US: Delaware school board member opposes LGBT curriculum
A Delaware school board member has opposed a high school health curriculum that would include the definitions of transgender, bisexual, and gay.
Last week, Shaun Fink, Indian River School District Board of Education member, spoke out at a school board meeting against lesson plans that would address issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in Indian River high schools.
Fink said that it was not the position of schools to be teaching gender identity or homosexuality, and whether these were “normal.”
He said: “I am objecting publicly to anything that discusses gender identity, homosexuality. Schools have no role in teaching someone ‘if you’re gay you’re normal.’ That is not the school’s role. When did the school become the arbiter of what’s normal and what’s not normal?”
Nina Lou Bunting and other board members pushed back against Fink saying that some students were not learning about gender identity and sexual orientation at home. Bunting said teaching the lesson plans is about respect for students who are different.
She said: “Whether you go into transgender, cross-dressing, all the different aspects, is that really so important? It’s just if someone is different, we are to respect them as human beings as we wish to be respected.”
Fink also objected to the teaching of HIV, STI, and pregnancy prevention claiming the curriculum violates Delaware’s Title 14 that requires an abstinence heavy curriculum.
He said: “You can’t teach both sides of it. Condoms don’t belong in a classroom. End of story.”
