Lights! Camera! But alas, no action
Friday, Sept. 2, 2005
Sometimes entering the fray over Montgomery County’s sex education curriculum just isn’t worth it, as producers of a local cable show learned the hard way last month.
A firestorm erupted after the show, ‘‘The Citizens Link to CommunityAwareness,” booked
several guests for its Aug.15 show who opposed the sex ed curriculum approved last year by the county school board.
The curriculum was struck down by a federal court ruling in May after drawing criticism for its discussion of homosexuality and inclusion of a video on condoms.
Amid a flurry of emails protesting the show’s lineup, producers added two new guests: Del. Anne Kaiser of Olney, who is gay, and David Fishback, former chairman of the advisory community that recommended the curriculum.
Meanwhile, the show disinvited Richard Cohen, president of Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays, an organization that contends homosexuality is a lifestyle that gay people can choose to leave and one of the two groups that sued the school board.
Soon after, the show’s original lineup of guests who opposed the now scrapped curriculum walked.
Michelle Turner said she and the guests she tapped to join her on the show walked because of ‘‘the nastiness that was brewing.”
Blog postings and emails attacked the show and Alice Gordon, a Germantown activist who is the show’s associate producer, said Turner, president of the parents group that joined PFOX in the lawsuit.
‘‘Alice was concerned that there’d be a protest at the station,” Turner said. ‘‘We didn’t think it would be of benefit.”
Fishback said it was the second time he was supposed to be on television with Turner and she pulled out.
‘‘It may just be coincidence,” he said. ‘‘I don’t know.”
In the end, the producers, who wanted a show discussing the status of the school board’s efforts to develop a new curriculum, were left with no show at all.
‘‘In my mind, I didn’t realize we were doing sides,” Gordon said. ‘‘... We didn’t want a Fishback show and we didn’t want a Cohen show. We wanted a show about the issues.”
But with a subject this controversial and emotions this raw, such a show might be hard to do, Gordon said she realized.
‘‘It’s one of those subjects, it’s not going to blend,” she said. ‘‘You can’t blend vinegar and oil. It’s just not going to work.”
— Sean R. Sedam
http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/090205/polia%20s200355_31891.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment