judge has ruled that Montgomery County schools can continue teaching a controversial sexual education curriculum that touched off a battle over the nature of homosexuality.
The ruling ends a nearly three-year legal battle between the schools and a group of Christian conservatives.
In his ruling, Judge William Rowan let a June decision by the Maryland State Board of Education approving the curriculum stand, citing the board’s authority to interpret laws governing education.
“I’m thrilled. I say yes to Judge Rowan,” said School Board Member Pat O’Neill. “And to the other side, I say get out of town, shut up, quit costing Montgomery County taxpayers money for litigation, and we’re right and parents believe we’re right.”
School spokesman Brian Edwards estimated that fighting the suit cost the district more than $500,000. The opponents, led by Montgomery County-based Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, had free representation from Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center.
Opponents took issue with two classroom lessons: 90 minutes in eighth grade on “Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality” and 45 minutes in 10th grade on how to use a condom.
In eighth grade, the text uses the word “innate” to describe sexual orientation. In tenth grade, it discusses certain types of intercourse in detail which opponents believed too erotic for school. Maryland law forbids the instruction of “erotic techniques.”
“When I talk to other parents about the curriculum, I say excuse me for using such vulgar language,” Rosemarie Briggs, national director of the Family Leader Network, a plaintiff in the suit, said.
Briggs added that “the tolerance class is only tolerant of one viewpoint – that sexual behavior is healthy and morally acceptable.” The curriculum does not do enough, she said, to inform students of the “medical risks of this lifestyle.”
This is the first year the “opt-in” curriculum has been used in all of the Montgomery County schools, said Edwards. In the middle schools, 95 percent of parents signed off on the classes; In high school, 97 percent did.
O’Neill said she heard from religious conservatives from Florida to Idaho disgusted with Montgomery County.
But the opponents “speak for a minority,” she said. “Many do not even live in the county.”
