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Judge rules sex-education curriculum violates First Amendment rights (Maryland)
townhall.com ^ | June 6, 2005 | Phyllis Schlafly

Posted on 06/07/2005 7:04:41 AM PDT by GMMAC

Judge rules sex-education curriculum
violates First Amendment rights


Phyllis Schlafly
townhall.com
June 6, 2005


A federal judge in Montgomery County, Md., has issued a temporary restraining order to stop the teaching of a sex-education course because it violates the First Amendment. I can't remember any other case in the last 30 years in which a judge sided with parents against a curriculum adopted by a school board.

This sex-education curriculum was scheduled to be taught in three high schools and three middle schools despite parental protests and petitions with 4,000 signatures. After the court decision, the board voted 7-1 to scrap the curriculum - at least for the coming school year - and dissolve the advisory committee that recommended it.

Judge Alexander Williams Jr.'s decision found that the curriculum "presents only one view on the subject - that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle - to the exclusion of other perspectives." This "one-sided information," he said, threatens parents' and children's First Amendment rights.

A seven-minute video designed for 10th-graders shows a girl putting a condom on a cucumber. However, as is typical with many sex-ed courses, much of the objectionable material is in the teachers' guide, which the schools had tried to conceal from parents.

This sex-ed curriculum teaches children that "morality is a more subjective issue" and that people can "form a variety of (sexual) relationships lasting from one night to many years." The curriculum calls it a myth that homosexuality is a sin, asserting that the Bible contains only six passages that condemn homosexual behavior but numerous passages condemning heterosexual behavior.

The ruling in favor of parents and against the school stated that the curriculum would cause "irreparable harm" to the students because of "restrictions to their First Amendment liberties." The judge wrote that "The public interest is served by preventing ... public school (officials) from disseminating one-sided information on a controversial topic."

It's hard to believe, but this offensive curriculum criticizes "fundamentalists" and specifically singles out the Baptists as "theologically flawed" and as "unenlightened and Biblically misguided." The curriculum indicates preference for five other named churches that, "fortunately," are not homophobic and are more friendly toward the homosexual lifestyle.

The Baptists are responding to the challenge. The Montgomery County curriculum is not an isolated instance but is part of a widespread effort in the public schools to teach children that homosexuality is a normal and OK lifestyle.

At the 2005 Southern Baptist Convention scheduled to take place in Nashville, Tenn., June 21-22, two highly respected Baptists, Dr. Voddie Baucham and Bruce N. Shortt, will present a resolution that lays out the problem and the response. The resolution encourages every Southern Baptist College church to investigate whether its local school district has a homosexual curriculum or club or program that attempts to influence children to treat homosexual behavior as an acceptable lifestyle.

If the school district has any of these, the resolution urges churches to inform parents and encourage them to remove their children from the public school immediately.

The resolution cautions parents to be aware that these homosexual courses and programs are concealed behind stealth phrases such as tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism, anti-bullying, and safe sex. The resolution warns against the attempt to hijack the language of the civil rights movement.

The resolution commends Christians working in public schools, asks Baptists to make a greater effort to provide and support Christian education alternatives to public schools, and calls on Baptists to pray for homosexuals.

The Southern Baptist College resolution correctly identifies the National Education Association as an ally of the campaign to use the public schools to promote acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. Every year for at least a decade, the annual NEA convention has passed about a dozen resolutions urging implementation of the gay rights agenda in curriculum, extracurricular activities, and employment regulations.

National Education Association convention resolutions repeatedly demand that the schools be permitted to determine (without parental approval) what is taught in sex-ed programs. Association resolutions demand that school programs include information on "diversity of sexual orientation and/or gender identification." Several Christian-oriented public interest law firms are helping to confirm parental rights. In addition to Liberty Counsel of Orlando, Fla., the firm that won the Montgomery County lawsuit, the Pacific Justice Institute has been helping parents of high school students in Santa Cruz County, Calif.

Parents there are complaining to school officials about open advocacy of homosexuality by lesbian teachers. Some teachers hang pro-homosexual posters in their classrooms, discuss their lesbian lifestyle in class, and refer students to gay, lesbian and bisexual organizations, while not allowing posters celebrating traditional families.

©2005 Copley News Service


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: Maryland; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: curriculum; gayagenda; homosexualagenda; publicschools; samesexmarriage; sexeducation; sodomy
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To: ThirstyMan

It probably has been. This is just a small drop in the bucket of what is going on nationally. This is only one incident. This is happening all over in many ways.


