From The Gazette

Sex ed lessons concern parents

Group forms to block new curriculum

by Sean R. Sedam

December 8, 2004

Parents opposed to a new county sex education curriculum have decided to form a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing what it considers inappropriate lessons about sexual orientation and condom use.

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum is an approximately 70-member group that formed Saturday during a meeting about the new curriculum in Kensington. Members are opposed to several portions of the new lesson plan, including a discussion of "sexual variations and orientation," which will be piloted in eighth- and 10th-grade classes at three middle and three high schools next semester. The board has not determined which schools will be part of the pilot program.

Maryland schools have been allowed to discuss homosexuality as part of the health curriculum since 1970, but so far county schools have allowed teachers only to address specific questions from students, not to initiate a discussion.

The group also opposes an eight-minute video featuring a woman explaining the proper way to use a condom and uses a cucumber to demonstrate how to put one on. The video was shown at three high schools in the spring: James Hubert Blake and Montgomery Blair in Silver Spring, and Northwest in Germantown.

Michelle Turner, former president of both the Montgomery County PTA and the Einstein High School PTA, was elected president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum. Turner was a dissenting member of the Family Life and Human Development Advisory Committee, the group that recommended the new curriculum to the school board. Turner, who has four children who attend schools in the Einstein cluster, said her major concern is the lack of scientific support for the discussion of sexual variations.

"There is nothing scientific about this new curriculum," Turner said. "There have been individuals who have been able to leave the gay lifestyle through therapy."

Turner and many of the other attendees Saturday said they object to their children being taught that homosexuality is genetically predetermined.

"I have no problem with them teaching some amount of tolerance," she said. "What we have a problem with is telling kids it's normal."

The curriculum allows teachers to add same-sex parent families to their discussions of the types of families living the community, and notes that "[m]ost experts...have concluded that sexual orientation is not a choice; it's a natural response," according to a memorandum from schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.

Turner and others at the meeting said members of the Family Life and Human Development Advisory Committee, formed in 1970 as a result of state regulation, was composed of people who supported "the gay agenda." Members include parents of gay men and lesbians, as well as members of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood and a local Unitarian church.

"The advisory committee had a mindset of promoting homosexuality," said Retta Brown, who represented the Daughters of the American Revolution on the committee and said she is concerned about what students will glean from the sex ed classes. "These children will not learn that sodomy will kill you. They'll think it's wonderful."

But Russell Henke, the school system's health education coordinator, said in phone interview Monday the committee also includes parents of children in Montgomery County Public Schools.

Among those in attendance at Saturday's meeting were a few supporters of the curriculum.

Nancy Greenfield and her husband Peter Gray attended the early part of the meeting but left when the group began to strategize about ways it could change the curriculum.

"The trend in there was hateful," Greenfield said, adding that she felt that the people speaking were part of a minority group that did not represent all Montgomery County parents.

"It makes it so the kids who have two mothers or two fathers are not supposed to talk about that," she said. "A lot of the psychiatric problems these kids have is from the hatred and intolerance of the people around them."

Carol Rubin, who has two daughters in high school, said she thinks it's important that schools address these issues because often students listen more carefully to teachers than they do to their parents.

"When I talk, my daughter hears, 'Blah, blah, blah," she said. "We need to address how adolescents learn."

The members of the newly created Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum said they wanted to move forward quickly with their plans to change the lessons. In addition to electing Turner, a Kensington resident, as president, they chose Ellen Castellano of Montgomery Village as vice president, Ben Patton of Damascus as treasurer and Steina Walter as secretary. The group planned to register as a nonprofit 501c4 group Monday and begin accepting non-tax-deductible donations later in the week.

The meeting broke into groups that discussed media and communication, outreach to make more parents aware of what is going on, religious involvement, legislative involvement and the best way to elect a new school board so that it more accurately reflects the views of the people present.

Attendees were also concerned about the perceived imbalance in the makeup of the Family Life and Human Development Advisory Committee. The committee can have up to 30 members, both representatives from organizations in the county and at-large members, Henke said, adding that it has been difficult to fill all 30 slots. There are currently four at-large and five organization slots available.

School board members make the appointments to the committee, based on ensuring cultural diversity, regional representation, and a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, among other factors, Henke said.

As the members of the newly formed Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum brainstormed in groups around him Saturday, Germantown resident Barry Lyons tried to explain the group's motivation.

"We are not about hate," he said. "We're about developing a curriculum that's responsible to the community at large and not just a particular agenda."