of the country. The measure would help build tolerance of diverse…

Young people have long sported T-shirts that schools wish they'd leave at home. Legal fights have been waged in recent years, for example, over shirts about guns, abortion, the Confederate battle flag, and the war in Iraq. But at a time when gay rights remains a divisive and unsettled issue nationally, a recent spate of disputes over T-shirts on…