New Topics in Sex-Education Curriculum

The Montgomery County school board last week approved a new sex-education curriculum for grades 8 and 10 that will introduce the topics of sexual orientation and homosexuality for the first time in county schools. The new lessons, including a 10th-grade condom demonstration DVD, are to be field-tested in several middle schools and high schools in the spring, barring intervention by the courts. Some parents say the curriculum promotes homosexuality and promiscuity. Others say it is appropriate for students in grades 8 and 10.

Here are some excerpts from the lessons that will be passed out to students. For more details about the curriculum, go to http://www.mcps.k12.md.us.

Grade 8:

1. "Accurate information about homosexuality is especially important to young people who are first discovering and seeking to understand their sexuality -- whether homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. Fears that access to such information will make more people gay have no validity; information about homosexuality does not make someone gay or straight."

2. "People sometimes stereotype others based on gender identity. Gender identity is your identification of yourself as a man or a woman, based on the gender you feel to be inside."

3. "Throughout the life cycle, it is normal and healthy to have close friendships with peers of the same gender; such friendships have no bearing on sexual orientation."

4. "What causes sexual orientation? Almost certainly there is no single reason why some people are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual."

Grade 10:

1. "Sexual orientation is a person's sexual, emotional, and romantic attraction toward members of the same sex, opposite sex, or both sexes. People express their orientation in many physical and non-physical ways."

2. "Homophobia is fear or hatred of people believed to be homosexual. The term is used broadly to describe any range of negative attitudes toward or about gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people. Homophobia may be shown in ways as mild as laughing at a gay joke or as severe and violent as gay bashing or murder."

3. "Many people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender celebrate their self-discovery and feel relief and a new sense of joy when they can be honest with themselves and their loved ones."

4. "Although most people are heterosexual, a significant number of people identify themselves as homosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Most people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual report feeling 'different' at a young age even though they may not have had a name for that feeling."