ROCKVILLE, Md. (ABP) — A federal judge has temporarily halted a sex-education program in a suburban Washington, D.C, school district, saying it violates the First Amendment's free-speech and religion clauses by promoting only one view of homosexuality.
On May 5, United States District Judge Alexander Williams issued a temporary restraining order against a new sex-education curriculum for Montgomery County Public Schools. The jurisdiction, just to the northwest of Washington, is home to one of the nation's most affluent school systems.
Williams agreed with a coalition of local parents opposed to the curriculum and a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays who sued to prevent the classes. The curriculum was slated for use in a pilot program at three middle schools and three high schools beginning May 6.
Specifically, Williams said, the curriculum denigrated religious views of conservative Christian groups opposed to homosexuality while encouraging gay students to investigate religious groups — such as the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists — that are supportive of the full inclusion of homosexuals in congregational life.
The assertions in the curriculum “open up the classroom to the subject of homosexuality, and specifically, the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle,” Williams wrote. However, he continued, it “presents only one view on the subject — that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle — to the exclusion of other perspectives.”
He said the program violates the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion by promoting religious groups supportive of gays while denigrating others that oppose homosexuality.
The county school board voted unanimously in November to approve the program.