Successful Public School LGBT Curriculum Advocacy

Last month, I presented a workshop at the PFLAG National Convention in Nashville entitled Case Study in Successful Public School Curriculum and Guidance Office Advocacy. 

What is taught – and not taught – in our schools about sexual orientation and gender identity is extremely important.  Too often, there is a deafening silence about such matters.  Such silence too often allows misconceptions and unwarranted prejudices to fester and poison the atmosphere for our LGBT children.  

Efforts to change what is taught in our schools can be daunting. Such efforts demand hard work, wisdom, empathy, and determination.  But they can succeed.

On June 17, 2014, the Board of Education of Montgomery County, Maryland, unanimously gave final approval to a revised health education framework for secondary schools.  This revised framework is based specifically on the longstanding findings of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, including the propositions that being LGBTQ is not an illness and that so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapies are dangerous and ineffective. This action brought to a successful conclusion a dozen years of work by members of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG and others to bring the wisdom of the mainstream health care professionals into the middle and high school health education curriculum.

The Montgomery County experience may be useful for others around the country who seek to make schools not only safe for our LGBT children and children of LGBT families, but to help create a climate in which all of our children understand and appreciate each other.

Based on that experience, as PFLAG Metro DC Advocacy Chair, I created this publication, Curriculum Victory in Montgomery County, Maryland: A CaseStudy and Handbook for Action. It may be found at the PFLAG website at https://www.pflag.org/blog/curriculumvictorymontgomerycounty, https://www.pflag.org/sites/default/files/Curriculum%20Victory%20in%20Montgomery%20County%202.pdf, and

https://www.pflag.org/cultivating-respect-safe-schools-all,and is pasted below (but without the valuable hyperlinks in the website version). The campaign for curriculum revisions, and the lessons learned in the course of that campaign, was the basis for the October 18, 2015 workshop. The workshop was attended by PFLAGers from all around the United States.

I recommend that readers be aware, on the one hand, of the fact that this process took place in a relatively progressive community (which made it easier than it might be elsewhere); but also, on the other hand, of the fact that the culture in America has moved significantly in the last dozen years (which means that the dozen years it took from the start of the process in 2002 to the 2014 culmination could well be far longer than future efforts in other places).  

In some communities, there may be widespread opposition to change; in others, opposition may be limited to a very small group of people.  In some communities, political leaders may be very supportive; in others, they may be antagonistic or reluctant to “make waves.”  In some communities, there may be a pent up desire to make the needed changes; in others, there may be a great fear of even talking about sexual orientation or gender identity.  Within school bureaucracies, much may turn on the life experiences and hopes and fears of particular administrators.  Every community is different, but there are common threads, the main one being that, as PFLAGers, we advocate for our children's lives, and we do so with the support of the mainstream American medical and mental health community.

See, also, http://focusonthefield.blogspot.com/2015/09/curriculum-victory-in-montgomery-county.html

CURRICULUM VICTORY

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND

A CASE STUDY AND HANDBOOK FOR ACTION 

What schools do in their health education curricula and in their guidance offices

can be vital. The deafening silence of our schools regarding matters of sexual orientation

that was the near-universal approach in the recent past was never wise, and is certainly no

longer viable. A number of public school systems are demonstrating that providing

accurate information on sexual orientation is the appropriate way to proceed.

Yet, many school systems may be afraid to deal with these issues. School board

members and school administrators are often leery of getting into the middle of the

"culture wars" or seeming to promote some suspect "gay agenda." So in preparing to raise

these issues with your local school system, you should be ready to define the "gay

agenda" in education: It is simply to enable students to understand what our mainstream

medical and mental health care professional associations have concluded -- specifically,

that being gay is not an illness, that "reparative" or "conversion" therapies are dangerous

and destructive, that LGBT people can live happy and healthy lives, and that children of

LGBT parents do just fine.

We need to convey to school officials (and our communities at large) that these

conclusions are not ideological positions, but are, rather, the collective wisdom of the

mainstream scientific, medical, and mental health care community. In 2008, the

American Psychological Association distributed to thousands of public school systems an

excellent publication, Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for

Principals, Educators, and School Personnel, endorsed by a wide range of health care and

school professional groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American

School Counselor Association, the American School Health Association, the National

Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Secondary School

Principals. It is essential that local boards of education and school administrators be

aware of Just the Facts. It is vitally important to stress that the concepts set forth in Just

the Facts follow the conclusions of every mainstream medical and mental health

professional association, including the American Medical Association, which has come

out foursquare in opposition to "reparative" or "conversion" therapies. See AMA Policy

Number H-160.991 Health Care Needs of the Homosexual Population. See, also, the

American Psychological Association’s Answers to Your Questions for a Better

Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality.

This is particularly significant in light of the efforts by groups like Focus on the

Family to oppose anti-bullying programs, which they argue are a way to press the “gay

agenda.”

Indeed, Focus on the Family typically ignores the mainstream medical

community conclusions, or pretends that “science is still out” on all these issues. Focus

on the Family and similar groups seek to create the impression that this is just a dispute

among “interest groups.” What the right wing groups seek to do is to create a scientific

dispute when, in fact, no such dispute exists. This is related to the right wing’s reliance

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on statements from a group calling itself the "American College of Pediatricians," a tiny

ideological fringe outfit which objects to the conclusions of the American Academy of

Pediatrics (which is the mainstream professional association for pediatricians). It is

essential to show school officials (and the public at large) that the dispute is not between

contending "interest groups," but rather, between the mainstream medical community and

theologically-driven groups like Focus on the Family.

The experience in Montgomery County, Maryland – a suburb of Washington,

D.C. – provides a blueprint of how to make progress, as well as the game plan of those

who would seek to derail such progress.

On June 17, 2014, the Montgomery County Board of Education unanimously gave final approval to a revised health education framework for secondary schools. This revised framework is based specifically on the longstanding findings of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, including the propositions that being gay is not an illness and that so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapies are dangerous and ineffective. The framework was presented to the Board on May 13; the Board gave preliminary approval, triggering a month of public comments, the overwhelmingly majority of which were positive.

This action brought to a successful conclusion a dozen years of work by members of PFLAG Metro DC and others to bring the wisdom of the mainstream health care professionals into the middle and high school health education curriculum.

The Montgomery County experience may be useful for others around the country who seek to make schools not only safe for our LGBT children and children of LGBT families, but to help create a climate in which all of our children understand and appreciate each other. What follows is a comprehensive report on that experience.

We recommend that readers be aware, on the one hand, of the fact that this process took place in a relatively progressive community (which made it easier than it might have been elsewhere); but also, on the other hand, of the fact that the culture in America has moved significantly in the last dozen years (which means that the dozen years it took from the start of the process in 2002 to the 2014 culmination could well be far longer than future efforts in other places). We also note, however, that in some places, unlike in Maryland, state laws may limit what may be said in health education classes.

In some communities, there may be widespread opposition to change; in others, opposition may be limited to a very small group of people. In some communities, political leaders may be very supportive; in others, they may be antagonistic or reluctant to “make waves.” In some communities, there may be a pent up desire to make the needed changes; in others, there may be a great fear of even talking about sexual orientation or gender identity. Within school bureaucracies, much may turn on the life experiences and hopes and fears of particular administrators. Every community is different, but there are common threads.

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The two overarching themes are (1) that we are advocating not for abstractions, but for our children’s lives; and (2) that the policy dispute is not between pro-gay and anti-gay interest groups, but, rather, between the mainstream American medical and mental health community and those who, perhaps for theological or other reasons, are unable to come to terms with the proposition that being gay is just another way people are.

