from Gay Activism in the Schools

Judge Rules In Favor Of
PFOX/Citizens Group Lawsuit

A federal judge has issued a restraining order against the Montgomery County School District over its promotion of homosexuality and censorship of opposing viewpoints.

May 6, 2005 - United States District Court Judge Alexander Williams, Jr., issued a restraining order against the Montgomery County (Maryland) School District on May 5 resulting from a lawsuit filed by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX). The restraining order forbids the school district from implementing its pro-homosexual curriculum until all issues are resolved.

In his decision, Judge Williams noted: "In this case, Defendants open up the classroom to the subject of homosexuality, and specifically, the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle. However, the Revised Curriculum presents only one view on the subject--that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle--to the exclusion of other perspectives."

PFOX and Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum were represented by the Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based religious liberties law group.

PFOX spokeswoman Regina Griggs is pleased by the judge's decision. "The School Board can follow its own stated goal of diminishing sexual orientation discrimination by starting with the ex-gay community. The School Board failed to include resources with positive portrayals of former homosexuals and, instead, approved resources that attempt to discredit their decisions and experiences. The ex-gay community must not be excluded or discriminated against in our schools."

Dr. Warren Throckmorton and NARTH member David Blakeslee, Psy.D., have published a detailed analysis of the significant factual errors in the pro-gay health curriculum being implemented by the school district. According to Dr. Throckmorton, "Parents are having their views heard at last. We documented the one-sided nature of this curriculum months ago and informed the school of these findings."

Of this court decision, Dr. Blakeslee observed:

This is an important positive development in the struggle to reclaim science from social advocacy groups. Science does well at explaining cause and effect or relationships between variables. When scientific rules are diligently followed, scientific results can be trusted.

What science does not do well is determine ultimate meanings and purposes. That has long been the responsibility of the individual within a moral, spiritual and religious context. Social advocacy groups often assume a moral authority and have an underlying belief system that drives their work. All social advocacy groups have a political agenda which colors and shapes their use and omission of scientific data. The curriculum was particularly egregious in this regard, to the point that it poorly informed about human sexuality in general, and in the case of the video, grossly exaggerated the benefits of condom use.

Even more troublesome was the use of an advocacy group's distortion and manipulation of traditional religious beliefs in the curriculum. There is a growing body of sociological and psychological evidence that religious faith and spirituality have a number of positive individual and social outcomes that improve coping and problem-solving.

The curriculum would have been experienced by many religious and spiritual students as an attack on this fundamental source of meaning and purpose.

The curriculum, rightly rejected by the judge, manipulatively tried to presents distorted science and distorted religion as an authoritative sex education curriculum.

This is a success for pluralism, religion and science.