Good Sense and Good Values Go Together

THIS ARTICLE in this morning's Post included this statement.

The structure of state regulations about sex education speaks to the delicate balance between providing lessons to children about sexuality, discrimination and public health and respecting the religious and moral values of parents.

Listen, we hear this kind of stuff every day. But stop: think about it.

On one hand: lessons to children about sexuality, discrimination and public health.

On the other hand: respecting the religious and moral values of parents.

This is a false dichotomy -- there is no incompatibility between these two classes of things.

First of all, let's break down the "other hand" part of it. Religion and moral values.

THIS SITE has data on religion in Montgomery County. These tables account for 873,341 individuals, out of a county of about a million people -- it says that "historically African-American denominations" are not included, but I don't know why or what that implies. Whatever, scootch up your favorite numbers a little bit, if you like.

In Montgomery County, it looks like about 7 percent of individuals call themselves "evangelical Protestants," and about 10.1 percent are "mainline Protestants." Well, as we saw recently with the schism among the Baptists, most Protestants don't approve of the anti-gay obsession of the Southern Baptists. The biggest religious group, otherwise, is the Catholics, who make up about 21.2 percent of the population. As I understand it, their view on homosexuality mainly has to do with the idea that sex is for making babies; if you're not going to do that, you shouldn't be having sex. Basically the same way they feel about birth control. But they're not opposed to someone being gay, they just think they should be celibate.

Put them all together, and that's, mmm, gimme that calculator, that's about 38.3 percent of the population that belong to identifiable Christian denominations.

On the other hand, 12.8 percent claim to be some other religion, and 47.3 percent of Montgomery County residents claim not to belong to a religion at all. This is the biggest group by far, more than twice as big as the Catholics, even.

So -- Montgomery County "religious values" are skewed to the nondogmatic side, you might say. Seven percent evangelicals. People here don't believe the gay-hating stuff as a religious value.

And as for "moral values," I guess we can look at the recent elections for evidence of that. People in this county are progressive, tolerant, liberal. The newly-elected county executive is a board member at PFLAG. All the school board members who were elected have come out in favor of the statements supporting gay and lesbian rights. People know what they're doing when they vote.

It's time to get over this idea that teaching respect, teaching tolerance, teaching people to blossom as who they are rather than who other people want them to be, is somehow in conflict with "religious and moral values."

Remember, at the school board meeting the other day, the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and PFOX held a big demonstration, with people holding up signs. The news cameras loved it, all the TV zombies got them on the news that night. I counted nine signs, and let's say there were another half-dozen people there with them. That's fifteen total out of a county of a million people. That is a radical minority, not representative at all of the rest of the population. If they don't want their kids to take the classes, they can just not-sign the permission slips. It's that easy.

The truth is: facts, tolerance, and health DO NOT conflict with parents' religious and moral values. People want accurate, comprehensive, and inclusive sex-ed, they want their kids to be tolerant, they want good public health policies -- as a moral value.

The two things are totally compatible.