Response to This Morning's Washington Times Article

[Editors note: the following was submitted by David Fishback, chair of the MCPS Citizens’ Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development, in response to an article in the Washington Times this morning]

The January 26, 2004, edition of the Washington Times published an article entitled Sex-ed courses called flawed, By Jon Ward. The article is set forth below, along with some pertinent comments:

THE TIMES WRITES

Critics of a new sex-education curriculum in Montgomery County public schools say the program teaches that homosexuality is not a choice without including scientific information to the contrary.

"It's inadequate," said Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. "It's an exercise in social advocacy, primarily."

Mr. Throckmorton, who works with former practicing homosexuals, says in a recently published 33-page critique that some good changes have been made to the curriculum, but that the negatives far outweigh the positives.

"The changes undermine any abstinence message the curriculum may offer," he said. "And its treatment of homosexuality is an exercise in social advocacy as opposed to education."

Mr. Throckmorton's opinion supports that of some members of an advisory committee that reviewed the changes and said homosexuality is a preference or choice, not a genetically predetermined condition. The members also said their scientific evidence was rejected.

DAVID FISHBACK RESPONDS

(a) Providing correct information on condom use (which most students will eventually need to know, since most will eventually marry and most will not want to leave decisions on when to have children to chance) does not undermine the abstinence message. Indeed, the condom demonstration video Throckmorton objects to -- but likely has not even seen -- repeatedly stresses that abstinence is the only 100% sure way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually- transmitted infections.

(b) All the revised curriculum does is to provide basic facts, as understood by every mainstream American professional medical and mental health organization for more than three decades: that homosexuality is not a disease and that most experts do not believe that sexual orientation is a choice. This is no more "social advocacy" than the provision of any other pertinent medical and scientific information in the Health Education Curriculum. If one were to follow Throckmorton's logic, material in school curriculum debunking myths about superiority or inferiority of certain racial groups would be impermissible "social advocacy." Hopefully, that is no longer needed -- but a generation ago it was essential.

(c) The proposition that "homosexuality is . . . not a genetically predetermined condition" is a red herring. The curriculum takes no position on the precise etiology of homosexuality because the science has not figured that out. The science has concluded, however, that it is NOT the result of mental illness -- a core proposition of the teachings of Throckmorton and those who agree with him.

(d) "The [dissenting Committee] members also said their scientific evidence was rejected." I have no doubt they have been saying that. The problem, however, is that they presented NO pertinent, useful scientific evidence. I told the Times reporter that they had presented the Spitzer article which suggested that maybe, for some highly motivated individuals, sexual orientation could be changed -- but that a professional medical epidemiologist on the Committee examined that article and published analyses of it by other professionals and concluded that Spitzer's methodology was fatally flawed. (Spitzer's "samples" were all provided by "ex-gay" advocacy groups.) This report from the Committee member convinced the majority not to include the Spitzer article as a teacher resource.

THE TIMES WRITES

The county school board unanimously approved the curriculum Nov. 9.

David Fishback, a Rockville lawyer who leads the citizensadvisory committee, said he had not read Mr. Throckmorton's criticism of the curriculum but was familiar with his work.

"The bottom line for Dr. Throckmorton is that homosexuality is a sin or a disease," he said.

Mr. Fishback said that Mr. Throckmorton's view "that people can change their sexual orientation and sexual desires if they really, really want to and really, really try is risky, risky business."

Mr. Fishback has told reporters he joined the advisory committee in part because his two grown sons declared themselves homosexuals after hiding it for much of their adolescence.

"People, too often, are put through hell to fit the conception of how people think is the only way people can be," he said.

DAVID FISHBACK RESPONDS

What the article omitted, however, was the fact that leaders of the "ex-gay" movement – notably, for example, John Palk and Michael Johnston -- had "fallen off the wagon," and that it was the long experience of the mental health community in damaging people by assuming they could "change" that led them to closely examine and then revise their understanding of homosexuality.

I provided to the reporter a compelling example of a retired rabbi who told me of an incident early in his professional career (in the 1960s or perhaps earlier) when he counseled a teenage member of his congregation who had told his parents he was homosexual that the young man could and must change his orientation, that it was a sin and was "abnormal." The young man, a brilliant and caring individual, tried mightily to do so -- but eventually committed suicide. As time went on, the rabbi concluded that his advice was wrong, and he still carried that guilt 40 years later.

The article should not have just provided my conclusion that "reparative therapy" approaches are risky – it should have provided the reasons for the conclusion. Our public discourse has too often become a clash of conclusions, not a discussion of facts that lead us to conclusions.

THE TIMES WRITES

The new curriculum will be tested in three middle schools and three high schools in mid-April. The six schools have not been chosen, said Brian Edwards, the spokesman for the Montgomery County public schools.

The advisory committee will collect feedback from teachers, parents and students in the schools, then present the school board this summer with the results of the pilot program and recommend any adjustments.

The board members will then vote on whether to approve the proposed changes and whether to continue the program throughout the school district.

The new curriculum would be implemented in the fall in county eighth and 10th grades.

Mr. Fishback rejects the claim by Michelle Turner and other committee members who say their evidence on homosexuality was ignored.

Mrs. Turner has four children in public schools and has helped organize a parent group working to stop the new curriculum.

She says most of the committee members "favor a pro-gay agenda and see homosexuality as a perfectly acceptable, if not normal lifestyle, that should be taught to our children at an early age."

DAVID FISHBACK RESPONDS

Ah, yes – the "pro-gay agenda." Would Mrs. Turner characterize her view as the "anti-gay agenda"? I do not think it a terribly extraordinary proposition that there is nothing wrong with being gay – although Throckmorton, Dobson, et al. would disagree.

In any event, the proposed revised curriculum for 8th and 10th Grade Health Classes simply lays out the facts as understood by all mainstream American medical and mental health organizations. It does not "advocate" sexual orientation. There is nothing in the curriculum about a so-called "homosexual lifestyle," other than an accurate statement that there are families with children in our community headed by same-sex couples.

Is that the "homosexual lifestyle" that seems to worry some people? It sounds more like just a life. If Mrs. Turner and her allies do not want their children to be "exposed" to this brief unit of the Health Education Curriculum, they have the right to not sign the form required for students to take the unit.