MD school district creates furor with sex-ed program
by Jim Brown
February 27, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - Parents groups are calling on the Maryland Board of Education to dump controversial new sex-education lessons approved by the state's largest and wealthiest school district. The groups are calling for a halt to plans to introduce curriculum to eighth-grade students that promotes homosexuality and other deviant lifestyles such as transgenderism and bisexuality.
Three parents groups have filed an appeal requesting the State Board of Education to stay Montgomery County's sex-ed plans. Opponents of the new curriculum say it promotes homosexuality, cross-dressing, and transgenderism.
Regina Griggs is executive director of Virginia-based Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays (PFOX), one of two groups that sued the district over its previous sex-ed program. Griggs says the new curriculum negatively affects the health, safety, and spirituality of students.
"We are telling people [through the curriculum] that homosexuality is innate; it is not changeable. We are promoting transgenderism and sex changes," she exclaims. "I mean, surgical sex on children? Normalizing this? I cannot imagine anybody agreeing with that curriculum -- and heaven help those who do; they need our prayers."
Griggs says tragically, with the exception of PFOX and two other groups, Montgomery County parents and churches have been virtually silent about the new sex-ed lessons their children will be receiving. And she contends the state board is engaging in viewpoint discrimination against those who have religious or moral objections to the curriculum.
"I want to make this one really clear," the PFOX leader says. "Not one single study has ever been replicated and published in any scientific journal that says homosexual is innate. We have made that statement to the school board. We have sent ex-gays to the school board. We sent a former transgender to the school board. They don't care. I believe it's politically motivated."
And that causes Griggs to believe the push behind the new curriculum is "politically motivated." For example, she says, Montgomery County will not allow a single ex-"gay" resource to be included in the sex-ed lessons, yet advocates for unisex bathrooms for cross-dressing students.
