New Voice, Same Old Stuff

It seems that there is some possibility that RoseMarie Briggs of the Family Leader Network will become the next voice of the Montgomery County anti-gay brigade, now that a series of CRC leaders have more or less burned out. She's written a couple of articles for Mormon publications about our controversy, and she spoke at the Board of Educations' public comments session this Tuesday. Let's see what she had to say -- this isn't the whole thing, I'll cut out the blah-blah-blah about how much she loves her kids' teachers and stuff and also the several pages of CRC's cliched recommendations at the end. She phrased her comments in the form of questions.

Here's her first question from public comments to the board:

What provisions have been made for teachers who are ethically opposed to the new curriculum or simply uncomfortable with the controversial subject matter? Can teachers opt out of teaching "Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality" without losing their jobs? What's the policy?

Hmmm, I don't know what the policy is for teachers who are "ethically opposed" to teaching. If I were to propose one, I suppose it would be -- firing them.

I mean, man, how do they think of this stuff? Teachers teach. Health teachers teach about health. If they are really opposed to that, then doesn't it kind of make sense that they should find something else to do? (This is sort of like the pharmacists who feel they have a right to judge whether people's prescriptions meet a certain moral standard. Same thing -- fire them if they won't do their job. It seems easy to me.)

I just thought of an example, let's see how you feel about this one. I know someone who is a nurse, and she is also Catholic. When she was pregnant with her first child she was working in a hospital where one of the things she had to do was gather together all the little pieces of aborted fetuses for disposal. She did it, weeping.

So, do you think a teacher can read a couple of definitions in class?

What happens to the teacher who is asked "how do you know sexual orientation is innate? Can you tell me what studies prove it? My uncle happens to be Francis S. Collins head of the Human Genome Project in Rockville, and he says sexual orientation is NOT hardwired by DNA. How do you know that it is?"

OK, this is weird. This lady has a real smart uncle who helped unravel the human genome. But it sounds like she doesn't actually know the guy. He was quoted out of context on a NARTH web site, and afterwards he cleared it up with ExGay-Watch. He told them:

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

Ms. Briggs needs to go chat with Uncle Frank a little more at the next family picnic -- he does not appear to be on-board with her gay-hating ways.

Oh, hey here's a question she should have known the answer to:

What happens to the teacher who is asked "why does the condom video say to use condoms for anal and oral sex when the condom box says that condoms are only intended for vaginal intercourse?"

The answer is this: if a teacher is asked that question, she is supposed to say, "Go ask a trusted adult."

Listen, I have a stepladder that says on the top rung: "Do not sit or stand." I take that to mean that I can't sue the ladder company if I fall off their stepladder. The label on the condom box is like that. They are designed for vaginal sex, and that's all the company will take liability for. But the mainstream medical advice is that if you are going to have anal sex, you should wear a condom. That's what the doctors recommend, it's what the government recommends, it's what's in the lesson.

What happens to the teacher who is asked "why do so many news reports say that most of the people dying from AIDS are gay men? Is this an unhealthy lifestyle?"

Unfortunately, if a teacher is asked a stupid question like that, they are not allowed by the school district to give the correct answer, which is that the vast majority of HIV and AIDS patients are not gay men at all.

What happens to a teacher who is asked "does ONE sexual attraction with a person of the same gender mean that a teen is gay or lesbian according to the lesson the answer is yes? My mother is a psychiatrist and she says that few traits are fixed in the teen years especially sexual orientation."

First of all, no psychiatrist would ever say that. The history of psychometrics is built around the measurement of traits that are reliable, meaning the measures are consistent over time, and there are plenty of them that extend over the lifetime. Didn't you ever take the Myers-Briggs test? Second of all, the research really does show that most people know, by the time they are adolescents, what their sexual orientation is; so if your psychiatrist tells you this, you should find another psychiatrist. Unless it's your mother; don't try to find another mother.

But back to the topic, the sex-ed classes have a part that says, "Children who have fleeting same-sex attractions may assume incorrectly that they are gay or lesbian. Mere fleeting attraction does not prove sexual orientation." No, wait, that wasn't included in the classes. That was one of those statements that the CRC and PFOX voted against, that the citizens advisory committee wanted to have included in the curriculum, but the school district was afraid to use it.

Oh, and I love this one -- for some reason I really do just l-o-v-e to see the CRC people go red in the face when they consider that vignette about Portia, the transgender girl. Here's an example:

What happens to the principal who is suddenly confronted by MCPS students who decide to cross dress, ask for new student IDs and expect a key to a private bathroom? After all in one 10th grade lesson, a boy begins to wear dresses to school, calls himself 'Portia,' and wants to be known as a girl. The principal gives this boy a key to a private restroom and a new student ID identifying him as a girl. The lesson implies that schools should create new student IDs and unisex bathrooms for cross-dressing students. Is this ethical when the American Psychiatric Association says transgender is a gender identity disorder?"

Woo-hoo! Pass the blood pressure meds! These guys just can not stand the fact that some people's gender identity differs from their plumbing. Why in the world does that bother these people so much? Guy lives his life feeling like a woman inside, let him be a woman, what does it hurt?

I mean, this goes to the core of it all. What does it hurt? Why would they want to force somebody into a role that feels completely unnatural to them? I just don't get that. Because, look, I myself do not feel like a woman inside, and I have no desire to become one. So if I was a kid in school reading this vignette, I might find it vaguely interesting or weird, and that's that; I will have thought for a minute about what that's like, and when I meet someone like that I'll have some idea about it. But some people really do experience incongruity between the way they feel and the way they look, I can't tell you why, there are a lot of reasons and it doesn't matter. What matters is that it doesn't hurt me a bit if somebody decides to go ahead and live the life that will fulfill them personally -- I don't have to understand it or feel like they do, it comes down to this: it's none of my business.

This whole CRC assault is just a big exercise in people sticking their noses into other people's business. If you are "morally" opposed to something, then just don't do it. You don't get to decide how other people will live.

And keep this under your hat: we have learned that some members of the CRC have unisex bathrooms right in their own houses.

Not only am I extremely concerned about how the inaccuracies in this curriculum would affect students, I am equally concerned about the credibility of our teachers and principals. Are students going to lose respect for their educators when they ask legitimate, medical and scientific questions and the teachers have little medical and scientific data to respond intelligently?

This is kind of funny, when the CRC and PFOX have consistently voted against including the information from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association.

If students are going to lose respect for their teachers, it won't be for misinformation, it will be because their teachers will not be able to answer their reasonable questions, even when they know the answers.