The report is based in part on a September 2010 series posted by the Human Rights Campaign and written by PFLAG Metro DC Advocacy Chair David S. Fishback. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (And an enormous thank you to Teachthefacts.org President Jim Kennedy for archival material contained on the Teachthefacts.org website.)

LESSONS LEARNED OVERVIEW

Before going through the actual events, it might be useful to discuss the lessons

we learned. They might be worth thinking about as one goes through the nuts and bolts of

the process.

1. As more LGBT people come out, more straight people are willing to talk about

their LGBT relatives, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. Once you begin real

conversations about the challenges that society poses for gay people – whether with

school officials, reporters or members of the general public – more people will begin to

talk about their LGBT relatives, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. As this happens,

more LGBT people may be more likely to come out. Always be ready to tell your stories.

Personal stories of real people, real pain, and real struggle often do as much or more than

abstract academic conclusions to help people understand the importance of action. This

openness breaks down the walls that have kept people from confronting the issues. Once

those walls break down, progress can be swifter.

2. School officials – both elected and non-elected – need information, not just

conclusions. This is important because when being asked to take steps in directions

previously not taken, and where there may be pushback from others living in the school

district, officials need to know not just the general conclusions about sexual orientation,

but also the fact that those conclusions are supported by the mainstream medical and

mental health care community. This will assist those who already agree with us, and can

bring along those who may not have thought about the issue enough to be ready to take

the needed steps. And, in the context of the emerging understandings about sexual

orientation and gender identity, such information may help bring along those who once

had been in the opposition.

3. Identify allies within school system. There may well be many teachers, guidance

counselors, administrators, and others who will be supportive of your efforts. They may

be able to provide insights into the ins and out of your school system. But, depending on

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the nature of the bureaucratic culture of a particular school system, they may or may not

be able to be public allies. Of course, if schools have Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs), the

GSA sponsors, and the students themselves, may be great partners.

4. Identify and work with allies outside the school system. Don’t think you have to go

it alone. Find other groups – both governmental and non-governmental – who may be

supportive. They may be part of the process of figuring out how best to proceed,

including entrée to decision-makers. They may also be invaluable in creating an

atmosphere of support in the community-at-large.

5. The media needs to be well informed. In the Montgomery County situation,

advocates educated local reporters about the reality of where the mainstream health care

professional associations stood, and why they held those positions. We did this not just at

the time of the onset of a big story, but, whenever possible, in advance of such events. By

sufficiently educating reporters in advance – just like we did for school officials and the

public at large – the reporters were more able to present balanced articles, rather than

simply writing on the fly.

6. Find forums in which to present your views and your evidence. Letters to the

editor, op-ed pieces, and presentations on broadcast media are important. Find those

outlets and use them. Always be prepared to make the best case for your position. Do not

limit your advocacy to matters specifically related to curriculum. We need to foster a

general atmosphere of understanding; such an atmosphere helps not only school system

efforts, but other advancements, as well.

7. Personal relationships matter. As in any community, personal relationships

developed over the years are very useful. In Montgomery County, for example, a

principal advocate had worked for years as a PTA volunteer, as a local PTA president,

and as a member of a number of other advisory committees and community school

advocacy committees. In those activities, he developed relationships and credibility that

made it easier to be an advocate for potentially controversial issues, like this one.

8. Never underestimate the depths to which the opposition will go to impose their

views. This may seem harsh, but sadly it is a reflection of reality. The opposition, at least

in our experience, does not simply reach conclusions by seeing the world through a

different side of the prism. Rather – perhaps because their views are ideologically and

theologically based – they often seem to take the view that the ends justify the means. We

always need to be prepared for that, and to be prepared for the most outrageous attacks

imaginable. Significantly, we need to be prepared to assist school systems in defending

against lawsuits the opposition may bring in order to intimidate, and to be able to

convince school systems that, if necessary, it is worthwhile to stand up to such

intimidation.

9. Be ready for wolves in sheep's clothing. More skillful members of the opposition

may couch their arguments in terms of respect for all without condoning or encouraging

what they view as immoral behavior, all the while focusing on the respect angle. We

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must always remember that generalized statements of civility are nice, but they do little

good if they are coupled with policies that marginalize our LGBT children. Also, keep in

mind that people may run for school boards, or other public offices, without revealing

that they have an anti-gay agenda.

10. Always be civil and dignified. It will be tempting to lash out in public against

outrageous attacks on ourselves and/or our children. But it is always more important to

channel that passion into effective public presentations. Anger may create a good news

story on some televisions stations, but it does not advance the ball. Over time, people of good will come to recognize the humanity of everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

11. Efforts to reform our public schools take hard work and dedication. Activists

who care about educating children on the realities of sexual orientation must be prepared

to do the hard work of educating both school officials and the community-at-large. They

also must carefully cultivate allies, and develop a sense of when to push hard, and when

to give people in power the space to act. It is also important to understand which players

we can count on to be proactive – and how to help them be so.

2002-04: MOVING OUT OF THE SHADOWS1

In 2002, the elected Board of Education, on the recommendation of its Citizens

Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development (CAC), instructed the

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) staff to develop revisions to the school

system’s 8th and 10th grade health education curriculum to provide accurate information

on sexual orientation. Previously, teachers were forbidden to discuss the subject, unless

asked a direct question, and then they could only provide vague answers and then move

on. In order to facilitate the process, the Board appointed a group of new members to the

CAC, which, by state law at that time, had to review any recommendations regarding

sexuality education; those 25 members included a school nurse, a school health teacher,

representatives from the PFLAG Metro DC and a Unitarian Church, as well as from the

local Catholic Archdiocese and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) – a group about

which little was known in 2002. One of the new members was David S. Fishback, a

relatively new PFLAG dad whose children had graduated from MCPS, and had been

active in a variety of MCPS matters (including as a PTA Co-President) going

back to 1984. Asked, in 2002, by a local newspaper about the statement by the then-chair of the Advisory Committee that the appointment of a PFOX representative was a “slap in

the face,” Mr. Fishback commented that “[w]hen people of good will sit down together

with . . . open mind[s], a lot more can be accomplished than some people think.”

In late 2002, the then-chair of the CAC retired from his position, and Mr.

Fishback was elected chair. MCPS staff had decided to set up a working group of health

teachers, guidance counselors, school psychologists, etc. to develop additions to the 8th

1 For more details on this and the next section, including

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examples of what went on during the CAC deliberations,

see the presentations made by Mr. Fishback to the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education (2005)

(Attachment A) and the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (2006) (Attachment B).

and 10th Grade health curriculum on sexual orientation in the Summer of 2003, and asked

the CAC Chair to appoint members of the CAC to join that working group. Mr. Fishback,

seeking balance, appointed a conservative member, Henrietta Brown as well as a PFLAG

representative to join the working group.

The working group developed a draft of the curriculum revisions, which included

descriptions of the mainstream health professionals’ consensus on sexual orientation.

During the extensive deliberations Ms. Brown presented materials from the National

Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a group with which

none of the other working group members were familiar; after examination of the

NARTH materials, all the other members of the working group rejected NARTH’s

assertions, which were not supported by any valid data.

The staff recommendations were presented to the CAC in the autumn of 2003.

Ms. Brown and the PFOX representative, along with Michelle Turner, an at-large

representative, vigorously opposed the recommendations. They were given every

opportunity to convince other members of the CAC that their views were valid. They

presented hundreds of pages of materials from groups like NARTH at each meeting.

Because the materials were so extensive, the CAC imposed a rule that all such materials

had to be presented in advance of the monthly meetings, so that other members would

have the opportunity to examine them. Mr. Fishback did extensive research into those

materials, and provided responses at the meetings. What the other members of the CAC

concluded was that the materials presented by Ms. Brown and the PFOX representative –

which focused heavily on the propositions that no one or hardly anyone was really gay, or

that if people identified themselves as gay that they could change their sexual orientation

-- were filled with misrepresentations, and did not warrant inclusion in the curriculum.

