Montgomery County, Md. School Board finds “gay gene,”

According to the American Psychiatric Association, there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological cause for homosexuality. But now the Montgomery County Board of Education has done what science and medicine could not do by declaring in its newly approved curriculum that homosexuality is “innate” or inborn. The board could not produce any factual evidence for what it will now teach students -- only political “pledges” and payoffs for last year’s school board elections as claimed by gay rights activists. The BOE only need drive down Rockville Pike to talk with the head of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins. Dr. Collins, like all mainstream medical professionals would tell the BOE that homosexuality is NOT hardwired.

The board further demonstrated its bias and arrogance by ignoring the March 7 Order of Maryland State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick which stated that the Maryland Board of Education will render its decision in July on the legal appeal of the curriculum. PFOX, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, and Family Leader Network filed an appeal of the proposed curriculum, citing factual inaccuracies and violations of state and federal law. The BOE gave no explanation on why it could not wait for Grasmick.

In her Order, Grasmick cites the curriculum’s attempt to address harassment problems relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. PFOX has documented how the curriculum fails to provide instruction on tolerance of ex-gays -- a group that is the object of harassment encouraged by Montgomery County public school staff and students, a fact which the Montgomery County Board of Education does not deny.

When PFOX distributed flyers to the high schools urging tolerance of the ex-gay community, the faculty at multiple schools cooperated with Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) student clubs to oppose the distribution. The PFOX flyer advocated tolerance toward ex-gays, but in MoCo tolerance does not apply to ex-gays.

For example, at Winston Churchill High School GSA students were encouraged to place trash cans in the school hallways and carry trash bags labeled “PFOX” to urge all students to trash their ex-gay flyers. The principal, Dr. Joan Benz, stood by the trash cans to support the gay students trashing the PFOX flyers.

At Wootten High School, a gay teacher and co-sponsor of the school’s GSA club warned PFOX to stay out of the public schools, compared sexual preference to African-Americans’ skin color, and also compared PFOX to the Ku Klux Klan.

This discriminatory treatment is not corrected by the curriculum on teaching tolerance for sexual orientation because former homosexuals are not included in the curriculum. Why did the Board approve a curriculum that is supposed to teach respect for diverse sexual orientations when it excludes former homosexuals -- the only sexual orientation that is subject to intolerance by both students and teachers?

Will the Maryland State Board of Education correct the failings of Jerry Weast and the BOE and protect the civil rights of all groups, and not just gays, bisexuals and cross-dressers? Stay tuned.