Pro-Homosexuality Classes to Hit Md. Schools
This fall, Maryland's Montgomery County will begin teaching middle and high school students about homosexuality as a normal sexual identity amid an appeal by pro-family groups.
Montgomery's 8th and 10th graders will be taught in their health education courses that homosexuality is "innate," anal sex is just another sexual option, children who hold traditional religious views about homosexuality are labeled "homophobic," and that transgenderism is just another "sexual orientation," according to Thomas More Law Center.
The law center is assisting pro-family groups – Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, and the Family Leader Network – in a last-minute appeal against the Maryland State Board of Education's decision last month to approve the homosexual-friendly curriculum.
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"This curriculum is full of factual inaccuracies and runs counter to sound educational policy," Edward L. White III, trial counsel with Thomas More Law Center, said in a released statement. "It should not be taught in the public school."
Barring last-minute court action, the county will go ahead in its teaching of homosexuality, according to The New York Times.
While the lessons are to promote respect and acceptance of the various forms of sexual identity, pro-family groups argue that the lessons will indoctrinate children with negative influences and that parents should have a right to decide what their child should learn.
John Garza, president of the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, a group leading the opposition, said parents can block television shows they deem morally questionable "but then we have the schoolteacher affirming unhealthy behavior," according to the Times.
Coral Ridge Ministries, a prominent conservative Christian organization, recently ran a media campaign against declining moral and academic excellence in public schools, shedding light on "how America's courts are stripping parents of their rights to oversee what their children learn in classrooms."
In the new curriculum, Montgomery students will be exposed to individual testimonies from GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual) persons, according to Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum.
"I've known for a long time that I am a lesbian," reads one of the testimonies. "When I was a little girl, my grandfather would read me a bedtime story before I went to sleep.
"When he read those stories, I knew that when I grew up, I would marry the beautiful princess, not the prince."
Candi Cushman, an education analyst for Focus on the Family, quoted a mother of six – two of whom are in the school district. "They are essentially telling the kids that unless they accept homosexuality, there is something wrong with them," said Michelle Turner. "These kids have no ability to voice their objection. These lessons are so tightly scripted, there is really no discussion that is permitted to take place in the classroom."
A 2004 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and National Public Radio found that more than 50 percent of high school and middle school parents supported teaching what homosexuality is about "without discussing whether it is wrong or acceptable."
