Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 1, 1993 TAG: 9304010257
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SEX-ABSTINENCE TEXT ALREADY AVAILABLE FOR SCHOOL USE
A GROUP OF PARENTS wants Roanoke County schools to adopt "Sex Respect," a book that a court has found to include medically inaccurate information and religious overtones. But the book already is in schools and there's nothing stopping teachers from using it.
"Sex Respect" has come under fire since the day it was born.
Conceived with more than $800,000 in federal grants, the textbook promoting teen-age chastity toddled straight into a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union that charged its parent agency was unconstitutional.
The Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs was handing federal money to pervasively religious organizations under the guise of promoting public health, the ACLU charged. The authors of "Sex Respect" and a sister publication, "Facing Reality," received $1.3 million of that money.
Over the course of a decade, the case rose as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. This year, it concluded with an out-of-court settlement forbidding the agency from subsidizing materials, such as "Sex Respect," that promoted religion or counseled against abortion.
Then last month, a Louisiana judge ruled that "Sex Respect" included medically inaccurate information and religious overtones.
But the books already had made it to the shelves of thousands of American schools, including those in Roanoke County.
The county's family life curriculum guide suggests teachers use sections of the book when teaching sexual abstinence, the risks of contraception and teen relationships. In some places, the entire book is cited as a resource.
"There aren't any parts that are totally off-limits," said Deanna Gordon, assistant superintendent for Roanoke County schools.
Yet she gasps at a line in the student workbook that says "nature is making some kind of a comment on sexual behavior through the AIDS and herpes epidemics."
She visibly flinches at a line that instructs teachers to encourage students to attend worship services.
"We wouldn't be allowed to teach that," she said Wednesday. "We wouldn't want to teach that."
A small group of parents from Cave Spring Junior and Senior high schools do want the schools to teach the materials in "Sex Respect." They appear to disagree, however, over whether the entire text should be used, or whether they would be satisfied with rewriting the family life curriculum to include a heavier emphasis on how and why teens should avoid premarital sex.
Karen Scott, a Bent Mountain parent who teaches the course privately to teens in her church, said the group hopes to bring more than 80 signatures from supporters to the School Board sometime in the next month or two.
"We're going to meet again and decide what our plan of attack is," she said.
Gordon said she has received only two letters from parents on the issue of whether to include larger portions of "Sex Respect" in the classroom. One letter favored the program, the other did not.
She said she has not heard from the parents organizing support for the program since they paid a national speaker to promote "Sex Respect" at a rally Monday night.
To change the family life curriculum, she said, would require the county to reconvene a committee to review the course materials. A 1988 committee of community members opted not to adopt the entire package.
Gordon said she doubts a new committee would do so either.
"I would say the chances would be remote, given the objections that seem to have some validity."