Sex-Ed Battle Hits New Turf: Homosexuality

The e-mail that landed in mailboxes throughout Montgomery County was provocative:

"DID YOU KNOW . . . . '' it read in big, bold type. "Three organizations supporting homosexuality as natural and mainstream were appointed to the NEW Citizens Advisory Committee?" and "Homosexual advocacy groups are targeting Montgomery County children and families?"

On one hand, the missive, sent out last month by members of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC), was just the latest in a series of skirmishes between the parents group and Montgomery County public schools. But the note -- advertising a CRC workshop -- also shows how educators' efforts to talk more frankly about homosexuality are raising alarm among those who believe such topics are taboo in U.S. classrooms.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the threat of AIDS and concerns about sexually transmitted diseases forced educators to grapple with the controversial question of whether to distribute condoms to teens. Today, it is homosexuality fueling the debate, as more school systems show a willingness to go beyond a cursory discussion of what it means to be gay, to allow students to form gay/straight alliance clubs and to make accommodations that allow same-sex couples to attend school dances. The battle, both sides say, is likely to intensify.

"It is the new flashpoint,'' said Jeffrey Moran, chairman of the history department at the University of Kansas and author of a book that chronicles the history of sex education in the United States. "Homosexuality has played a big role in the resurgence of attacks on sex education.''





http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120802135.html

the right winger fundy christians never quit do they?

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

...Last year, what demagraphic was the highest group with new HIV infections?

It wasn't gays.

It was straight women.

The "downlow" culture has been hitting straight, black women very terribly the last few years :(

It was bizarre -- all of these girls married or dating women, who run out and screw around with men ALL OF THE TIME, infect their women, but still say, hey -- I'm not gay! I just like to have sex with men. It's not the same thing. Weird.

Same old crap.

and scream "OMG HE/SHE'S GOT TEH GAY" over and over.

I am out of insults for these fuckers, so I will leave it at that.

Are they talking about Montgomery, Alabama? If so, there's not surprise there.

If it's from the Wash. Post, it's most likely Montgomery County, MD. A fairly progressive county. I have to say, i'm still not surprised though. Nothing from these hatemongers surprises me nowadays.

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some of your best Republicans are gay. They should out them .... every last one of them. And then we'll see where gay rights really stand when some of the most powerful families in this country are found to have gay members.

The solid majority of Americans in 1955 were either hostile to desegregation or uncomfortable with it. The more blacks push for their rights, the more they set themselves back. Do you think that blacks should have altered their tactics and retreated to the back of the bus?

Excepting those who could "pass," African Americans never had a place to hide that what caused mainstream America (and elsewhere) to treat them as lesser people.

In the last two weeks we've seen two separate stories in LBN about students suing after being outed, and most people saying these plaintiffs had the right to their privacy.

It is a paradox: wanting the right to be openly gay and at the same time, not wishing to give up the privacy associated with sexuality.

A successful strategy would have to take that paradox into account. I have no idea what that strategy would be but will hint at this --> Gavin Newsom's a hero. There's a reason the fundie talking points scream about "mainstreaming."

and anything else you can think of for as long as you can think of since the christian era.

and you didn't even have to be gay to get the treatment.
think of how many straight people must have suffered just from seeming to be different.

the point is who's doing the outing and why?

Gay people have always been adored and cosseted.

pfffffffffttttt ...

It is one thing to equate the discrimination and suffering of homosexuals to African Americans.


The struggle for equal rights under the law is of a different nature. If there was never a closet for African Americans, there was neither a way priviledged Caucasions could deny their fundamental existence. That meant the shame of their inferior treatment had to be faced. That's what all of those marches were about, the television and news coverage of people being water-hosed.

gay folk have suffered from discrimination right along with every one else.

yes, the narrative is different -- that much is obvious -- but the discrimination has been violent, phsychological, environmental, and crosses the boundaries of race.
and it has been as long lived.

remember, we are the one minority who traditionally did not have the refuge of family -- we had the refuge of ourslves -- and whatever wrong befell us was suffered in silence and alone.

Do I have that right? That everyone having the same rights as everyone else, a hallmark of progressive thinking, is killing the progressive movement?

Sorry, my irony meter just pegged.

mikey_the_rat

equal rights for gay folk?

your whole post was so offensive it's hard to know where to begin -- first of all nobody is going shut-up now --
we're so deep into the post modern era the notion that sexuality should be a boogeyman is laughable.

blech -- i can't think about this right now.

then you probably shouldn't keep going.

NOW isn't a lesbian movement. Gay right groups aren't killing the progressives either.

Please take your boogeyman elsewhere.