I'll admit it...I'm one of those smug blue-staters. When a story of wingnuttery run-amok breaks, I've always assumed it will be from one of those crazy red states. Not
anymore.
Maryland's largest school system has become a battleground over what students should be taught about sex and a symbol, some supporters of the new curriculum said, of the increasing influence the conservative movement is hoping to play in public school classrooms.
Five months after the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a new approach to teaching students about homosexuality and condom use, a federal judge put a 10-day hold on implementation of the program...
Two groups, the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays apparently got their shorts in a knot because the new program was going to teach (gasp) tolerance and provide enough information to make informed sexual decisions. Can't have that.
More
This wasn't a program that was slapped together by a couple of teachers over the weekend:
The program was the product of more than three years of work by a 27-member committee that included parents, teachers, students and other community members, including several people affiliated with churches as well as a representative from the Washington area chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and PFOX.
And the end result?
The new sex education program, approved by the board in November, was designed with the intent of promoting tolerance among students and of giving them more information so they could be better informed about making decisions about having sex. The most significant changes were at the eighth-grade level, where teachers would have been allowed to initiate discussions about homosexuality, and at the 10th-grade level, where students would have watched a seven-minute video that included information on how to put on a condom.
That this promising, well thought out program was derailed by a fringe group is infuriating. This parent expressed my thoughts exactly:
"It looks like we're in Kansas after all. I'm appalled. I'm appalled," said Charlotte Fremaux, a parent leader at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, one of six campuses that was to be a pilot site for the sex-ed lessons. "Next, they'll be challenging evolution."
That something like this could happen in what is considered a liberal county shows how far the religious right has progressed in hijacking this country. The group claims they are not "the religious fringe" and that they represent "the mainstream."
The group has received help from Erik Stanley, chief counsel for Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based nonprofit organization known for his involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, and for litigating same-sex marriage and Ten Commandments cases across the nation. Stanley argued on behalf of the two groups in federal court last week.
Mainstream my ass.