Gazette Letter 2/21/07

 Gazette Letter Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007

No inaccuracies in curriculum

In a Feb. 14 article (‘‘ School system leave parents out, advocates complain”), Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum President John Garza asserts that health curriculum revisions on sexual orientation that will be field tested in six secondary schools this spring contain ‘‘factually inaccurate” information, and that the community has been excluded from the development of those revisions.

Both assertions are wrong.

First, there are no inaccuracies in the curriculum; rather, it is based on the conclusions of mainstream medical and mental health professional associations and was vetted by experts provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Second, there has been enormous community input in this process, including by CRC’s representative on the board’s advisory committee on sexuality education.

Mr. Garza’s real complaint is that he has been unable to convince the rest of the community that the school system should teach the proposition — which has been rejected by the American Medical Association — that homosexuality is a mental disorder and that it can be ‘‘cured” by ‘‘conversion” or ‘‘reparative” therapies.

It is significant that the Board of Education members who were overwhelmingly elected last November publicly stated during the campaign that they would oppose inclusion of such material in the health curriculum.

David S. Fishback, Olney