In one instance, Ms. Brown characterized the research of a University of

Pennsylvania medical school professor as concluding that gay men were generally

pedophiles and that children were “turned gay” by contact with such men. Mr. Fishback

read the entire study that was being cited, found that it did not say any such thing, and

contacted the professor, who confirmed this assessment and authorized him to convey

that to the CAC. Ms. Brown also cited “studies” done by allegedly objective researchers,

but the CAC discovered that the authors were not qualified experts and were publishing

in non-peer reviewed publications that were simply fronts for outfits like Focus on the

Family. By thoroughly examining their allegations, the CAC was able to determine that

all the attacks on the draft curriculum were bogus. Ms. Brown audio-taped every meeting,

presumably to provide evidence of bias in the event that she was unsuccessful; Mr.

Fishback then began taping the meetings, as well.

As the CAC was completing its work on the proposed revised curriculum in

Spring 2004, Ms. Brown, Ms. Turner, and the PFOX representative wrote letters to the

largest circulation local weekly newspaper (the Gazette) and the Board of Education

accusing the CAC generally, and Mr. Fishback in particular, of unfair bias. However,

even with every word of the meetings on tape, they were unable to cite any evidence to

support their allegations. The letter to the Gazette contained such vitriolic attacks that the

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newspaper, rather than publishing it, contacted Mr. Fishback and other CAC members for

interviews and wrote a fair description of what had occurred. (The article also highlighted

another tactic of the opposition: to endlessly debate everything, and to re-raise issues that

had already been resolved. Since the CAC met for only for two hours, once a month, a

failure to conclude the curriculum review by the end of the school year would have

delayed any action, since, at that time, no action could be taken on sexuality education

changes without the review and recommendations of the CAC, and the staff report on the

recommendations was always completed over the summer. One CAC member described

it as “filibustering.”)

Over time, it became clear that the opposition’s attacks on any progress in this

area would be rife with ad hominem attacks and unsupportable allegations. After many

months of debate on the proposed staff revisions and some recommendations for

improvement by the CAC, Mr. Fishback was assigned the responsibility of drafting the

CAC report to the Board of Education, recommending adoption. Mr. Fishback offered the

dissenters on the CAC the opportunity to prepare a minority report. This offer was

declined. The MCPS staff’s recommendations, along with the CAC report, were

presented to the Board in the autumn of 2004. There was no full-scale revamping of the

curriculum. Rather, a few definitions of sexual orientations and gender identity were

added, along with a few basic statements, which were summarized in Mr. Fishback’s

testimony presenting the report

(Attachment C, 11/9/04 testimony):

That "all major professional mental health organizations affirm that homosexuality is not a mental disorder", that "most experts in the field have concluded that sexual orientation is not a choice", that "different religions take different stands on sexual behaviors and there are even different views among people of the same religion", that "having homosexual parents/guardians does not predispose you to being homosexual", and that there are families in our community headed by same-sex couples.

At the Board’s November 9, 2004 meeting, the Superintendent declared that these

additions to the health education curriculum were “long overdue,” and the Board

unanimously adopted them.

Immediately, there was an onslaught of criticism on right-wing talk radio shows

and in other venues, attacking the recommendations as a “gay agenda” conspiracy and

accusing the Board of developing it without any community notice or opportunity for the

consideration of dissenting viewpoints, even though this accusation was demonstrably

false.2

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The attacks also included criticism of a proposed condom demonstration video, which the Board had ordered in

November 2002 for use in the high school health education classes, which had, for many years, included general

information on condoms; there was much concern about the dangers of unprotected sexual activity, including the

unwanted pregnancies and transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

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One of the dissenting members of the CAC, Michelle Turner, established a group

first calling itself RecallMongtomerySchoolBoard.org, and later, after discovering that

there was no legal mechanism for recall, calling itself Citizens for a Responsible

Curriculum (CRC) to oppose the revisions. CRC held a community meeting at a local

high school, where the rhetoric was so inflammatory that a group of parents (who

previously had no association with LGBT issues) formed a rival group,

TeachtheFacts.org. CRC then grabbed the web domain name Teachthefacts.com to

redirect any searches to the CRC’s website, which was named MCPScurriculum.com; yet

another indication of the underhanded approaches it would take to the public debate.

Then a very interesting thing happened. Typically, people only write or call a

government agency when they object to something the agency has done. In this instance

the calls and letters to the Board ran something like 5 to 1 in favor of the proposed

curriculum revisions (and the condom demonstration video). Some of this came from

community mobilization, but much of it was purely spontaneous. And some of the

support came from groups that the opposition liked to think were its natural allies.

2005: COUNTERATTACK FROM ANTI-GAY FORCES

Throughout the winter, local right-wing talk radio tried to drum up opposition,

and our opponents were able to get items in the major local daily newspapers: the

Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the Washington Examiner.

In January, PFOX rented a billboard near the MCPS headquarters touting

“reparative therapy.” In February, petitions were circulated in Catholic Churches in the

County opposing the curriculum revisions.3

In March 2005, CRC sought to have a mass community meeting to oppose the

revisions, but could not find a single local public official to attend as a speaker. Instead,

they brought in officials from Focus on the Family-related groups like the Family

Research Council, Take Back Maryland, and Concerned Women of America (whose

representative, oddly, was a man), as well as a notoriously homophobic state legislator

from another part of Maryland. A CRC spokesman tried to distance the organization from

many of the comments made by the speakers, even though it was clear in advance want

the speakers would say.

The speeches may be found here.

3 For a useful response to the Archdiocese’s arguments against the curriculum, see Mr. Fishback’s response on the Teachthefacts.org blog.

(It is noteworthy that one of the speakers, Family Research Council executive Peter

Sprigg, several years later, stated on national television that consensual adult same-sex activity should be criminalized and that the United States should "export homosexuals.")

Through the winter and early spring of 2005, CRC argued that the Board of

Education should negotiate with it about the revisions before any piloting (scheduled for

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May 2005) would start, and publically stated that it would not try to use the courts to

derail the process. Subsequently e-mails, that inadvertently were made public, revealed

that CRC was surreptitiously planning litigation from the outset.

What happened next was a shocking setback.

Just days before the curriculum revisions were to be piloted in six county schools,

CRC and PFOX, through Jerry Falwell's Liberty Counsel, filed a 43-page complaint in

the federal district court seeking a Temporary Restraining Order to halt the piloting. The

complaint was rife with factual misrepresentations about the revisions and the applicable

law. The complaint asserted that the curriculum included attacks on particular religious

beliefs, even though this was demonstrably untrue: The only thing the curriculum said

about religion was that “Different religions take different stands on sexual behaviors and

there are even different views among people of the same religion”; while one of the

background teacher resources provided by the MCPS staff – which teachers were

instructed to not bring into the discussion – said some critical things about anti-gay

theologies, it was clearly not part of the curriculum. See 8th Grade Pilot Curriculum and

10th Grade Pilot Curriculum. More significantly, the complaint asserted that the

plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights were abridged because their “side” of the

“controversy” about sexual orientation was not presented.

With only a few days to respond, the Board of Education was caught flatfooted

and the judge, who was also a Baptist minister, granted the order on May 5, buying into

not only the factual misrepresentations, but also the incorrect legal argument: the

unprecedented idea that the United States Constitution required all sides of any dispute to

be presented in a public school curriculum -- a doctrine which had been specifically

rejected a decade earlier by the United States Supreme Court. See Rosenberger v.

