In Seattle public schools, sexual orientation is taught in ninth-grade health class, a one-day session that uses vignettes about fictitious teens to illustrate same-sex and opposite-sex attraction. But the topic can arise as early as grade 5, in discussions on the many changes that accompany puberty…

“This is probably the last big issue around sexuality education,” said Martha Kempner, spokeswoman for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in New York, a group that advocates comprehensive sex education. “And I think we are seeing that many of the controversies today revolve in some way around sexual orientation.”

…Homosexuality is one of many topics covered under the umbrella of “comprehensive” sex education, which teaches students how to be comfortable with their sexuality and safe in sexual practice.

Seattle teachers tell ninth-grade health classes, “There are probably some people here who are gay, lesbian and bisexual… Some people here may believe that homosexual behavior is wrong.” Students take a sexual-orientation quiz: When do people first realize they are gay? (Answer: usually by their teens.) If one of your parents is gay or lesbian, are the chances greater that you will be, too? (Answer: no.)…

Chiasson said “countless” schools and school systems include homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality in their curricula. Although few mainstream textbooks devote space to the topic, she said in an e-mail, “good teachers utilize supplemental materials to complement textbooks’ limitations.”

[Note from AFTAH: Pay close attention to this author's conclusion which reveals the attitude toward tax-paying parents who don't want their children exposed to homosexuality in public school:]

Many states, including Virginia and Maryland, explicitly permit parents to opt out if they don’t like the lessons. Or, they can simply withdraw from the school.

Continue reading in Washington Post…

With the start of the new school year, the Westbrook school system is scheduled to begin teaching children in the early grades the acceptability of gay marriage. The decision of the Westbrook School Department to introduce the curriculum changes, which include lessons on contraception for middle school students, ignited a firestorm of controversy earlier this year when it was learned that a former head of a Montana lesbian activist organization “Montana PRIDE” was shepherding the curriculum changes through the Westbrook Curriculum Committee.

Thanks to a Maine Freedom of Access Act request filed by a concerned Westbrook parent, it was learned that the parents of Westbrook were led to believe that the curriculum changes were part of a grassroots, neighborhood effort, when in reality, they merely incorporated word-for-word the recommendations of the nation’s most liberal sex education organization, the New York-based group SIECUS. Worse yet, the rationale advanced for the proposed curriculum changes – that the curriculum was needed to ward off a rising teen pregnancy rate – was revealed to be bogus. The data used to back up the curriculum changes actually showed that teen pregnancy rates were steadily declining in Westbrook.

The real shocker was yet to come. Only two days before the school board voted on the proposed curriculum changes, Westbrook parents learned that the new curriculum would include material portraying gay marriage as normal and acceptable. Despite opposition by many Westbrook parents, the vote by the school board was unanimous in favor of the proposed changes. The proposed changes were scheduled to take effect with the start of this school year.

Continue reading at Christian Civic League of Maine…