Mar 16, 2007  |  By: JOSHUA LYNSEN  | COMMENTS     

Opponents of the new sex education curriculum being tested in Montgomery County schools will ask state officials this summer to quash the gay-inclusive lessons.

Maryland’s schools superintendent Nancy Grasmick, in an order last week, granted curriculum opponents a hearing before the state school board. Education officials must render a decision by July.

Grasmick said the hearing is necessary because curriculum opponents pose arguments that “are equally matched by the local board’s response.”

John Garza, an attorney representing three groups challenging the lessons for eighth and 10th grade students, said he’s looking forward to presenting his case.

“The state board clearly said that the evidence is so equally matched that the state board finds it to be in equipoise — or that it’s equally matched,” he said. “So it’s a tossup right now who’s going to win before the state board.”

But curriculum supporters noted Grasmick did not stop Montgomery County schools from testing its new curriculum in classrooms, a process that began March 6.

Jim Kennedy, co-founder of Teach the Facts, a coalition of curriculum supporters, said opponents of the plan thus failed to stop the lessons they find objectionable.

“They’re talking as though this were a victory,” he said. “They’re talking as though this was close. It wasn’t. They lost.”

Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, Parents & Friends of Gays & Ex-Gays and Family Leader Network had sought to stop Montgomery County schools from testing the new lessons. In their Feb. 7 appeal to Grasmick, they argued the lessons are improper, unnecessary and scientifically unsupported.

The district responded by telling Grasmick that the three groups “base their objection primarily on religious grounds and on a fundamentally flawed view of applicable law.”

Complex hearing foreseen

During a March 8 meeting of curriculum opponents, Garza said state officials will resolve the dispute this summer in a procedure similar to a court trial.

“This trial could last six weeks or more,” he said. “There’s going to be 50 witnesses or more that need to be called to the stand.”

Among the people that could testify, he said, are health experts, local school board members and former members of the citizens advisory committee that was tasked with reviewing the lessons.

The curriculum, titled “Respect for Difference in Human Sexuality,” explains concepts like sexual identity and orientation using nonjudgmental language.

Students in eighth grade are taught to recognize health relationships and how to define sexuality, gender identity and other terms. Students in 10th grade receive a more thorough curriculum, including an examination of topics such as coming out and transgender discrimination.

Garza asked curriculum opponents — about 80 of whom gathered for the March 8 meeting — to help fund what is expected to prove a costly challenge.

“To take the deposition of each of the citizen advisory committees is going to cost $15,000,” he said. “To take the depositions of the board of education is going to cost $6,000. To bring in experts … is going to cost us $20,000 to $30,000.”

Garza said the case, while expensive, could be won.

“If we get those resources, we can win this battle at that level,” he said, “and there won’t be any need for any more appeals.”

But curriculum supporters said the new lessons would withstand the challenge.

David Fishback, a board member of Metro D.C. PFLAG who has two gay sons, said in an interview that the curriculum is sound and need not be rewritten to placate opponents.

“Lord knows what they think they’re going to get in the long run,” he said, “but it’s clear they’ve set out to harass the school system as much as possible on this.”

Inflammatory material?

Nevertheless, curriculum opponents said the lessons must be changed because they contain inflammatory material.

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at Family Research Council, said particularly troublesome is the curriculum’s assertion that homosexuality is innate.

“What’s the consequence of this?” he said. “If you say that sexual orientation is innate, then you are essentially saying it cannot change. And you are denying the existence of people who can testify to the fact that they have changed — that they once experienced sexual attractions and no longer do.”

Sprigg also said at the meeting that students shouldn’t be asked to define homophobia as though it were a medically acknowledged illness.

“The word homophobia, because it includes ‘phobia,’ it sounds like a description of a clinically diagnosed mental illness,” he said. “That’s what a phobia is. But that’s not what homophobia is.”

Sprigg said the term was “coined by homosexual activists” to stigmatize their political opponents.

The lessons use Webster’s Dictionary to define homophobia as “an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuality and ...