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.

At the school board meeting, a representative from the Christian Civic League of Maine read aloud a statement objecting to the proposed changes.  The statement read in part: 

Members of the Committee:

Many of the parents of this community view tonight as a moment of profound crisis. The question before is you is will you teach the young the principles of chastity and moral purity - as required by Maine Law - or will you adopt a course of instruction which seeks to corrupt them body and soul, all the while hypocritically maintaining that the course of instruction you propose is in the best interests of the children?

You are eager to give the impression that your decision is based on long months of study and consultation with the community, when in fact the proposed changes were given to you by groups from far away, and your acceptance of these changes was from the outset a foregone conclusion. You wish also to give the impression that this course of instruction is of your own free choosing, although you are merely the pawns of forces which remain out of sight and unknown to the community.

Our society has changed greatly from what it once was, but I know that many of you still retain a Christian conscience. In your heart of hearts you know that the action you will take here tonight is wrong. You are fully aware that you are giving your approval to a course of instruction which has as its ulterior purpose the corruption of our youth, and the destruction of our nation.

Through its connection to SIECUS and Planned Parenthood, this curriculum is the product of a malevolent philosophy which seeks, in part, to turn young girls and boys into consumers of contraception and abortion provided by Planned Parenthood, without parental permission. No less a man than John Paul II has called this evil the “Culture of Death.

You are entrusted with the care of our children; but a school which countenances moral and sexual anarchy in the name of freedom and tolerance is to be censured by all decent people.”