Trustees of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 833 (1995) (“When [a public

educational institution] determines the content of the education it provides, it is the

[school] speaking, and we have permitted the government to regulate the content of what

is or is not expressed if it is the speaker. . . . [W]hen the government along speaks, it need

not remain neutral as to viewpoint.”

But rather than fight the lawsuit – which, given the judge's reputation for being

very slow to issue final decisions that could be appealed, would have tied things up in

expensive litigation for years – the Superintendent, on May 12, announced that MCPS

was scrapping the revisions, while entering into settlement discussions with CRC and

PFOX. In the meantime, CRC sought (unsuccessfully) to intimidate opponents into

silence and misused PTA resources to seek to mislead parents.4

Then, on May 23, the Board adopted the Superintendent’s recommendation to

discharge all members of the CAC and start the process over again. We then regrouped

and worked to make certain that this would only be a temporary setback.

44 CRC’s misuse of PTA resources continued to be a problem in the ensuing years. 9

In late June, the Board entered into a settlement agreement, scrapping the

curriculum revisions and agreeing to appoint members of CRC and PFOX to the new 15-

member CAC (although there had already been members of PFOX and the CRC on the

earlier 25-member CAC). In the settlement agreement, the Board reserved the right to

make curriculum decisions. See here and here.

In the next several months, MCPS did nothing public, other than to pass a

resolution establishing the framework for a new Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) – a

CAC which could not, by rule, include any former members of the CAC.

Throughout the summer of 2005, the opposition brought in a series of speakers to Board

public comment periods to make presentations misstating what had been in the proposed

revised curriculum, saying scurrilous things about gay people, presenting then-PFOX

President Richard Cohen (who was subsequently exposed as such a fraud that he was

expelled from the American Counseling Association (ACA) and later became such an

embarrassment that PFOX removed him as its president), and presenting an alleged “ex-

gay” (who we eventually discovered was imported from New Jersey, where he was a paid

ex-gay organizer).

Mr. Fishback responded to the Board, pointing out that Richard Cohen had been

expelled from the ACA and presenting all the specifics on what the mainstream medical

and mental health professional associations say about sexual orientation. He also took on

a Washington Times editorial, which had mischaracterized the events in Montgomery

County, and, after some back and forth with the Times, resulted in the Times’

publication of his letter in response.

The opposition sought to use a local cable access show to present a one-sided

view of the controversy, including participation by Mr. Cohen, but when the line-up of

speakers became public, the producers invited Mr. Fishback and State Delegate Anne

Kaiser to balance the discussion. The opposition then backed out, and the taping was

cancelled.

The Teachthefacts.org Vigilance blog, written by Jim Kennedy, provided a

continuous stream of useful analyses, posted an article from The Nation on the

controversy, and at the end of the year presented a useful summary of what had

transpired. In September 2005, Teachthefacts.org sponsored a well-attended forum, at

which all the issues were fully aired. Among the speakers were Dr. Paul Wertsch, a

PFLAG dad from Wisconsin, who spoke about the American Medical Association’s

important statements on sexual orientation; Deborah Roffman, a prominent sexuality

education expert; and Robert Rigby, Jr., a survivor of “reparative therapy.” There was

extensive media coverage of the forum, which helped us to counter the messages sought

to be pushed by the opposition, and also enabled us to keep the issues before the Board

and the public.

Still, action from MCPS seemed, at least from the outside, to be slow, and it was

not at all clear that the Superintendent was taking any actions to secure experts to consult

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on a new curriculum – something he had asserted publically he would do. Finally, in late

summer 2005, the former Vice Chair of the CAC, Dr. Lara Akinbami, a pediatrician,

arranged to have the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics offer its

services as consultant to MCPS, and that offer was accepted.

Then, on October 24, the Board announced most of the membership of the new

CAC. The CAC included, per the June settlement agreement, Peter Sprigg representing

PFOX, but also included Emily Wurst from PFLAG Metro DC and Teachthefacts.org

President Jim Kennedy. Dr. Carol Plotsky, a well-respected pediatrician (also trained in

law) was designated as the Chair. CRC objected that the Board had turned down the

nomination of Henrietta Brown, who previously had been on the CAC (and had been the

practitioner of the “filibuster” noted by another CAC member in April 2004, supra). The

Board, as noted earlier, made it clear that it would not appoint past-members of the CAC.

CRC threatened to sue, but finally relented and appointed another one of its members.

While the CAC’s new mandate limited its involvement to responding to MCPS

staff suggestions, the membership of the Committee assured that all issues would be fully

aired, and, over the next year, they were. Mr. Fishback attended, as an observer, all of the

new CAC’s meetings, sharing his experiences from the previous years, including the

earlier materials PFOX presented and the rebuttals, providing insights to allies as to the

tactics employed by the opposition, and providing the resources he had amassed over the

preceding two years.

CRC continued to attack our efforts, and we continued to respond to correct the record.

2006-08: THE ROAD BACK – PROGRESS, INCOMPLETE

Throughout 2006 and beyond, all letters to the editor in local papers from CRC

and PFOX were responded to immediately with letters rebutting their assertions. Mr.

Fishback appeared in a number of radio and television show debates, made presentations

on local and national programs supporting the reform efforts. Mr. Kennedy made similar

media appearances and provided a stream of analysis on the Teachthefacts.org Vigilance

Blog, helping to keep the wider community informed.

Having concluded that a major mistake in 2005 was the failure to anticipate a

lawsuit filled with factual and legal misrepresentations, PFLAG Metro DC – working

withTeachthefacts.org, PFLAG National, Hayley Gorenberg of Lambda Legal, and a

team of attorneys from the law firm of WilmerHale led by Jonathan Frankel (now

managing partner of Frankel PLLC) began to develop a comprehensive defense and

established a working relationship with the school system attorneys. Key to the defense

was the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (which includes

Maryland), which confirmed that public educational institutions are entitled to speak for

themselves in matters of curriculum, without having to present “all sides,” however

absurd certain sides might be.

11

In October 2006, the MCPS staff presented to the CAC its proposed new revisions

for the 8th and 10th Grade Health classes. The upside of the new revisions was that, rather

than simply including a few basic statements about sexual orientation as had been done in

2005, they now covered two entire classroom periods and went into great depth on the

challenges faced by LGBT students, brought in useful material on transgender people,

and drew on statements from the American Psychological Association and a textbook

developed for the Los Angeles County School District. This was a major step forward.

The downsides were that -- apparently to protect the school system from another

lawsuit -- the lessons were tightly scripted: teachers were instructed to follow a specific

script and not engage in discussion that might lead to saying anything that was not in the

script. And the specific statements set forth in the 2005 revisions – notably, that being

gay is not an illness and that reparative therapy has been rejected as dangerous by

mainstream medical professionals – were absent from what was permitted to be said,

again presumably to stave off a lawsuit.

In the autumn of 2006, Teachthefacts.org held a candidates forum, at which all

candidates for the Board of Education seats were asked whether they believed that the

2005 statements should be in the new curriculum. Four seats were up for election, and all

the winners, incumbents Patricia O’Neill and Nancy Navarro and open seat candidates

Shirley Brandman and Judy Docca, announced their support for inclusion of the

statements.

In November 2006, the overwhelming majority of CAC members voted to

recommend inclusion of most of those specific statements from the 2005 version (see

here and here – precisely what the winning Board of Education candidates favored (and

what we understood that all but one of the carryover members favored). Mr. Fishback

wrote to the Board supporting the CAC recommendations, explaining why they made

sense and why there was no legal impediment to their inclusion. (Attachment D, 12/12/06

testimony). But the Superintendent rejected the recommendations, presenting his

proposals without any of those recommended changes (see here, here, here, and here) and

inexplicably telling the Board that the statements did “not align with the target objectives

of the lessons” (at 115, 128-29 and 131).

