Thursday, July 19, 2007; GZ12

The Montgomery County Board of Education recently approved Montgomery's new lessons on sexual orientation for all middle and high schools beginning in the fall. Two 45-minute lessons will introduce homosexuality and gender identity in health courses in grades 8 and 10, along with a 10th-grade lesson and instructional DVD on the correct use of a condom. Two weeks ago, the Maryland State Board of Education rejected an appeal to overturn the curriculum.

County educators have been in a pitched legal battle for several years over the sex-education curriculum. Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, which led a consortium of opposition groups, had appealed to the state board to block the curriculum and had convinced a federal judge in 2005 to halt the first revision. Another group, TeachtheFacts.org, organized to support the changes. Representatives of both groups and others served on the Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Committee, which offered recommendations on what should and should not be taught in the lessons.

Montgomery Extra invited readers to comment on the curriculum, and several dozen people responded. Most favored the new curriculum.

Here are some of the letters. Some have been edited for space and clarity.

I have had two students graduate from Montgomery County public schools, and three years ago started teaching at Magruder High School, where I also sponsor the gay-straight alliance student organization. In addition, I spent a decade doing volunteer contraceptive counseling for Planned Parenthood. I completely support the changes, and I think that in spite of all the discussion and counter lawsuits, they still do not go far enough to put Montgomery County into the realm of those who deal with sex education in an enlightened manner.

The more students learn about how to use contraceptives and condoms in particular, the better. It would be preferable if they could actually handle the contraceptives themselves, which the curriculum still does not let them do. Many sources, including some good surveys from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, show that those students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or just questioning their sexual identity suffer more than other teenagers during their school years. They are depressed, feel victimized, experiment with drugs, attempt suicide and drop out in disproportionate numbers. I have seen anecdotal evidence to support this during the short time that I have been working with these students. The curriculum change is a small step toward discussion and acceptance of differences. The lessons are too structured and scripted to allow for meaningful conversation, but let's hope that can happen somewhere else. Let's stop pussyfooting around this issue and give our teenagers some real information.

Hilary Davies

Rockville

As the parent of two graduates of Montgomery County public schools and as a member of the Metro DC chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), I support the action taken by MCPS to include in the eighth-and 10th-grade health education curriculum information regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Teenagers, particularly those who are gay or transgender, need this information, as do their families. I wish that it had been available to my children when they were in middle and high school.

Deborah S. Strauss

Bethesda

The question of whether schools should present factual material about a subject that the average teenager thinks about every couple of seconds kind of answers itself. To think that the presentation of scientifically solid information about sexual orientation and the use of condoms will turn a straight youth into a homosexual (or modest behavior into debauchery) confers superpowers on mere teachers and belittles our children.

I would ask those who oppose the curriculum changes: "Did you move to, or choose to remain in, Montgomery County because of the housing prices, the traffic congestion or the school system?"

Ira R. Allen

Bethesda

The new sex-education lessons are teaching the "world view" that homosexuality is beyond one's control. The lessons teach that it is a way of life that has equal value with any other choice. This is one perspective.

The government schools want to teach chosen "facts" about sexual orientation. But this issue is one where families can teach their own children. It is a moral issue. It is inappropriate for the schools to teach about it.

The school board is also overreaching when it approved a class to teach about condoms. Again, the subject is a moral one. The government schools are taking the position that students will be immoral, and so they need to know the correct use of condoms. They are "setting the bar" very low. This is not the Victorian Age or the 1950s era, when talking about sexual relationships was taboo. Parents are articulate and capable. They can teach their own children, and they have the right to teach their perspective. The schools are trying to push their opinion as though it were fact.

Nancy Stafford

Rockville

I am the mother of a child who will go into the eighth grade this fall and, therefore, will take the revised segments of the curriculum. I am also a member of TeachtheFacts.org, which was formed to support the Montgomery County Board of Education's efforts to update the curriculum on human sexuality.

I am completely in favor of the new curriculum, especially the fact that it defines sexual orientation in general and provides some basic information on this subject in the eighth grade and provides more specific definitions in the 10th grade, including a definition of "transgender." The material includes an explanation that students may "come out" during their middle and high school years and that this process may be difficult for some people.

It indicates that students should treat those who define themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual with the same respect that is given people in the school system with other differences, which might include religion, national, cultural or ethnic background and race. The curriculum, however, does not go far enough, because it does not include a statement that non-heterosexual orientations are not mental disorders or diseases according to the leading medical and mental heath organizations. Teachers may provide this information if a student asks.

Those who have vocally opposed adoption of the revisions to the curriculum claim, among other things, that their families' religious beliefs are being violated because the curriculum "normalizes" homosexuality, which they believe to be sinful. Further, they assert that their children are being forced to accept differences in sexual orientation and that the curriculum advocates different sexual orientations. First, parents may opt to keep their children out of lessons addressing sexual orientation. Second, the focus of the curriculum is to create an environment within the school community where teachers, other employees, students and parents are treated the same regardless of sexual orientation.

Neither the curriculum nor the school system dictates what people may or may not believe; the focus is how they behave. The students are completely free to receive the teachings of their families' values, and they are free to hold those beliefs and even express them respectfully, as long as they treat everyone within the school community equally.

Amy R. Heyman

Silver Spring

Usually by the time adolescents are 13 to 15 years old, their gender identities are well-established by nature, nurture or a combination of both. Unfortunately, so is prejudice, by societal forces.

Appropriate education on homosexuality and gender identity would offer students an opportunity to learn more self-understanding and tolerance of others who may be different (not to be read "bad" or "immoral") from themselves. Likewise, removing the mystique of the condom and its proper use does not guarantee early sexual intercourse.

Instructions on the proper use of matches, knives and power tools does not presuppose adolescents' aggressive/violent use of these things with other people. Truly, knowledge can produce strength and thoughtfulness in youth.

Carole Rayburn

Silver Spring

Our legal appeal of the Montgomery County Board of Education's new sex-ed curriculum also involved discrimination allegations. The curriculum is entitled "Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality" and promotes tolerance of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, cross-dressers and the intersexed. The Board of Education refused to include tolerance for ex-gays despite the four-year presence of our ex-gay organization, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, on the curriculum advisory committee.

This is why we filed the lawsuit against the board's so-called "Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality" new sex-ed curriculum. The board cannot pick and choose which sexual orientations they favor and then refuse to teach tolerance about the ones they don't like.

Regina Griggs

Alexandria

Executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays.

Last semester, I took the newly approved 10th-grade health class at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Before that, I have taken a much broader relationships and human sexuality class at River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

I strongly believe that every student should be required to take the new, more expanded health class. All youths should be able to get answers to their questions.

Many critics say that these classes "usurp parents' role." Many parents have a hard time talking to their kids about sex. Some tell their children that it's wrong, just "don't do it!" Sometimes they don't say anything. When this happens, most kids and teenagers go to their friends for information, and usually get the wrong idea or facts.

Critics also say that "teaching about sex spurs teens to try it." But studies have actually shown that sex education decreases pregnancy and disease rates. If you aren't given the right information, you could get HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases or become pregnant. If you become pregnant, you might have to drop out of school. If you get a STD, then it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

If youths aren't educated about sex and its responsibilities, diseases and consequences, where will they get truthful answers when they need them? When youths are given the right information, they are better equipped to make decisions that can affect their whole life.

Lee Geiser

Chevy Chase

The new eighth- and 10th-grade sex-education curriculum is a long-overdue step forward.

As a researcher and professor of higher education who teaches sexuality issues, I am appalled at how much abstinence-only education and other repressive measures have attenuated my students' education by the time they get to college. They are much less informed on basic health issues than students their age used to be. We need to go forward, not backward.

As I teach my students, Montgomery County is becoming a global community that combines many different cultural assumptions. It is important that we learn to talk about sexuality openly and non-judgmentally, and make the largest amount of accurate information available that we can. High school students are already discussing this. We just need to give them a healthy classroom space in which to do it and do it well.

Loraine Hutchins

Takoma Park

As a former member of the Advisory Committee on Family Life and a Montgomery County public school parent who also works in the field of teen pregnancy prevention, I strongly support the new curriculum.

The protests by those who oppose adding information about homosexuality and proper condom use are hugely misguided. Emphatic claims that teaching kids about contraception will spur them to have sex ignore solid research showing that comprehensive sex education that encourages teens to delay sex and includes information about contraception is most effective in getting kids to wait longer to have sex and use protection when they do.

