Maryland County's Sex-Ed Material Not Yet Out of the Woods
by Jim Brown
September 19, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A group that sued Maryland's largest school system over its controversial sex-education curriculum is applauding some proposed changes to the new curriculum and raising concerns about others.
Last year a federal judge issued an order blocking implementation of the Montgomery County, Maryland, sex-ed program. Michelle Turner is president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, one of the two groups that filed a successful lawsuit alleging the program denigrated conservative religious beliefs about homosexuality and contained misinformation about health risks posed by condom use.
Turner shares that her group approves of Montgomery County's newly revised condom video. "We think that the school system has done a very good job in creating this new one," she says. "It's factual, it's direct, it's to the point, it's clinical, and it's given in a very mature manner."
Turner says her group is committed to ensuring Montgomery County schools present accurate data from the Centers for Disease Control regarding sexually transmitted diseases and infections. That's one reason she says the new curriculum does not meet all of her group's expectations.
"We're running into some concerns with the written part of the curriculum," Turner adds. "There still seems to be an interest on the part of the school system to introduce anal and oral sex."
According to Turner, liberal groups are still pushing for condom-based, homosexuality-affirming sex-ed in the classroom. For example, groups like the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and "Teach the Facts" want the county's new sex-education program to include discussion of anal and oral sex, she says. But if the changes advocated by those two groups are adopted, the citizens group leader contends the district may be in violation of the terms of last year's court-ordered settlement.
"It all depends on whether or not they are introducing homosexuality and homosexual acts and the homosexual lifestyle without telling students that it is possible to leave the lifestyle -- and that there are agencies and organizations that can assist with that," she says.
The proposed changes to the curriculum must be approved by the county's citizens advisory committee, which includes two high school students.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