This difference created significant controversy. See here. During public comments at the Board’s January 9, 2007 meeting, Mr. Fishback, now a member of the PFLAG Metro DC Board, vigorously urged inclusion of the CAC recommendations, again explaining why there was no legal impediment. In response, Board member Steve Abrams, one of the carryover members, threatened to vote against the proposal if any of the CAC statements were added, thus depriving the Board of unanimity that Mr. Abrams asserted was needed to resist another lawsuit.  Board member Patricia O’Neill moved to include the statement that being gay is not an illness. The motion failed on a 4-4 vote, although some of those voting “No” said they would revisit it in June 2007, following piloting of the classes in a few schools. The Board then voted unanimously to pilot the new revisions. See here and here.

12

The debate continued through the winter and spring, and it continued to be the

subject of media attention. One illustration of the intensity of the discussion was a

locally-televised debate between Mr. Fishback and the head of CRC, John Garza. See

here and here. Another was reflected in an opposition March 2007 letter to the

Washington Post, and CAC Chair Dr. Plotsky’s response.

There continued to be concerns about the inadequacy of the proposed curriculum,

for while the new revisions went farther and deeper in many respects than the 2005

version (and this was a very good thing), it omitted key information, and the tight

scripting was problematic, to say the least, in terms of effective teaching and learning.

Through the month of May 2007 and into early June, Mr. Fishback engaged in vigorous private discussions with all the Board members except for Mr. Abrams (who

clearly was not going to budge) and other opinion leaders in the community, including

officials of the Montgomery County Teachers Association (MCEA, the teachers’ union,

which had developed a very cooperative relationship with the Board and the

Superintendent, and was supportive), urging inclusion of the 2006 CAC

recommendations. Following the piloting and comments from stakeholders in the Spring

of 2007, the Superintendent still did not make any changes, presenting his proposal to the

CAC only a short time before it was to be presented to the Board. The CAC reiterated its

2006 recommended additions, but, once again, the Superintendent declined to incorporate

them into the curriculum he submitted to the Board for its June 12 meeting.

The night before the June 12 meeting, however -- following individual

discussions by Board members with the Superintendent and a June 7 Washington Post

article on the Superintendent’s disagreement with the CAC -- the Superintendent finally agreed to propose an “extension” to the curriculum, in which, if a student asked if being

gay were an illness, the teacher should say that it is not – that the American Psychiatric

Association says it is not. This was a useful, albeit not sufficient, step. After a contentious

meeting on June 12, at which Mr. Abrams accused the Superintendent of going back on

an agreement to make no changes in the curriculum, and the Superintendent passionately

responded that the school system owed students this answer, the Board passed the revised

curriculum with only Mr. Abrams dissenting. See also here and here (Board minutes at

pp. 33-35)

PFLAG Metro DC supported the revisions, but made it clear that they were still

inadequate, and urged reassessment after the first year of implementation (Attachment E,

6/12/07 testimony). And PFLAG Metro DC continued to support the Board’s action

against attacks from those opposing any LGBT-affirming curriculum.

Unfortunately, the Superintendent made it clear, through his staff, that he had no

intention of dealing again with the curriculum during his term of office, which extended

through the end of the 2010-11 school year. Our assumption was that he was still afraid

of a lawsuit, even though we had demonstrated that the law and, significantly, the 2007-

08 litigation (discussed below) eliminated any danger of significant litigation, because the

legal issue was now settled. The tightly-scripted nature of the curriculum (unlike the rest

13

of the curriculum, which did not have such strictures) and the gaping absence of key

information about being gay as an illness (many students would be too afraid to ask, and

others needed to have that information even if they themselves were not gay) and total

silence on reparative therapies made these deficiencies quite serious. The “charge” to the

new CAC made it clear that it was barred from proactively suggesting anything, so any

action to improve or alter in any way the health education curriculum would have to be

initiated by the Superintendent, who simply refused to do so. Even though all members of

the Board of Education agreed with PFLAG substantively (Mr. Abrams was defeated in

his reelection bid in 2008), they did not want to challenge the Superintendent. And they,

too, may have been concerned about the expense of another round of litigation.

As is described below, PFLAG found ways to keep the issue alive during this

period of “benign neglect.”

2007-08 LITIGATION: LAYING TO REST ANY DOUBTS AS TO THE

LEGALITY OF HEALTH EDUCATION CURRICULUM BASED ON

WISDOM OF MAINSTREAM MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE

PROFESSIONALS

In February 2007 (shortly after the Board approved the second revised health

education curriculum for piloting), CRC, PFOX and a group calling itself the Family

Leader Network (FLN) asked the state superintendent of education to block the piloting

as the federal judge had done in 2005.

This time our side was ready, and both the school system and PFLAG Metro DC

filed effective, comprehensive arguments in opposition to the CRC/PFOX/FLN request.

(Attachment F, 3/1/07 letter). In March 2007, the state superintendent denied the request.

CRC/PFOX/FLN appealed to the State Board of Education, using the same arguments

they made in 2005. PFLAG Metro DC again filed papers opposing the request.

Following the County Board’s June approval of the revised curriculum,

CRC/PFOX/FLN reasserted their request to the State Board of Education to block the

curriculum. Later that month, the State Board of Education rejected the CRC/PFOX/FLN

request without a single dissenting vote.

The opposition – now represented by the Thomas More Legal Center – brought

suit in Montgomery County Circuit Court. See here and here. As noted above, Hayley

Gorenberg of Lambda Legal and the attorneys from WilmerHale led by Jon Frankel

represented PFLAG Metro DC as an amicus curiae (Attachment G, PFLAG Metro DC

court filing), and Mr. Frankel ably presented oral argument before the Court. In January

2008, the Court resoundingly dismissed the claims (here and here), and there was no

appeal. This was a major victory, because it confirmed the very basic proposition that MCPS could decide to use material from mainstream medical and mental health professional associations as the basis for its health curriculum, without having to include PFOX-supported material.

14

Teachthefacts.org was honored at PFLAG Metro DC’s annual gala in March 2008. CRC and PFOX continued to try to make its case in the media, and PFLAG Metro DC continued to rebut it. And, on local television, PFLAG Metro DC continued to debate the “reparative therapy” advocates.

INTERLUDE: 2010 BOARD OF EDUCATION ELECTION

The opposition continued to fail to gain any traction in the court of public opinion

in Montgomery County. They did, however, take a run at getting one of its members

elected to the Board of Education, through a stealth campaign in 2010.

In Montgomery County, all Board positions are voted on “at-large,” even though

most candidates must reside in different districts. The District 5 member had resigned

when she was elected to the County Council, and the Board appointed a recently-retired

high school principal, Michael Durso, to complete her term. Mr. Durso was a supporter of

our position on health education. But he had never run for political office and had no

“organization” of supporters (although he was very popular and well-respected among

those who knew him). Mr. Durso decided to stand for election, and a number of others

also signed up to run. In the first round of voting, the Washington Post endorsed one of

the challengers, making Mr. Durso potentially vulnerable. That challenger did not make it

through the first round of voting. The two remaining candidates were Mr. Durso and a

former high school PTSA President named Martha Schaerr. Ms. Schaerr had a very

professionally-constructed website, saying nothing “controversial,” and campaigning as a

“fresh face.”

Mr. Fishback recognized her, recalling a conversation he had had with her after a

Board of Education meeting several years earlier, and then recalled that she had been the

PTSA President who, in 2007, had sought to have a “forum” on the health education

revisions at her high school by inviting – and only inviting – the CRC representative on

the CAC to speak. Jim Kennedy of Teachthefacts.org, who was then a member of the

CAC, was alerted to this event, and arranged to have other CAC members, including the

Chair, to attend, as well, thus diffusing a one-sided attempt to subvert the revisions.

Mr. Fishback also discovered that Ms. Schaerr was a board member of the Family

Leader Network, which had been part of the 2007-08 litigation against MCPS, and that

her husband was board chair of the Family Leader Network. (In 2014, Mr. Schaerr left

his partnership at a major Washington, DC law firm to go to Utah to head up Utah’s

defense of its unequal marriage statute.)

Mr. Fishback publicized these connections – which were not disclosed in any of

Ms. Schaerr’s campaign literature or statements. He responded to discussions of the

election on community blogs; responded to reports on local on-line local newspapers that

had not pointed out (and likely were not aware of) her history; wrote letters to local

newspapers; brought up Ms. Schaerr’s history at campaign forums; enabled the MCEA to

15

inform the teachers about Ms. Schaerr; and presented the facts to reporters, leading to

accurate articles in the Washington Post, the local Gazette, and the on-line version of the

local ABC outlet.

On October 26, 2010, the Washington Post, which earlier had endorsed one of

Mr. Durso’s opponents, now endorsed Mr. Durso, noting that it was “troubled by [Ms.

Schaerr’s] involvement in a group hostile to gay rights. She is also a member of the board

of the Family Leader Network, one of the groups that sued Montgomery school officials

in an unsuccessful effort to block a new sexual education curriculum that dealt

forthrightly with sexual orientation.”

Mr. Durso defeated Ms. Schaerr overwhelmingly, and the other incumbents who

were supportive of LGBT-affirming curriculum were also reelected overwhelmingly.

2008-11: GUIDANCE OFFICES, FLYERS, AND EFFORTS TO HAVE THE

CURRICULUM REVISITED AND IMPROVED

While the Board was not prepared to challenge the Superintendent on the

curriculum, we did find an avenue to improve the MCPS climate. We had heard reports

that the Department of Student Services (DSS, the guidance counselors and school

psychologists) had removed useful resources on sexual orientation in 2006, following

complaints from the CRC/PFOX people, and that now there was significant confusion as

to what the guidance counselors could use.

So in the summer of 2008 (once it became clear that the Superintendent was not going to revisit the curriculum), we began working with a strong Board ally to assure that the DSS could use mainstream medical and mental health resources. In particular, we suggested the American Psychological Association’s Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth, the publication from the American Psychological Associationdiscussed at the beginning of this report, be a principal resource along with other materials, including the excellent American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Guidance for

the Clinician on Sexual Orientation. This effort was successful, and we were able to

inform all the high school GSA sponsors of this development in April 2009. (Attachment

H, Metro DC PFLAG memorandum to GSA sponsors, 4/27/09).

In addition to this important step in making MCPS a safe and comfortable place

for LGBT students, the information provided by the DSS also established that the DSS

side of the MCPS house officially accepted the mainstream wisdom, thus heightening the

disconnect with the gaps in the curriculum. In 2012, when concerns were raised that pupil personnel workers were not aware of the resources or insufficiently trained, DSS hired an

excellent trainer, Sue Garner, a retired school psychologist from Howard County MD, who is also active in the PFLAG Columbia/Howard County Chapter, to provide training.

Still, the problems with the curriculum’s silence (or near silence) on key issues

was heightened by periodic distributions of PFOX flyers touting “reparative therapy”

16

notions in some high schools, starting in October 2006 and nearly every year for the next

six years. PFOX was entitled to do such distributions because, in another context, the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had ruled that MCPS could not

discriminate based on viewpoint with respect to flyer distributions by outside non-profit

groups.

Initially, the flyers were quite specific in their advocacy of such notions; later,

they became more veiled, but the purpose was still unmistakable. At first, media coverage

was only in minor weekly newspapers, which noted how upset people were about the

distributions. There was always grave concern from schools about the PFOX flyers, and

many students made a point of throwing them out; in some schools, trash cans were set

up for that purpose. Mr. Fishback explained in public forums that the Board of Education

appeared to be bound by the Fourth Circuit decision, unless the distribution program were

eliminated; he also explained that those distributions made it all the more important that

the CAC recommendations about illness and reparative therapy be included in the health

curriculum. 

Understanding that the absence of an MCPS substantive response to the flyers

created a potentially grave and harmful situation, Metro DC PFLAG distributed flyers of

its own, rebutting the PFOX notions. In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, PFLAG

Metro DC, working with Teachthfacts.org and a number of GSA faculty sponsors and

later the Rainbow Youth Alliance, countered the PFOX flyers (which had been

distributed at a handful of high schools) by distributing flyers at all MCPS high schools.

Indeed, each time such “flyer wars” took place, PFLAG Metro DC informed the Board

that the Board’s decision to continue the flyer distribution program made it incumbent on

MCPS to cure the deficiencies in the curriculum.

The Washington Post covered the PFOX flyer distributions for the first time in

February 2010. Resentment in the schools increased as more and more schools were

targeted by PFOX, and later that month Mr. Fishback for PFLAG Metro DC and

Stephanie Kreps (another PFLAG parent) for the Rainbow Youth Alliance wrote a letter

to the Board explaining the full nature of the potential harm caused by the flyers. In April

2010, Mr. Fishback wrote to, and testified before, the Board stating that because “MCPS has chosen to continue the flyer distribution program, we believe that it has a heightened

responsibility to deal with the PFOX misrepresentations,” and urging that the Board add

the CAC 2006 recommendations to the health education curriculum. As noted above, it

had become clear that the Superintendent would not act, and that the Board would not

challenge him. But it was also becoming clear that the Superintendent would not likely be

continuing at the end of his contract in 2011, so it was imperative to keep the issues

before the Board – all of whose members were in agreement with us on the substance.

In August 2010, the Superintendent announced that he would not seek renewal of

his contract. The next month, at the urging of Mr. Fishback and Dr. Akinbami, the

Superintendent’s own advisors the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of

Pediatrics (AAP) wrote to the Superintendent and the Board urging inclusion of the CAC

17

2007 recommendations, thus giving the Superintendent an opportunity to revisit the

curriculum (Attachment I, AAP letter, 9/28/10); but the letter was ignored.

In April 2011, with a new Superintendent scheduled to arrive in June, Mr.

Fishback worked with CAC members to reiterate their 2006 and 2007 recommendations,

in order to have those recommendations on the record for the transition. This was a

difficult process, since the rules imposed on the CAC theoretically prevented it from

taking any proactive steps – it could only respond to the Superintendent’s staff. After

some resistance from the staff, the CAC Chair, Dr. Plotsky, firmly asserted the CAC’s

right to recommend, and the staff did not prevent the CAC from making an affirmative

recommendation. Peter Sprigg of PFOX and the Family Research Council (who was still

a member of the CAC) made veiled threats of more lawsuits if such changes were made,

but the full CAC overwhelmingly approved the recommendation. PFOX then accused the

CAC of acting in an abusive and discriminatory manner, and particularly singled out Mr.

Fishback for harsh criticism, and concluded by urging that its views about “ex-gays”

should be included in the curriculum.

Mr. Fishback reported the CAC’s recommendations to the Board (Attachment J, 4/22/11 letter), since there was no official mechanism for the staff to provide it until the following autumn, and it was unlikely that the out-going Superintendent was going to pass the recommendation along before he left.

JUNE 2011 TO NOVEMBER 2012: PROGRESS AND DETOUR – FLYER WARS

In the spring of 2011, the Board announced the appointment of Joshua Starr, the

young superintendent of the Stamford, Connecticut public school system, to be the new

Montgomery County superintendent. Mr. Fishback contacted Stamford PFLAGers, who

were very positive about him. PFLAG Metro DC provided background materials to his

transition team in Summer 2011, but received no response. Taking over a large

bureaucracy like that at MCPS was clearly a big job, with lots of issues other than health

education policy, so we initially bided our time. We were assured by a strong ally on the

Board that this issue would be raised with him in early 2012.

