“You are doing…the work of the Devil…”
Last fall, a concerned parent in Montgomery County sent, at their own expense, a letter and two suggested flyers to the Montgomery County Public School Parent Teacher Associations alerting them about the new sex ed curriculum that the MCPS Board of Education had just voted to approve and suggested to the PTAs that they may want to inform parents.
It was an attempt to distribute information to the PTAs, in case they were not aware of the November 9, 2004 vote by the Board of Education approving the new sex-ed curriculum. The parent acted independently, and not as a member of any organization.
The parent’s letter to the PTAs stated, in part:
I greatly urge you to help keep the parents at your school informed about the drastic changes to the Family Life and Human Sexuality Curriculum in Montgomery County Public Schools. Unfortunately, many parents are uninformed or under-informed about this very important issue.The parent’s attached informational sheets described the BOE’s action in approving the new curriculum, and suggested that parents learn move for themselves. It offered http://www.mcpscurriculum.com/ as a potential resource. But, of course, it would be entirely up to the individual PTA to take whatever action they choose.
I have enclosed two informational sheets that could be used as handouts, one that could be handed directly to parents, and one that could possibly be sent with students to bring home. [emphasis in bold added]
Having done this, the parent received back a letter from an official Montgomery County Public School Parent Teacher Association Cluster Coordinator, stating, in part:
RE: Your Improper Solicitation and Use of MCCPTA Resources
Having read all that you asked me to read, I find that the ideas you and your group share [editor’s note: this parent did not represent a ‘group’, but themselves and only encouraged other parents to learn more] and the cause you advance to be abhorrent. The MCPS curriculum revision is made as part of a routine revision and update, and has been going on for more that a year. It is based on the best available educational research [editor’s note: see APPROVED!!! - Part 1] and led by highly qualified educators and parents who have made persistent invitations to all members of the public to join the advisory panel [editors note: see Spin City and Missing in Action]. Your written materials, predictably, practice contorted demagoguery in furtherance of an unpleasant agenda. You smear together out-of-context and/or untrue assertions with bigotry.
You are doing what I think is the work of the devil in our world…. You are a strand of a long thread that runs through human history, one that says we must loath and strike out against those who, some fearmonger says, are different - - the ‘other.’ I don’t have to list history’s tyrants who are the ancestors of your cause. It’s all of them. And they cause all the damn trouble.
…you have really screwed up big time right of the bat here. For you to be soliciting…[the]…PTA for your ignorant cause is improper. For you to then admonish…to further consume the good offices of the MCCPTA (and its credibility) by leafleting your religious material [editor’s note: there is no reference to religion in the parent’s suggested flyers, the http://www.mcpscurriculum.com/ website, as a listed resource for documents, etc., does provide as additional information the ‘faith positions’ of the majority of those who live in Montgomery County] to parents and inserting it in the student backpacks is solicitation to illegal conduct. You cannot use the MCCPTA resources for your religious proselytizing! You cannot ask all PTA presidents to use MCCPTA resources to advance the cause of your religious proselytizing. [emphasis in bold added]
Wow.
You be the judge.