Memorandum for MCEA, 5/1/13

MEMORANDUM ON ADDITIONS TO RESPECT FOR DIFFERENCES IN HUMAN SEXUALITY CURRICULUM

 

In the last decade, MCPS has made great strides with respect to educating high school and middle school students about matters relating to sexual orientation and identity.  But the tightly-scripted Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality curriculum (which students take only if their parents or guardians opt them into the human sexuality unit) has two glaring omissions.

 

First, health teachers are not permitted to affirmatively state that “Homosexuality is not a disease or a mental illness,” even though this is the teaching of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association.  Significantly, inclusion of this information in the curriculum has been repeatedly urged by the Board’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development (CAC), as well as by the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) (the MCPS advisor on the health education curriculum), and the Montgomery County Commission on Children and Youth (CCY).  This subject may not be mentioned in health class unless a student asks “Is homosexuality an illness?”  But gay students may be afraid to ask, and straight students may have this misconception – a misconception that can lead to adverse consequences for gay students.

 

Second, nothing in the curriculum deals with the question of whether people can change their sexual orientation through therapies or counseling.  The concept of “reparative therapy” has been rejected as dangerous by all mainstream health professional associations; and the CAC, AAP, and CCY have recommended that the following language be included in the curriculum: 

 

The American Psychological Association states that sexual orientation is not a “conscious choice that can voluntarily be changed,” and the American Medical Association opposes “therapies” that seek to change sexual orientation that are premised on the assumption that homosexuality is an illness and that people should change.

 

The “reparative therapy” notion is pernicious, and was publicly condemned by Superintendent Starr in February 2012.  The evidence of the harm that such “therapies” have caused – often leading to depression and even suicide – is legion.  Indeed, the MCPS Department of Student Services provides this information to help students who come to them with concerns.  Yet, the tightly-scripted curriculum is silent on the issue.  MCPS should not, and need not, wait until a student is in crisis to provide this information.

 

Inclusion of these two vital statements in the affirmative curriculum would not necessitate a rewriting of the curriculum.  Rather, they could simply be added to the “extensions” in the current curriculum.  While the curriculum, six years after its implementation, could certainly use updating and, pedagogically, should be less tightly-scripted, including the two vital statements need not await a full revision.

 

Nor is there any political or legal reason not to act.  For example, last year 31 of the County’s 32 members of the General Assembly voted in favor of same sex marriage (and the 32d ran for election as being in favor, and then changed his position), and an overwhelming majority of voters supported it in the referendum.  And any feared legal impediment was put to rest in 2007 and 2008 when the State Board of Education ruled that MCPS was legally entitled to include information from mainstream health organizations in its curriculum and the Montgomery County Circuit Court affirmed that right.