Bill would require parental notification for school discussions of 'sexual orientation issues'

House Minority Leader Bradley Jones (R-North Reading) has filed a bill that would expand the state's sex education parental notification law to require written parental approval for students to participate in any "curriculum, or a school sanctioned program or activity, which involves ... sexual orientation issues." LGBT advocates believe the bill would have a chilling effect on any discussion of LGBT issues within the schools, potentially forcing students to get parental permission to attend gay/straight alliance (GSA) meetings and restricting most discussions about LGBT people and LGBT families. The bill has the backing of the anti-gay group Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI). Jones, however, contends that his bill is not anti-gay.

The bill, "An Act Relative to Parental Notification," (See sidebar for the full text, p. 9) would make several other major changes to the state's parental notification law, which was first passed in 1996. Currently Massachusetts gives parents the right to opt their children out of sex ed classes, but the new law would require schools to get written permission from parents to allow their children to participate. The current law covers any classes that "primarily" involve sex education, but Jones' bill would remove the word "primarily" from the statute, potentially expanding the scope of the law beyond sex ed classes. The bill also adds a so-called conscience clause, allowing teachers and administrators the right to decline to participate in any program or activity involving sex education, human sexuality issues or sexual orientation issues that conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said opponents of LGBT rights have long tried - without success - to broaden the scope of the parental notification bill over the years. She called the effort to broaden the bill to include sexual orientation issues "outrageous."

"[For] kids who need support systems as they struggle with their sexuality, the gay/straight alliances are often a lifeline for those kids to maintain their sanity. Their sense of self, their emotional and psychological wellbeing can be deeply tied to those alliances. And to undercut them by saying, your parents have to opt in, where does that leave a kid whose parents are hyper-conservative but who needs desperately to find some support, talk to friends and teachers, learn? Who do they ask questions of?" said Isaacson. "We save their lives in these programs. It would be comparable to a parent who is sexually abusing their kid saying, 'I don't want them to learn in school that this is wrong. If I want to teach them this is okay, I will.' Well, it doesn't work that way."

Marc Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, said the bill is broad enough to potentially include even basic discussions in the classroom of families with LGBT parents. A pair of Lexington families unsuccessfully sued the town in 2006 in opposition to the use of LGBT-inclusive children's books in the classroom, including Who's in a Family, a book that describes families with LGBT parents as part of a broad spectrum of different types of families. One of those parents, David Parker, has spoken about their efforts at MFI-sponsored events.

"I think it's profoundly wrong. I think we want to be teaching our kids about the diversity of families and the diversity of human experience, and not having kids who have gay parents feel some sort of shame about their family. And I think that's what this bill does," said Solomon. "Somehow there's this notion that teaching about sexual orientation is like teaching about sex, and I think that that is profoundly wrong, and it's disappointing that the bill was introduced."

Sarah Wunsch, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU) of Massachusetts, said if the bill passes she believes anti-gay advocates would be able to argue that the law requires permission slips for GSAs and for the use of LGBT-inclusive books in the schools. She said if such a law had been on the books during the incidents that prompted the Lexington lawsuit she believes it would have bolstered the case of the Parkers and the other family in the suit, Robb and Robin Wirthlin.

"I think they would have an argument that this would restrict how schools can teach about these issues at all. If they got this language I think Parker might have had a stronger argument," said Wunsch.

Kris Mineau, president of MFI, agreed that the bill would expand the parental notification law to cover discussions of LGBT parents in the classroom.

"Certainly public opinion polls are overwhelmingly in support of children not being exposed to radical sexual orientations in the kindergarten and first grade and grammar school levels. ... The Parker case certainly fell into that category," said Mineau.

Among the bill's co-sponsors are three lawmakers who drew kudos from the LGBT community for voting against MFI's constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2007. Jones, along with Reps. Bradford Hill (R-Ipswich) and Richard Ross (R-Wrentham) were among the more conservative lawmakers who ultimately voted in favor of marriage equality.

Jones, who said he has filed similar versions of the bill for about three or four years, said he does not believe the legislation is anti-gay. He said the goal of the bill is to give parents control over what schools teach their children about sexuality.

"I look at it as a parent, and if there are topics that are going to be talked about within the classroom, instead of it being 'opt out' it should be 'opt in.' That's all that it says," said Jones.

When asked what impact he believed adding the phrase "sexual orientation issues" to the parental notification laws would have, Jones replied, "I guess I saw it as issues relating to what it says, someone's orientation, so if someone's going to be talking about dealing with their orientation, a parent should have the right to know. ... It's not geared toward heterosexuality or homosexuality or asexuality or anything else."

Jones said he disagreed with MFI's interpretation of the bill and does not believe it would prevent discussion of LGBT families in the younger grades.

"In my view [discussions of LGBT parents are] not focused on the student or their sexuality or their sexual orientation. It's about their parents or about their neighbor's parents. ... I don't see it as how [MFI sees] it," said Jones.

The text of Jones' parental notification bill does not contain any language indicating that it applies only to programs dealing with student sexuality.

Jones said he believed that the text of the bill was originally drafted by the late state Rep. Mary Jeanette Murray, a socially conservative Republican representative from Cohasset who passed away in 2006.

Neither Ross nor Hill responded to requests to comment for this story.

Mineau himself attempted to downplay the addition of "sexual orientation issues" to the parental notification law. When asked why MFI pushed for including the term Mineau replied, "That's not the issue. The issue is human sexuality in general. We believe it is a parents' rights issue first and foremost, and we believe parents should have the say on whether their child participates in that part of the course or not."

Yet in communications to its own members MFI has highlighted the addition of "sexual orientation issues" to the existing parental notification law. In an action alert e-mail to its members Feb. 9 urging them to lobby their representatives to co-sponsor the bill MFI listed the addition of sexual orientation as one item in a list of bullet points detailing "some very important updates to the law."

Isaacson said other provisions of Jones' bill are equally troubling. She said the switch from an "opt out" to an "opt in" system would have a chilling effect on schools' willingness to offer sex education programs. And she said removing the word "primarily" from the parental notification laws could expand the law to cover a much broader range of materials. She said schools could be forced to seek parental permission to discuss works of art or literature that have any sexual content.

"On its face this makes no sense except for those who want very strong censorship laws across the board in schools," said Isaacson.

Wunsch said the bill would make it much more difficult for schools to provide students with vital information about sexual health.

"I think this is awful and is exactly the wrong thing to be doing at a time where there is obviously great need for comprehensive and accurate sex education and health education, as well as teaching what I consider civil rights issues around sexual orientation, and I would hope that the legislators would not be taken in by this," said Wunsch.

MassEquality, the Caucus and the Massachusetts ACLU all plan to work to defeat the bill. Solomon said he believes it is extremely unlikely that it would gain traction this session. Solomon said MassEquality would reach out to Jones, Hill and Ross, who were endorsed by both MassEquality and the Caucus in 2008, and talk to them about the detrimental impact the bill would have on the LGBT community. He said he was unsure what impact their sponsorship of the bill would have on future MassEquality endorsement decisions. Isaacson said the Caucus would take their sponsorship of the bill into consideration during their future endorsement decisions.

"I obviously don't agree with the bill, but I know each of them and I want to sit down and chat with them about it, so that's what we'll do," said Solomon.