A group that supports people trying to leave homosexuality is “like the KKK but only in the form of religion,” according to a teacher at Montgomery County, Md.’s Thomas S. Wootton High School.
“STAY OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE!” wrote the teacher, who happens to be the co-sponsor of the high school’s Gay Straight Alliance club.
Using a school-issued e-mail account, the teacher sent those messages to PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays), after the organization distributed fliers to students in compliance with school policy.
So much for “tolerance.”
Which is what the Montgomery County public school district claims it’s promoting by introducing a pro-gay curriculum in all of its middle and high schools this fall.
The new curriculum describes homosexuality as “innate” and exposes kids to propaganda like this statement: “It took a while for me to figure out that I am bisexual. I’ve had great relationships with men and with women,” according to copies of the curriculum posted at www.mcpscurriculum.com.
“They are essentially telling the kids that unless they accept homosexuality, there is something wrong with them,” said Michelle Turner, a mother of six with two in the school district. “These kids have no ability to voice their objection,” she said. “These lessons are so tightly scripted, there is really no discussion that is permitted to take place in the classroom.”
Turner is the spokeswoman for a local parents’ coalition called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC). The parents received bad news in June when the Maryland State Board of Education denied their appeal, ruling that the district’s controversial lesson plans do not violate the law because “teaching tolerance of diversity is a civic value” with a secular purpose.
The message was clear: Anything taught in the name of “tolerance” trumps parental rights — as well as free speech and religious freedom rights. Other parents need to wake up to this trend, warned Turner. “This ‘tolerance’ is a guise for an agenda that’s being pushed on the school system.
“People need to start asking questions and realize their child is sitting in a classroom for six hours a day,” she added. “And what they are being exposed to in that classroom is impacting their thinking and their beliefs.”
Meanwhile, in Montgomery County, intolerance seems to be the rule: School personnel recently set up trash cans with PFOX’s name on them in the main lobby of one school, apparently attempting to incite students to throw out the group's fliers, which encourage those struggling with same-sex attractions that change is possible.
“The school is not only engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, but clearly it has also displayed an obvious desire to indoctrinate students with a radical, pro-homosexual agenda,” said Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco.
ADF sent a letter this week to the president of Montgomery County’s education board, citing federal court rulings that clearly forbid schools from singling out one group for censorship, while allowing the viewpoints of others.
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