Sex-ed in the margin: The Washington Times June 15, 2005
As former chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Education's Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life andHuman Development,I agree with this statement in yourJune 2 editorial "A clean slate for Montgomery sex-ed": "The point of a sex-ed curriculum is to teach facts about sex, not to propagate dubious theories.
The proposed revised curriculum that was originally to be piloted last month said relatively little about homosexuality, providing definitions from the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association and simply making the accurate statements that "[a]ll major professional mental health organizations affirm that homosexuality is not a mental disorder" and that "[most experts in the field have concluded that sexual orientation is not a cholce." (The text of the pilot versions of the curriculum may be found on the Resources page of Teachthefacts.org.)
The "dublous theories" are those propagated by groups that cling to the long-since-rejected ideas that all homosexuals are diseased and can be "cured of the disease. Indeed, it was the clinical experience of mainstream medical and mental health professionals in the 1940s, '50s and '60S that led them to reject t h e notion that homosexuality is a disease.
The Citizens Advisory Committee examined the statements from the mainstream professional associations, as well as materials presented by committee members who were advocates of the idea that all homosexuality is diseased, and concluded that the mainstream professional approach should be followed. Contrary to your editorial, these recommendations did not come from some purported"education establishment." Rather, they were from the mainstream medical and mental health professionals.
As Superintendent Jerry D. Weast stated in November when the Board ofEducation unanimously voted to pilot the revisions, these are revisions the school system should have made years ago. Why did he make that statement? Because for too long the silence in the health-education curriculum unit on sexuality gave tacit approval to the idea that there was something "sick" about not being heterosexual. For too long, students who happened to be homosexual and children from same-sex-parent familles were made to feel marginalized. Because that was wrong and hurtful, the board was wise to act in November.
One more point is essential to this discussion: Montgomery County parents never have been required to have their children take the portion of the health classes on human sexually. If families objected, they could have their children study alternative materials.This way, the school system has been able to accommodate the concerns of parents who may have religious or other objections to the material without giving a small minority veto power over the entire curriculum.
DAVID S. FISHBACK
Olney, MD
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