This long debate over a relatively short lesson plan has drowned out the most important point of all: When it comes to decisions about sex, love and relationships, teens say that parents influence them more than anything else -- more than friends, the media, siblings, religious leaders and, yes, more than teachers and sex educators.

Schools may be where formal sex education takes place, but it's at home where kids soak in the truly meaningful aspects of these topics. Parents are the ones who can go beyond the "what" to the "why." Schools can't, nor should they be expected to, do all that. So whether you're a parent in favor of the new content or opposed to it, you've got plenty of work to do with your kids after the school bell rings.

Karen Troccoli

Bethesda

The new Montgomery County sex-ed curriculum could be summed up in one sentence: Shut up, sit down and listen to our one-sided lesson on tolerance, and we don't want to hear any of your bigotry about the U.S. Constitution.

Retta Brown

Rockville

Brown is a former member of the Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Committee.

I am an HIV counselor for the Whitman Walker Clinic and the president of Latin@s En Accion, a Washington-area Latino lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization.

On a professional level, I am really pleased to see such an innovative curriculum that not only focuses on a social issue but a very important health issue.

Many of the young men and women facing issues related to sexual education as it relates to sexual orientation or gender identity that I come across through my advocacy work happen to live in the Silver Spring, Rockville and Gaithersburg areas.

It has been my experience that when you help young kids to deal with sexual identity issues they are more likely to be prepared and empowered on other issues such as substance abuse.

There is a child that will benefit from the much needed education that at many times other peers deny them.

Ruby Corado

Washington

Let's keep our children informed and educated. Hiding our heads in the sand will not curb the behavior of our young people. The more education that our children have, the better equipped they will be to make decisions and to deal with the world we live in today. Sexual orientation is not a choice, and homophobia is all about lack of education.

Kathleen Soto Mayer

Gaithersburg

I am very disturbed and deeply saddened by the incredible bias of the Montgomery County school board. They have chosen to teach only one side of the story regarding homosexuality in their new sex-ed curriculum.

Why one side of the story? Because people can choose to live a gay life, or they can choose to change and come out straight. How do I know this? Because I made the change many years ago, and today I am living my dream.

My wife and I recently celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, and we are the proud parents of three remarkable children. I am living my dream because someone informed me that I had a choice -- to live a gay life, or to seek change and be straight.

Why is Montgomery County denying our students the right to choose for themselves? Where is the tolerance, diversity and equality? One side of the homosexual issue is all they are advocating. I am very sorry for our students and future generations.

Richard Cohen

Bowie

Cohen is director of the International Healing Foundation, which promotes the idea that changing from gay to straight is possible.

My daughter is a lesbian who had to go to Canada to get married. She now lives in New Jersey, where she and her partner are raising a beautiful baby boy who just turned 1. As I am 60, social conversations often turn to the question: "Do you have kids?" When I respond, I make a point of telling them the story about my daughter and her family.

I'm sometimes amazed at the obvious discomfort that some people seem to feel as I'm talking. My small contribution is to educate straight Americans about gay Americans.

I might not have to do that so often if young people learned a few facts about sexual orientation and gender identification while they were in school. This is why I support the Montgomery County school board's approval of the decision to include lessons on these issues in its health courses, which I'm hoping will include discussion about prejudice and discrimination against gay people.

Mark F. Wurzbacher

Takoma Park

We are the parents of three children: one who graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in 2000 and two who are entering the eighth and sixth grades this fall. We strongly support these classes. It is past time for MCPS to address sexual orientation and the issues caused by ignorance and misunderstanding.

The curriculum has been available online and we have read it in its entirety. While it is a fabulous anti-bullying curriculum, it is not strong enough in one particular area: It does not make clear that all of the mainstream medical associations in the United States agree that homosexuality is not a disease or a disorder. Only if a student asks will a teacher say that the American Psychiatric Association does not consider homosexuality a disorder. This is a disservice to all of the students, but especially to those who are questioning their own sexual orientation.

The other "controversy" over this curriculum is a video demonstration of proper use of condoms. Come on, people. There has been a video demonstration of condom use since 1994. The old video was outdated and too long. All research about condoms agrees that careful and consistent use increases the protections against pregnancy and STIs. The full curriculum, which is presented over several years, makes it clear that only abstinence is 100 percent effective against both pregnancy and infection. The video also makes this point. Why would anyone stand in the way of this long-overdue update?

Letitia Hall

and Gavin Brennan

Silver Spring