21 posted on 06/07/2005 7:58:53 AM PDT by auntyfemenist (Show me your papers...)
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To: GMMAC
A seven-minute video designed for 10th-graders shows a girl putting a condom on a cucumber.

I feel sorry for the 10th grade boys in Montgomery County. After all, from now on, the girls are going to compare them to cucumbers. Not many guys can win that comparison!

22 posted on 06/07/2005 7:59:03 AM PDT by Bluegrass Conservative
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To: mlc9852
"This twisted, demented, deviant crap being forced on public school students is outrageous."

There was a time in the recent past, that presenting such material to underage children was considered as " corruption of minors" and was a punishable offense with jail time and fines.

If you or I approached young children on the streets with this kind of material we would probably be arrested for just such an attempt (the corruption of minors), but if the public schools do it then it is ok. NOT!!!
23 posted on 06/07/2005 8:03:57 AM PDT by clearsight
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To: GrandEagle
This Catholic says

HOORAY

HOORAY

H - O - O - R - A - Y

FOR THEM BEAUTIFUL BAPTISTS!

24 posted on 06/07/2005 8:10:54 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (The Baptist - Catholic Alliance. Where we can all get along. Gimme an "Amen.")
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To: mlc9852

Those who formulate, advocate and teach this filth should have their homes burned to the ground and then be driven into the wilderess.


25 posted on 06/07/2005 8:16:41 AM PDT by Noumenon (Activist judges - out of touch, out of tune, but not out of reach.)
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To: Bluegrass Conservative

Yeah, they should probably use those little sweet pickles - lol.


26 posted on 06/07/2005 8:20:56 AM PDT by mlc9852
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Having these guys call us "theologically flawed" is probably the biggest complement they could deliver!

We all need a victory in the "culture war" from time to time!

Cordially,
GE
27 posted on 06/07/2005 8:23:34 AM PDT by GrandEagle
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To: Mrs. Don-o
... and this fellow conservative Catholic adds:

You've got that right! Testify sister!!!

BTW, if there's an up-side to the current struggle against same-sex 'marriage' and the radical gay agenda now on-going up here in Canada, it's that it's most certainly united all of God's people!
28 posted on 06/07/2005 8:28:57 AM PDT by GMMAC (paraphrasing Parrish: "damned Liberals, I hate those bastards!")
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To: Noumenon
If they had been in the group that left Egypt a few thousand years ago to wander the dessert, they would have been buried almost immediately after their home was burned to the ground if you understand what I mean ?????
29 posted on 06/07/2005 8:29:19 AM PDT by clearsight
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To: clearsight

When my boys were 10 and 7, we decided to let our cat have one litter of kittens before we got her spayed. So we found a likely male, and he mated Fuzzy without any further incentive right there on our front lawn--- and the boys caught it all from our front window.

Later I gave them a short explanation of the Way of All Mammals. Voila.

See? Fifteen minute course. Didn't even need a biology book. There's the beautyof homeschooling.

The moral and spirtual aspects they get --- not from a specialized "Abstinence Course" (some of which I think are a little off in their emphasis) but by-the-by as we study (1) the Commandments (2) the Beatitudes (3) the Sacrments (4) the Vices and Virtues and (5) the Lives of the Saints.


30 posted on 06/07/2005 8:36:30 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (The Baptist - Catholic Alliance. Where we can all get along. Gimme an "Amen.")
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To: Bluegrass Conservative

Jerkin' the gherkin is a favorite pastime of boys.


31 posted on 06/07/2005 8:36:48 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (Public Enemy #1, the RATmedia.)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
Jerkin' the gherkin is a favorite pastime of boys.

I don't know if I would say "favorite". I think they would prefer other activities. LOL

32 posted on 06/07/2005 8:39:09 AM PDT by Bluegrass Conservative
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To: Mrs. Don-o
The moral and spirtual aspects they get --- not from a specialized "Abstinence Course"
AMEN!
While we don't homeschool (I wish we did) we are able to send our children to a Christian School - the second best thing to home schooling IMHO. Daily Bible study and honest discussion with GODLY PARENTS is essential.

Cordially,
GE
33 posted on 06/07/2005 8:44:35 AM PDT by GrandEagle
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To: GMMAC

Lets get this judge promoted. Good for Maryland.


34 posted on 06/07/2005 9:05:38 AM PDT by KC_for_Freedom (Sailing the highways of America, and loving it.)
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To: KC_for_Freedom
Wouldn't this bio - rather strangely/ironically - indicate that he's a Clinton (!) appointment:

ALEXANDER WILLIAMS, JR., Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, since August 1994.

