Whose the extremist? Archbishop McCarrick denounces MCPS curriculum

The Montgomery County Public Schools sex-ed curriculum, under a restraining order from a Democratic federal judge and now suspended until 2006, is so far out of the mainstream that it has nothing to do with community values.

County politicians have tried to portray critics as extremists and kooks.

But the most influential mainstream religious leader in the Washington, D.C. area, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, has weighed in, proclaiming that the veggie sex curriculum is "obviously not reflective of our values."

The Archdiocese of Washington includes Montgomery County, Maryland, making Archbishop McCarrick the spiritual leader of county Catholics - including the formerly observant Catholic County Executive Doug Duncan.

The archbishop's comment, made last winter, is reported in a news story about a similar controversy in Fairfax County, where the local Catholic diocese recently denounced the public school curriculum for ridiculing marriage.