The Washington Times had a reporter at the Board of Education meeting yesterday. Not too surprisingly, that conservative paper led with a statement that kinda made it sound as if there were a mass movement opposing the new curriculum. They open with this:

A group of Montgomery County parents yesterday asked the school board to delay implementation of a pilot sex-education program this spring that teaches homosexuality is genetically predetermined and that same-sex couples are one type of family. Montgomery set on pilot sex-ed class

In fact, the "group of Montgomery County parents" against the sex education program was only one person, and there were two speakers in favor (see their statements in the post below this one). The speakers supporting the school board were well received by both the board and the audience. There was also at least one protestor who came with a sign to support the school board's decision, in case there were speakers opposing it.

An error in The Time's lead should also be noted. The curriculum does not teach that homosexuality is genetically determined. The Times was kind enough to interview Chris Grewell and Maryam Babed, who are both associated with this site, after the meeting, and they published some nice quotes.

The Times then went on to describe a "white paper" that is posted at the web site of the people who want to recall the whole school board for adopting the new curriculum.

Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College has published a 35-page scientific critique of the new curriculum that says the portion on "same-gender attraction is based on a theoretical orientation, called essentialism, which does not represent a singular consensus of opinion in the social sciences and research community."

The report also states that the curriculum uses documents "provided by advocacy organizations" and omits "scientific information, published in peer-review journals, which differ from the positions of these political advocacy organizations."

Mrs. Grewell called Mr. Throckmortion's findings "junk science" because it was not published in a "peer-reviewed, scientific journal."

Actually, it does not appear that Throckmorton is a researcher at all, so much as a clinician and conservative advocate. In the word-game presented in The Times, he states that a certain viewpoint can be called "essentialism," and then notes that not all social scientists are essentialists. Without going into the philosophical traditions underlying his argument, we can simply note there is, in fact, a "singular consensus" among social scientists that people do not simply choose to become homosexuals. Throckmorton stands in disagreement with the scientific community in his belief, for which he has only shreds of empirical support.