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School Board's Pro-Homosexual Appointments Have Maryland Citizen Activists Concerned

By Jim Brown
December 19, 2005

(AgapePress) - A Maryland school board is under fire for placing members of three pro-homosexual groups on its new Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development (CAC). Among the groups represented on the committee are the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), and Teach the Facts, a homosexual advocacy group whose founder has close ties to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Members of a conservative parents group called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) are criticizing the Montgomery County Public Schools ((MCPS) for the pro-homosexual appointments to its advisory committee. Also, CRC says a settlement agreement they reached with the school board guarantees them a chair on the committee, yet the board is not allowing the group to designate its own representative.

Michelle Turner, a spokesperson for CRC, says the Montgomery County Board of Education has apparently not learned its lesson from a recent lawsuit that led to the demise of its biased sex-ed curriculum. "We don't quite understand why the school system is going back to having these representatives on this advisory committee, which is supposed to be representative of the community," she notes.

Last May, a federal judge blocked implementation of a sex-ed curriculum approved by MCPS for 8th-grade students -- a program intended for use in discussing homosexuality, transgenderism, and bisexuality. The temporary restraining order issued by the judge was the culmination of a lawsuit filed in federal court by CRC along with the Virginia-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), a group that offers support for people struggling with unwanted homosexuality. In their lawsuit, CRC and PFOX charged that Montgomery County's sex-ed curriculum presented a one-sided view of homosexuality and that the program showed favoritism towards certain religious groups' views of homosexuals.

After the federal judge issued the order blocking the curriculum, MCPS school officials suspended the pilot sex-ed program, and the parties on both sides of the case agreed to work together to try to settle the matter out of court. According to an MCPS press release, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a settlement on June 27 in which the school system agreed to a number of changes in the controversial sex-ed curriculum.

Among the various amendments the settlement stipulated was one stating that references to specific religious denominations with regard to sexual orientation cannot be noted in the revised curriculum. Also, the agreement provided for both a CRC and a PFOX representative on the newly established Citizens Advisory Council.

The CAC is scheduled to have its first meeting today. Turner says Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum plans to continue monitoring the situation to ensure that the terms of the settlement agreement are met. In particular, she notes, "We want to make sure that the Board of Education develops a parent permission form that is easy to read by any parent who is receiving one from their student, that specifically spells out exactly what their child will be exposed to in the classroom."

I posted a similar article to this in the recent past. Due to the article above and the many other things taking place in our public schools I thought it a good idea to post it again.




Year in Review: Church In America

By Jim Brown
December 19, 2005
(Originally published on January 11, 2005)

(AgapePress) - Southern Baptist advocates of Christian education are pointing to a rash of religious censorship incidents in Plano, Texas, as indications that local Christians are having little influence on the public school system there. Four families have recently sued the Plano Independent School District over its ban on traditional Christmas colors and on students handing out religious-themed gifts.

Plano is the home of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a "megachurch" pastored by former Southern Baptist Convention president Jack Graham. Although Graham declined to comment for this story, some SBC members have been eager to address what they see as an epidemic of anti-Christian discrimination in the public schools.

According to Houston attorney and Baptist activist Bruce Shortt, the recent censorship attempts in Plano can be added to the mounting pile of evidence that U.S. public schools are hostile to Christianity and no place for believers' children. He asserts, "The shameful behavior by the Plano ISD conclusively demonstrates that Southern Baptists and other Christians who deny that government schools are aggressively anti-Christian are deluding themselves."

And Grady Arnold is a Southern Baptist pastor who heads "GetTheKidsOut.org," a group that advocates a Christian exodus from public schools. He is openly critical of what he sees happening but says, unfortunately, many Christian pastors are afraid to speak out against anti-Christian discrimination in government-funded schools.

"I think it all boils down to feeling like you're going to offend somebody who's a public school teacher or public school administrator who does attend your church," Arnold says, "and so it's easier to avoid offending them than to attack the problem head on. I wish it wasn't so."

And despite repeated incidents of anti-Christian bigotry such as the Christmas colors restrictions and gift bans at Plano ISD, Arnold says most Southern Baptists are still reluctant to pull their kids out of public schools, causing the Christian education advocate to wonder whether local Christian parents have any idea what is going on in the school district.

GetTheKidsOut exists to help Christians work within their own denominations to alert parents of "the staggering loss of faith and morals in children who attend the 'officially neutral' public schools," and assist them in finding ways to move children into Christian schools or home-schooling situations. "Certainly, God's called us to give our kids a thoroughly Christian education," the group's executive director says, "and doing that in the public school is nigh to impossible."

Although Arnold says he would not argue that there is no way for parents to provide their children with a Christian education while keeping them in the American public school system, it is "next to impossible," he says, "simply for the fact that you're teaching subjects in the public school -- whether it's math, science or history -- that have been cut off from Jesus Christ, who is the source and ground of all truth."

Arnold notes that most parents in the U.S. are probably aware of the devastating tsunami that has recently ravaged a vast expanse of Asia, sweeping away homes, families, and lives in what is being called one of the worst natural disasters in known history. However, he says more Christian parents need to awaken to the danger of an even larger and more devastating disaster going on in their midst -- a wave of secularism, humanism, relativism, and other spiritual toxins that is daily consuming thousands of children on a continual basis in the public schools across America.

Fear of what man can do should not be the reason that we should keep our silence.

Psa 118:6  The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?


Heb 13:6  So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.