CRC Badmouth Even Less Effective Than Usual

The anti-MCPS group Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum had a public meeting a couple of weeks ago that sort of blew up in their faces when their featured speaker, Warren Throckmorton, argued that the school district should provide a more nuanced discussion of sexual identity and that the curriculum should stay close to the scientific findings. The meeting was held November 19th, and just yesterday they finally posted something about it on their web site. They give a very terse summary of Throckmorton's talk, and posted Powerpoint presentations by CRC President Michelle Turner, speaker Ruth Jacobs, and psychologist Throckmorton. They also posted another document that Throckmorton handed out, an attempt to write a "curriculum" -- it's not really that, and I hope they don't try to push it on the Montgomery County school district, but as a standalone document it's ... his idea of how sexual variation could be taught.

Anyway, Ms. Turner's talk was titled "Propaganda Vs. The Truth," and for some reason she found it necessary to badmouth our group right from the start. (Guess which one we are -- are we "Propaganda" or "The Truth?") (No fair, you must have peeked.)

Early on, she showed a beautiful slide, just classic. At the top it says, bolded, underlined: "Truth." And under that, I kid you not, it says:

"Agencies of the United States Government conclusively show that homosexual sex is far more dangerous than normal, heterosexual sex."

Oddly, she does not cite a reference for this Truth, which is, by the way, not true at all. It's not even a meaningful sentence.

Listen, what is "homosexual sex?" Do homosexuals have different orifices from heterosexuals? Can anybody tell me one thing that homosexuals do in bed that heterosexuals don't do? I mean, c'mon. (I'll say more about this in a second.)

Ah, but the next slide is where I get my fifteen seconds of fame. This one has, at the top, the word "Propaganda." bold, of course, and underlined. And then two quotes from little old me, from this blog. Here they are:

“--------, this might seem strange to you, but I don't see an age-limit for a term like ‘anal sex.’”

“There's nothing you can say about gay sex that's any different from any other sex.”

The first thing, I'm not going to argue about this out-of-context quote. There was a long, actually pretty interesting discussion in the comments here a couple of months ago. Check it out HERE and HERE if you're interested.

But that other thing, that gay sex is just like any other sex.

I mean, really ... this is just laughable. OK, I'll wipe away the smirk for a second and try to take her seriously.

I'll guess that when she says "gay sex" she probably means anal and oral sex. Well, why doesn't she just say that, then? Anal sex presents certain dangers because the rectal tissue absorbs fluids easily -- that's why suppositories work. Abrasions make it especially vulnerable, and anal sex can result in damage to the rectal tissue. There's no argument about that. Certain viruses and bacteria are spread more easily through the anus than through, for instance, the vagina.

But why would she call that "gay sex?"

Look, here's a CDC study published a couple of months ago, a survey of American sex practices:

Among adults 25–44 years of age, 97 percent of men and 98 percent of women have had vaginal intercourse; 90 percent of men and 88 percent of women have had oral sex with an opposite-sex partner; and 40 percent of men and 35 percent of women have had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner. About 6.5 percent of men 25–44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another man. Based on a differently worded question, 11 percent of women 25–44 years of age reported having had a sexual experience with another woman. Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15–44 Years of Age, United States, 2002

See -- most anal sex is heterosexual, like by more than six to one. More than a third of adults have had anal sex with an opposite-sex partner, but only about one man in fifteen has had anal or oral sex (both lumped together) with another guy. So what sense does it make to call that "gay sex?"

Maybe she meant oral sex. But look at that same study. When ninety percent of people have had oral sex with an opposite-sex partner -- you can't call that "gay sex."

Ninety percent.

See, it was stupid of her to quote me on this one, because it made me go look up the numbers, and now everybody sees that she was as wrong as she could be. Caught lying again.

She said some other things about us, some lies, some true but irrelevant. It's just weird and sometimes embarrassing to have to deal with this kind of thing. But I'll tell you, if you ignore it it doesn't go away.

Hey, you want to see what we're up against here? Go to the CRC's web site, read her slides. The link is HERE. Look at what she says. See if you want these people influencing your kid's education. If you do, they have all kinds of petitions and things for you to do.