M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Maryland Parents Fight Homosexual Curriculum
What People Who Care Can Do

If you are a parent in Montgomery County Maryland, your help is vitally needed to fight the introduction of a curriculum promoting homosexuality in the public schools. Please come to an information meeting where you can learn more:

DATE: Saturday, November 19, 2005
TIME: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
LOCATION: Summerfield Suites by Wyndham
200 Skidmore Boulevard, Gaithersburg, MD

Please also sign up to receive ongoing information on how you can make a difference and fight moral decline in your state and in the nation at www.familyleader.net

Background

A year ago in November of 2004, the Montgomery County School Board unanimously voted to accept revisions to their existing Family Life and Human Development program that made parents gasp.

The revisions included the introduction and discussions of homosexuality and transgenderism in the 8^th grade and the use of a condom video at the 10^th grade level with a very attractive blonde woman demonstrating its use and introducing students to oral and anal sex. Not only was the information explicit, but it was also flawed — as it failed to recognize information from the Center for Disease Control about the inability of condoms to affectively safeguard its users from STDs and it failed to stress the importance of abstinence.

One national columnist called this the “cucumber curriculum,” as the demonstrations about how to use condoms were so vividly demonstrated.

The revisions had been recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development, a 27-member group that had many representatives from both homosexual groups and those that aggressively advocate sexual activity and abortion. Members represented PFLAG, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Unitarian Universalitst Church — and the representative from the Mental Health Association was a lesbian.

A Lone Voice

Michelle Turner, an LDS mother of seven and a PTA president, also sat on that committee, but her voice was not enough to turn the tide away from this destructive curriculum. She said, “I spoke about my concerns before the Board of Education the day the curriculum was presented, but they were completely ignored.”

Michelle Turner

Another Montgomery County parent got wind of the curriculum and created a website that grabbed a lot of attention where parents could log on to post their concerns.

Michelle said, “When I went to the website and saw the many posts of outrage, I decided to host a meeting to look at our options.  I asked people to RSVP, and when I realized there were so many people, I moved the venue from my home to the community club house — where on a Saturday morning three weeks before Christmas 75 people showed up.

“At the conclusion of that meeting which lasted about 2-1/2 hours, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) was born.”

Then began months of trying to meet with the school board and the superintendent — all who turned CRC down. They cited a pending lawsuit with PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) as their reason for not talking — even though CRC was not involved in the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, CRC volunteers were making phone calls, fund-raising, recruiting members, writing letters to the editor and attending and speaking at the public comment period before the Board of Education.  Finally, after months of trying to get the board’s attention, CRC decided to join in the lawsuit against the board.

On May 5 of this year, Michelle Turner, and others walked into a Federal court to plead the case for concerned parents, and 4-1/2 hours later they left with a temporary restraining order against the implementation of the curriculum.

The board scrapped the revisions to the curriculum and disbanded the curriculum committee. 

As part of the settlement, the Montgomery School Board agreed that on the new 15-member curriculum committee CRC and PFOX would each be granted a seat.

To this point, it all sounds good — like concerned parents have triumphed in Montgomery County. But as all stories go, it is more complex than this. The plot has a twist — and it is a familiar twist to anyone who has watched this ongoing cultural war.

A Seat on the Committee

Often in these cultural wars, the rules are changed midstream to disadvantage social conservatives. To a social conservative, both your means and your ends have to be consistent with moral action. It is not true that any means can be employed to achieve your desired end. To use corrupt means to achieve a desirable end is not reprehensible to many of those forwarding a homosexual agenda. Instead, the end is worth whatever means need to be employed. 

Thus, CRC submitted their name for the promised place on the new committee that would revise the curriculum — and suddenly that was not acceptable. After CRC’s submission, a new rule was adopted to exclude the nominee, stating that nobody could serve on the committee who had served before.  The new requirement also said that any organization had to submit a nominee and two alternates, and the board of education would choose from these names. This new policy was supposedly to supersede any existing policy that had been previously in effect.

This new policy excluded both CRC’s and PFOX’s candidates. CRC went back to the settlement agreement, which clearly said that they could nominate their own representatives. Two weeks later, the school board conceded and accepted PFOX’s sole nominee, but not CRC’s.

Bringing in the Big Guns

Meanwhile three organizations supporting homosexuality as natural and mainstream were appointed to the new Citizen’s Advisory Committee — some representing the same organizations that were on the committee before.

The fight continues — and family-centered citizens need to understand this. Parents who care about what happens in the schools cannot run out of political will.

Homosexuality advocacy groups are targeting Montgomery County to bring in strategists and resources and GLSEN founder, Kevin Jennings says, “We’re going to win because of what is happening in high schools right now.”

After last spring, many who had been involved with the CRC assumed the battle was over, but it isn’t. All concerned parents in Montgomery County need to be involved.

The meeting this Saturday, November 19^th, from 10:00 until 2:00, will bring parents up to date on what’s happening and allow people to volunteer. CRC is looking for volunteers to compile voter guides on those board members who will be up for election this year, to outreach to community groups and churches, to help fund-raise, to be part of a legal committee and much more.