Municipal attorney, Town of Fairmount Heights, 1975-87, and Town of Glenarden, 1975-87. Substitute Juvenile Master, Prince George's County, 1976-77. Staff attorney, Office of Public Defender, Prince George's County, 1977-78. Hearing examiner and special counsel, Board of Education, Prince George's County, 1978-87. Member, Commission on Medical Discipline, 1980-85. Municipal attorney, Town of Glenarden, 1980-87. Member, Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, 1983-87 (chair, 1986-87); State's Attorneys Coordination Council, 1987-89; Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 1984-86. State's Attorney, Prince George's County, 1987-94. Member, Handgun Roster Board, 1992-94. Born in Washington, DC, May 8, 1948. Attended Theodore Roosevelt High School, Washington, DC; Howard University, B.A. (government), 1970; Howard University School of Law, J.D., cum laude, 1973. Howard University School of Divinity, M.A.R.S.-Ethics, 1991; Temple University, M.A., 1995. Law clerk to Judge James H. Taylor, Prince George's County Circuit Court, 1973-74. Admitted to Maryland Bar, 1973; District of Columbia Bar, 1974. Founder, member, and first president, J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association. Member, National and Prince George's County Bar Associations. Private law practice, Beltsville and Hyattsville, 1974-86. Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law, 1978-86 (adjunct faculty, 1987-89). Founding member, Howard Law School 500 Club (endowment fund), 1991. Leader of Leaders Award, Prince George's County Public High School Principals, 1991. Honorary doctorate, Southeastern University, 1995. Office: (301) 344-0637
35 posted on 06/07/2005 9:42:28 AM PDT by GMMAC (paraphrasing Parrish: "damned Liberals, I hate those bastards!")
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To: GMMAC

BUMP


36 posted on 06/07/2005 10:35:24 AM PDT by kitkat
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To: GMMAC
Seems ironic that these people find the need to teach human reproduction, a subject virtually everyone excels at naturally and without education/prompting, while we continue to slip behind in math, science and engineering.

Suppose a 16 year old boy ever got the urge to build a space shuttle when the wind blew?
37 posted on 06/07/2005 10:43:18 AM PDT by IamConservative (To worry is to misuse your imagination.)
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To: IamConservative; GMMAC

They only want to "teach" sex education because it gives them the floor to lay out their "vision" that all forms of sex are OK and any form or variation of gender, homosexuality, etc. are supposed to be "normal". And this is all part of the vision of a world government with leftist socialists in charge, making rules for us and giving goodies to themselves.

As for him being a Clinton appointee, I don't believe Clinton was head over heels for the homosexual movement. Was he?


38 posted on 06/07/2005 10:50:53 AM PDT by KC_for_Freedom (Sailing the highways of America, and loving it.)
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To: KC_for_Freedom
Socialists especially despise any form of religious Faith and convention/traditional - functional - families because, since they want everyone totally dependent upon the state for even emotional needs, both amount to "the competition".

Into this mix add the open hatred and resentment which homosexuals of both genders have toward heterosexual males in general and fathers in particular and it explains a game plan that includes everything from pro-deviant 'sex-eduacation' to gender-bigoted 'family' Courts to male-bashing television ads and shows.

Unfortunately, many conservatives don't seem to realize that Faith and Family are the left's #1 targets and slandering Churches, belittling Faith and demonizing men and otherwise promoting acrimony between the sexes are its 'weapons of choice'.

"As for him being a Clinton appointee, I don't believe Clinton was head over heels for the homosexual movement. Was he?

To me, what's surprising is that 'slick Willie' appointed someone with apparent respect for - and more than a nodding acquaintance with - the U.S. Constitution - LOL!
39 posted on 06/07/2005 11:35:13 AM PDT by GMMAC (paraphrasing Parrish: "damned Liberals, I hate those bastards!")
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To: Idisarthur
What amazes me is the Montgomery County Maryland is filled with Jews and yet it seems that it's still such a liberal place to live.

I hang out with a bunch of MC Jewish soccer moms and it amazes me to. They're pretty conservative but they they pay absolutely no attention to the news or politics. They are always dumbfounded when they have something socialist forced upon them.("A Democrat is not suppose to do that!") I guess they vote for the rats cuz mom and grandma did. That's the only thing I can figure out.

40 posted on 06/07/2005 12:27:49 PM PDT by lizma
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