NEWS ANALYSIS : Religious Right Wins Textbook Battle on Sex

The State Board of Education’s refusal to approve a new health education curriculum framework last week is being hailed as a victory for the religious right in California.

The board decided that the new guidelines should be rewritten after several conservative speakers, during a public hearing, denounced the document for its treatment of homosexuality and sexually transmitted diseases.

Board members “see through the homosexual rhetoric and realize how riddled this curriculum is with the promotion and advocacy of a lifestyle that is considered repugnant by millions of parents in California,” said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, president of the Traditional Values Coalition, which Sheldon says is affiliated with 6,000 evangelical churches in the state.

Liberals who supported the guidelines acknowledge that they have suffered a serious defeat.

“This is a victory for the right, in as much as they want to stop discussion of AIDS and homosexuality,” said Dan Chernow, a former member of the State Board of Education, “but it’s certainly not a victory for California school kids.”

Mike Hudson, vice president of People for the American Way, a liberal constitutional rights organization, said the board’s action is “dangerous because . . . it tells textbook publishers they’d better stay away from these controversial topics.”

The curriculum framework provides the basis for new health education textbooks, which the state is scheduled to adopt in 1995. Even though the document will never be read by a student in a classroom, the development of the framework is regarded as a highly influential process because publishers use it as a guide to writing new textbooks and teachers use it when designing their classroom instruction.

Much of the 103-page health document deals with such non-controversial subjects as nutrition and injury prevention.

But scattered throughout are references to the mental and physical health problems of homosexual children or children of gays or lesbians.

Near the beginning appears the statement that the framework “refers to all youth regardless of gender, ethnic background, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, culture, primary language, disability or any other human attribute.”

Later, the document says: “The term ‘family’ must be considered in its broadest sense,” including not only the “traditional family, with two married parents and one or more children,” but also families “headed by grandparents, siblings, relatives, friends, foster parents and partners of the same sex.”

To most educators who have been dealing with children, that is a statement of the obvious.

“The reality we face in school is that we deal with these things--whether by omission or commission, we do deal with them, they are a necessary part of our curriculum,” said Yvonne Johnson, assistant superintendent of schools in Hayward and chairwoman of the state Curriculum Commission.

But David Llewelyn, president of the Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom, a conservative public interest law firm, said that by treating traditional families and homosexual families in the same way, the health document was “trying to change the values of our school children.”

Kathryn Dronenburg, a moderate member of the education board dominated by Republican appointees of Gov. Pete Wilson and former Gov. George Deukmejian, was among those who objected to the framework’s description of families. None of the 11 board members spoke in favor of the guidelines.

“This is not a balanced document,” she said in an interview. “There is so much more on the issue of homosexuality, which only applies to about 10% of the population, than there is on the huge problems of unwanted pregnancies, abortion, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“There were people on the framework-writing committee who really wanted to push the (homosexual) agenda,” Dronenburg said. “They have learned over time, as we all have, that the power rests with those writing committees and they infused the document with that point of view.”

Other critics of the framework said they do not believe that the guidelines place enough emphasis on sexual abstinence.

State law requires instruction about the human reproductive system, sexual intercourse and about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Although the guidelines say: “Abstinence is presented as the only 100% effective way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),” they also say: “The risk of developing STDs can be greatly diminished among those who adopt safer sexual practices.”

This is unacceptable to Llewelyn, who said: “It is misleading to tell people there is such a thing as safe sex or to give them information about condoms, which have a high failure rate.”

On this issue as well, there is a clash between some educators, who live in what they call the “real world,” in which many young people are sexually active, and critics who believe that sex education leads to more sexual activity.

There also are objections to the framework’s emphasis on a “comprehensive approach” to student health, meaning that the school, family and community should work together to create a healthier climate for young people.

“My concern is that this framework is going into new, radical territory,” said Viola Floth, of Westminster, representing the Concerned Women for America, a politically conservative women’s organization. “It treats not only the physical part of children but their behavior as well. How are they going to assess these behaviors? Will they be invading the privacy of my home? This is a vast area that raises a tremendous number of questions.”

Raising a more practical concern, some health instructors do not believe that the new framework is specific enough.

“It doesn’t tell us what they really want us to do,” said Richard Loya, president of the California Assn. of School Health Educators.

Sally Mentor, deputy superintendent of the State Department of Education, agreed.

“This document just isn’t ready yet, it needs more work,” she said. “It needs more specificity. Our frameworks in science, mathematics and other subjects say precisely what we expect children to learn and do. This one does not.”

Mentor predicted that the revised framework, which probably will not be ready until at least October, will win approval from a majority of the State Board of Education members.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who favored guidelines as they were proposed, said: “The big question is how much do you say about the homosexuality that is out there? I think we can work that out.”

Others are less confident.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ll end up with a watered-down document in just the areas that are of most concern,” said Hudson.

Chernow, the former board member, agreed with that assessment but said the “common sense” of most health instructors will help to save the day.

“Teachers see these problems in their classroom every day,” he said. “The good ones are going to discuss these issues, whatever the framework says.”