Ex-gay Sex-ed Debate

Ex-Gay, Sex-Ed Debate

By Daniel de Vise, The Washington Post, November 16, 2006

This is an excerpt from a report entitled, "Racial Slur Spurs Student to Seek Change in Curriculum"

The battle over sex education in Montgomery has returned to a familiar theme, presented Tuesday in testimony to the school board: If new lessons on sexual orientation are to be fair and balanced, they should include discussion of ex-gays.

A citizens committee is reviewing proposed eighth- and 10th-grade lessons that address sexual orientation for the first time in the county schools. The speakers said the committee has taken pains to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in the lessons but has avoided the topic of ex-gays.

Last year, a community group called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum led a campaign to overturn the county's sex education curriculum, which a federal judge found might discriminate against some faiths that are intolerant of homosexuality.

The advisory committee has not yet completed its task, which is to advise Superintendent Jerry D. Weast on new lessons on sexual orientation and condom use. But draft curriculum documents provided to Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum prompted a fresh outpouring of concerns.

Members of the group said the proposed lessons celebrate gay, lesbian and transgender communities and mostly ignore concepts of abstinence and sexually transmitted disease. Proponents of the lessons said that they introduce and define the topics objectively. Critics said the committee has proved hostile to the community of ex-gays.

"Why is the ex-gay community being censored in the lesson plan when every other sexual orientation is discussed and supported?" asked Grace Harley, a grandmother who told the board she had lived for 10 years as a man.

At issue is a more fundamental question: Does one choose to be gay? The gay-lesbian community is virtually unanimous that homosexuality is immutable. The notion that one can choose to be gay has been embraced by some spiritual conservatives, who contend that homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle that can be abandoned. Harley belongs to a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays.

Brown, the curriculum director, said the lessons are still in draft form.

If approved by the Board of Education in January, the lessons would be taught in a small number of schools in spring. The revisions include a new version of the condom-instruction video that became the center of dispute last year.

The conflict arose over 2004 updates to the countywide health curriculum that, at pilot schools, introduced the concept of homosexuality in the eighth and 10th grades.

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