Very quickly, there appeared to be challenges stemming from holdovers from the

previous administration who shared the former Superintendent’s fear of making any

changes to the curriculum. At the first meeting of the CAC in Autumn 2012, a top

holdover administrator, in briefing the new members of the CAC (Dr. Plotsky had

stepped down after nearly six years of service), boasted of how tightly scripted the

Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality units were. And it took considerable effort to

find a copy of the annual report from the staff to the Board, which included the 2010-11

CAC’s work. In the past, CAC recommendations were presented to the Board, but the

September 2011 report was so vague that it was impossible to determine on its face what

was being reported. Indeed, allies on the Board, having received it, reported to Mr.

Fishback that they were not aware that the staff had hidden the CAC suggestions. It

18

seemed very possible that the key holdover staff was simply not presenting the issue to

Dr. Starr.

Then PFOX came back into the picture. The Board declined to appoint Peter

Sprigg to another term on the CAC, and he received, as did other outgoing members, a

form thank you letter signed by Dr. Starr. PFOX then, in a website post (later taken

down), characterized the form letter as an endorsement by Dr. Starr of Mr. Sprigg’s

views (and also misrepresented an action of the CAC). When this was brought to Dr.

Starr’s attention, his chief of staff wrote to PFOX’s executive director as follows:

     We have received a number of emails from people who are concerned about

     information you posted on your blog regarding the standard letter that Dr. Starr

     sent to Mr. Peter Sprigg thanking him for his service on the Citizens Advisory

     Committee on Family Life and Human Development. Some are concerned that

     Dr. Starr’s letter is singling out Mr. Sprigg for praise and is being misinterpreted

     as an endorsement of PFOX and its beliefs and issues.

     Let me be clear, Mr. Sprigg received the same thank you that Dr. Starr sent to all

     members of the committee who completed their service this spring. Dr. Starr

     was in no way singling out Mr. Sprigg for special recognition. Any effort on your

     part to portray this simple thank you as an endorsement of PFOX or its

     perspective is misguided and should cease.

     Dr. Starr does not endorse nor agree with the views represented by PFOX.

On February 4, 2012, the Montgomery County Office of Human Rights’

Committee on Hate Violence, held an event entitled Bullying in Schools: A Community

Symposium on Prevention and Intervention Strategies, with Dr. Starr, other MCPS

officials, and a high school GSA leader on the symposium’s panel. PFLAG Metro DC

attended with a table with information (including a flyer explaining the need for

curriculum improvements (Attachment K, Metro DC PFLAG flyer, 2/4/12) and raising

the issue during the questions and answer period (although Dr. Starr left before that

period). In post-event discussions, it became clear that MCPS Department of Student

Services (DSS) leaders agreed with us.

Then, before members of the Board were able to urge prompt action on health

education curriculum changes, a new round of PFOX flyers – and Dr. Starr’s public

response to PFOX – dominated the discussion. Around the first of February 2012, PFOX

distributed flyers in several high schools, and there were a number of parent and student

complaints. Then, a few days after the distributions, Dr. Starr was asked about the flyers

by a student during a televised forum at Wootton High School, and responded as follows:

     I find the actions of PFOX to be reprehensible and deplorable, but we are bound

     by law to enable non-profits to distribute fliers four times per year. We can’t

     really do much about it unless we cut off all flier distribution. This group has

19

     figured out a way to use that law to spread what I find to be a really disgusting

     message.

(In addition to local Montgomery County coverage, this was also reported by the

Washington Post.) 

The story quickly hit the national media.

The Board of Education immediately decided to consider whether to cut off the

flyer distribution program, and then decided to investigate how much the program was

used before making a decision. 

PFLAG Metro DC used the opportunity to point out that there was, in fact,

something that MCPS could do other than end all flyer distributions: On PFLAG Metro

DC’s blog and in e-blasts, in Mr. Fishback’s Letter to the Editor in the Gazette, and in his

letters and testimony to the Board of Education (Attachment L, 2/17/12 Testimony and

letter, 2/27/12), PFLAG Metro DC explained that MCPS could and should add material

to the health education curriculum that would rebut the PFOX message. The Gazette

published a letter from another PFLAG Metro DC Board Member explaining why the

PFOX message was so dangerous.

PFOX, of course, attacked Dr. Starr in a letter to the Gazette. As did Peter Sprigg

in an op-ed in the Washington Times.

On March, a local television program, News Talk, had Mr. Fishback and Mr.

Sprigg discuss the issues surrounding the PFOX flyer and message. In a spirited half-hour

debate (which was then covered in some local media), the arguments of both sides were

clearly set forth. A shorter version of the debate was illustrated in Letters to the Editor of

the Washington Post by Mr. Sprigg and Mr. Fishback, also in mid-March.

Through March and April, PFLAG Metro DC took the lead in working with the

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Equality Maryland (EQMD) Foundation, The

Trevor Project, Rainbow Youth Alliance, the Rockville Open House to develop, produce,

and then distribute nearly 50,000 flyers in all 25 of Montgomery County’s high schools.

The considerable cost for printing of the flyers was defrayed by SPLC, EQMD

Foundation, and PFLAG National. The distribution was done by a team of Montgomery

County residents, including PFLAGers, Teachthefacts.org members, Rainbow Youth

Alllance members, and GSA sponsors. This effort received positive media coverage in

the Washington Post (see here and here) and in the Gazette. (Note that the PFLAG flyer

sets forth the basic information that advocates can use in efforts in their own

communities.)

A Board of Education committee did a survey of the MCPS schools, and

discovered that the flyer program, while used widely in the elementary schools, was used

only sparsely in the secondary schools. As a result of that survey, it decided, in June

2012, to eliminate the flyer distribution program in the secondary schools. See also here.

20

In May, PFOX continued its harassment of Superintendent Starr, filing a

complaint against him with the Board of Education, alleging that he had violated the

MCPS non-discrimination rules by his statements about PFOX that February. The

frivolous complaint was dismissed. And in December 2013, PFOX filed similar

complaints with the federal Departments of Justice and Education; those complaints went

nowhere.

We had hoped that this discussion about PFOX would help stimulate the school

system to finally grapple with the curriculum. In addition to our continued advocacy in

the winter and spring of 2012 (Attachment M, 5/20/12 letter), the Montgomery County

Commission on Children and Youth, after conducting a symposium on the problems

faced by LGBT youth in the County, invited Mr. Fishback and Ms. Kreps of the Rainbow

Youth Alliance to address it. At the end of the meeting, the Commission sent a letter

(Attachment N, 6/15/12 letter) to MCPS urging the curriculum improvements.

But the staff responses were variations of the responses made under the previous

Superintendent, essentially declining to make or consider any changes. (Attachment O,

6/25/12 testimony with attachments).

What we discovered later was that the flyer dispute essentially absorbed all the

oxygen, and that holdover bureaucrats from the ancient regime were still controlling the

message. Our challenge was to figure out how to proceed.

One Board member privately explained that it would be easier to deal with the

issue once the Maryland marriage equality referendum, which was up for a vote that

November, had been won. Indeed, PFLAG Metro DC was part of the statewide coalition

working on the referendum, and Mr. Fishback gave us visibility in a WUSA television

debate with a conservative talk show host on the day that President Obama announced the

completion of his evolution, and in rebutting a prominent Gazette columnist.5

So we focused our efforts on the Marriage Equality Referendum until the

November 2012 victory in Maryland. (In Montgomery County, 66% of the voters

approved Civil Marriage Equality). We also attended a Board of Education candidate

general election forum, and received confirmation from all the candidates (not only the

two incumbents who won, and the winner of an open seat, but also the losers) that they

substantively agreed with us.

