The Montgomery County school superintendent called off the planned launch of a new sex education curriculum yesterday, hours after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against it.
Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said he was suspending the curriculum, which was to be taught at six schools beginning next week, for the rest of the school year. A statement released last night said that he had ordered a review of the materials for the curriculum before deciding the future of the program.
The restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr., which was to last 10 days, prohibited the system from beginning the program in which 10th-graders would be shown a video on how to put on a condom and eighth-grade teachers would be allowed to initiate discussions about homosexuality with their students.
The order was a victory for two community groups, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, which filed suit Tuesday to block teaching of the material. The groups maintain that the curriculum was biased and favored the viewpoints of certain religious groups. The groups also argued that the school board did not follow proper procedures in approving the curriculum.
"Defendants open up the classroom to the subject of homosexuality and specifically, the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle," the judge wrote in a 22-page opinion. "However, the Revised Curriculum presents only one view on the subject -- that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle -- to the exclusion of other perspectives."
John Garza, who represented the two groups at the hearing in Greenbelt, said of the temporary restraining order: "What happened here today is extraordinary. We're very pleased."
"Obviously, we're disappointed," school board President Patricia O'Neill (Bethesda-Chevy Chase) said. "The request for the order came in the eleventh hour, almost when we were to begin teaching the curriculum."
Yesterday evening, Garza praised Weast's decision to suspend the curriculum.
"I hope they will allow us to participate in some way" in the review, he said. "That way, there won't be a repeat of this in the fall."
The Montgomery County school board approved the changes to the eighth- and 10th-grade curriculum in November after receiving recommendations from a 27-member citizens advisory committee, which O'Neill said included the current president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and a representative of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays.
School officials said the goal of the curriculum was to give students information they needed about the importance of abstinence and the dangers of unprotected sex. Educators also hoped to create a more tolerant atmosphere for students of all sexual orientations.
In his order, Williams agreed with the two groups' contention that the new curriculum offered students only one perspective on homosexuality.
