MD School System Close to Making a First in Gay Ed

Three cheers for school administrators in Montgomery County, Maryland. Barring a last-minute injunction, Montgomery County schools will be the first in the country to provide lessons on homosexuality as part of their sex ed.

County educators should be commended not just for having the idea and agreeing to it, but for actively sticking with the fight to make it happen. The board of education first approved of this effort in the fall of 2004. To no surprise, it has faced lawsuits and other challenges continuously since then. It would have been very easy for them to abandon the effort, but they held strong to what they felt was right, and now after several years appear to be successful.

Education in areas like this can accomplish so much, providing an open dialog about things that otherwise are taboo topics, snickered at and shied away from by kids who don't understand. Just having this small "official" recognition of their feelings could do so much to validate the experience of gay students. It can promote tolerance and understanding of everyone involved, reaffirm the feelings of gay and questioning youth, and just generally open minds to new possibilities. Despite many clear road signs, I wasn't lucky enough to figure out my sexuality until several years after college--I often do wonder how much I could have realized, and how much things could have been different, if more of an open dialog had existed.