It seemed clear that Superintendent Starr also substantively agreed with us, but we

did not know whether, with so much on his plate, that he had made sufficient progress in

placing like-minded people in key administrative positions, thus removing bureaucratic

impediments, to take the next steps; or whether, if there were still holdovers who shared

5 Indeed, through this entire period, PFLAG Metro DC took advantage of opportunities to use local media to advocate on other LGBT issues and to foster a general atmosphere of understanding. See, for example, letters to the editor

on local candidates' support for civil marriage equality, Fairfax County VA library decisions, and testimony on Montgomery County government contracting rules; and television appearances on "reparative therapy", civil marriage equality, Apple Apps, and a local sports figure's statements about the sexual orientation of another sports figure.

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the mind-set of the former Superintendent, Dr. Starr was ready to expend internal

political capital to act.

JANUARY 2013 TO JUNE 2014: THE FINAL PUSH AND VICTORY

So, after years of pressing for an adequate curriculum, getting close, and then

being stymied, we approached 2013 with a combination of anticipation and trepidation.

The question was whether this would be a priority for the Board and the Superintendent,

and what kind of pressure, if any, would be needed to get movement.

Our friends at MCEA, who likely were better plugged into the internal MCPS

dynamics, featured LGBT issues at its January 5, 2013, “Legislative Breakfast,” attended

by County politicians in advance of the upcoming General Assembly session in

Annapolis. MCEA invited Mr. Fishback to attend. The Breakfast included an award to

the Blake High School GSA for its "Allie the Ally" program, and the GSA sponsor

mentioned the need for curriculum improvement in her presentation. There was ample

opportunity for networking. Mr. Fishback brought up the curriculum issue with the new

Board of Education President. And Mr. Fishback spoke at length with MCEA officials,

following up with a comprehensive e-mail to the MCEA executive director, laying out

the history of the curriculum struggles, and noting the following:

"At present, health teachers may address the [question of whether being gay is an illness] only
if asked, and they may not say anything regarding ['reparative therapy"], since the curriculum is
so tightly scripted.  As [a teacher from one of the high schools] pointed out to me at the 
Legislative Breakfast, we now have a bizarre situation in which guidance counselors and school
psychologists may discuss these matters with students (as may individual teachers who students
might speak with -- like GSA sponsors), but the health teachers are severely limited in class. ****
   
"From the discussions I have had over the years with the elected Board members, I am confident
 that every one of them agrees with the substance of the CAC/AAP/Commission recommendations
 It may well be that key people in the MCPS administration -- all of whom, I believe, also agree
 with the substance -- are still scarred by the 2005 litigation and would prefer not to deal with the
 issue again.  They may not fully understand that any possible legal impediments to further action
 were swept away by the 2008 decision of the Montgomery County Circuit Court, affirming the
 right of MCPS to place information from mainstream medical professional associations in the
 health education curriculum.

 "I believe it is time for Board members and MCEA leadership to speak with Dr. Starr."

At a subsequent meeting with the new Board of Education President, who had been supportive, but not, as far as we could tell, been an activist within the Board on the issue, Mr. Fishback made it clear, as gently as he could, that he had gone out of his way

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to be supportive of the Board for many years, even when it did not take the steps that it knew were right – and that his patience was about to run out if action was not taken soon. The Board President told Mr. Fishback that he planned to bring the issue up with his fellow Board members and with the Superintendent in the near future.

Mr. Fishback continued to speak with other community leaders, including Bonnie Cullison, a former MCEA President who was now a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, conveying the need for prompt action and suggesting that he would go public with his concerns in a very vigorous way if no action was forthcoming.

Fortunately, we began to see movement for the first time since 2007. In late April, an MCEA staffer asked Mr. Fishback for a summary paper on why action could be taken now, which Mr. Fishback provided. (Attachment P, Memorandum) In May, Board Vice President Patricia O’Neill, who had been a vocal supporter from the beginning of the effort in 2002, introduced Resolution 247-13, providing that the superintendent and his staff perform a comprehensive review of the Grade 8 and Grade 10 Health Education Curriculum, benchmarking with other districts, reconsider the requirement for the scripted lessons and the recommendations from the Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development [CAC] report, and bring to the Board of Education proposed changes so that they may be in place no later than Fall 2014.

The resolution passed unanimously. See here at pp. 26-29. What apparently had occurred was that the Superintendent and Board members reached a consensus that the best way to proceed was to have the Board send a clear message to the Administration that the Board wanted a revised approach to health education classes and sexual orientation and gender identity, eliminating the strait jacket of tight scripting and including the CAC substantive recommendations. This portended a complete victory.6

In the ensuing months, the relevant curriculum staffers did all the right things. They consulted with the new community advisory committee (made up of members of the most recent CAC) and took into account the background resources used by the Department of Student Services and background resources Mr. Fishback provided to a member of the new community advisory committee. They engaged in discussions with students and health teachers, who uniformly criticized the scripting as pedagogically unsound.

6 What factors led to this action, after so many years of failure to make improvements after June 2007? One may well be that the recalcitrant holdovers from the previous administration had retired or had moved to different positions, so no longer presented an internal bureaucratic problem. We never had the sense that any of these people opposed the substance of what we proposed, but, rather, that they were so afraid of another lawsuit that they felt it was best not to take up the issue again. For them, and perhaps for members of the Board, as well, “the time was just not right.” And it may well be that the Montgomery County results in the Civil Marriage Equality referendum assured them that now it was safer to act. There is a school of thought that suggests that failure to take any steps to improve the curriculum between 2007 and 2013 was driven by resource allocation issues – i.e., the reluctance to risk going to the expense of litigation a third time. While, from the outside, it is hard to see how that litigation concern would be any less in 2013 than following MCPS’s resounding court victory five years earlier in 2008, that was how some saw it.

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On May 13, 2014, the Superintendent presented his proposed new health education curriculum framework. That framework wisely moved up the first discussions of LGBT matters to 7th Grade, eliminated the tight scripting, and specifically noted reliance upon a document from the American Psychological Association that referenced the longstanding findings of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, including the propositions that being gay is not an illness and that so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapies are dangerous and ineffective. When the revised framework was presented, PFLAG Metro DC gave its full support. The Board gave preliminary approval, triggering a month of public comments. PFLAG Metro DC alerted supporters to the comment period. The overwhelming percentage of the comments were positive.

At the Board’s June 17, 2014 meeting, Mr. Fishback presented PFLAG Metro DC’s support and thanks (Attachment Q, 6/17/14 testimony). Peter Sprigg of PFOX and the Family Research Council presented a statement in opposition. The Board then voted unanimously to give final approval. The changes went into effect in September 2014 – this time without any legal challenge.7

This action brought to a successful conclusion a dozen years of work by members of PFLAG Metro DC and others to bring this wisdom into the middle and high school health education curriculum.8

                      ****************************

PFLAG Metro DC is happy to assist anyone in developing their own strategies and

tactics. Advocacy Chair David Fishback may be reached at fishbackpflag@gmail.com.

7 In anticipation of a possible legal challenge like the ones in 2005 and 2007, Lambda Legal and Jon Frankel again agreed to represent PFLAG Metro DC if needed, and we arranged with the Board’s new General Counsel to assist in

the defense of any new lawsuit. Fortunately, that was not necessary.
8 The baseline resources now being used by the Montgomery County Public Schools for the secondary school health curriculum on LGBT matters are the American Psychological Association's Answers to Your Questions For a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality and its Answers to Your Questions About Transgender

People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression.
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