Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 23:13:17 -0500 (EST) From: Chris Purdom Subject: IWG Hoekstra Written Testimony The following went out on IWG letterhead listing 2 congregations, 4 religious organizations and 18 clergy from 9 denominations. If you are in the general Philadelphia area and represent a congregation or religious organization or are clergy, let us know if you want to be added - all faiths are welcome. We will also be happy to help start similar organizations in other areas. Visit the web page at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/religion/orgs/iwg/. December 6, 1995 ATTN: Leigh Stadthaus Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee Oversight and InvestigationSubcommittee B-346 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Dear Leigh Stadthaus: We understand that it is parliamentary procedure to accept written testimony up to ten days following a Congressional Hearing. We respectfully request that the enclosed materials be included in the Congressional Record of the hearing entitled, "Parents, Schools and Values" held on December 5 and 6 in Washington, DC. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators We believe that it is the responsibility of schools to teach facts, and of parents to teach values. Facts are learned by valid and accepted methods of research within a field and are agreed upon by the great majority of experts in that field. Values are a set of ideals that we live by, and that we would like our children to inherit. Ultimately, it is our children who must decide on a set of values for themselves, based upon facts they have learned in school and values they have learned at home and in their houses of worship, just as we chose a set of values for ourselves as we grew up. Schools should not be imposing some parents' values on all children, because all parents do not share the same values. For example, we believe that sexual minorities deserve equal rights, and that neither homosexuality nor homosexual behavior is a sin. We teach our children these values in our home and church. But we do realize that these values are not universally shared, and so we do not ask that they be taught in the schools. By the same token, we cannot accept the demand of some parents that public schools teach that homosexuality and homosexual acts are sinful, and that sexual minor- ities are not entitled to equal rights. Nor can we accept the argument that by teaching children the facts about sex without values, or worse, that by teaching the children any facts at all, we leave the children with a default and therefore faulty set of values. What we will leave them with is what we as parents--not the schools-- are willing to give them. The argument over values in the schools has been raised by those whose own value system is at odds with the values of modern culture and an understanding of mod- ern science. Unwilling or unable to take the extra time and expense of explaining to their children why they reject the modern world, they insist on public schools pretending that the technological and social changes of the last 30 years never occurred or were disastrous. We do not believe that every change is for the better either, but our children will not understand what is wrong with the world without understanding the world. As we work to involve religious organizations, congregations and clergy in the struggle for equal rights for sexual minorities we have come to understand the special challenges sexual minorities bring to families, schools, and religious institutions. For the first time we are trying to come to grips with the problem of children who are members of a minority group (non- heterosexuals) being born into biased majority households (heterosexual). Catholic families do not magically give birth to Jewish children, and most minority children are not born into a family with no other family members of the same race (parents who adopt different-race children do so by choice). Homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered youth not only suffer abuse from their peers, but also from their teachers, parents, and churches. Our society would not accept this kind of abuse directed at non-Christian or non-white children, but a blind eye is turned toward the abuse of non- heterosexual children, even before they are likely to be sexually active. Without diversity training for teachers, counseling services and a strong support network, queer youth are at high risk. Supporting minors against the wishes of their parents challenges our notion of parental rights, but we do not now recognize the right of parents to abuse children, nor of teachers and peers to do the same. There are many queer children whose parents are glad in retrospect when someone counseled their children. There are also many parents of dead children who now wish that a support system had existed to prevent a queer child's suicide or murder by other homophobic individuals. As parents and religious organizers we believe it is in the interest of all Americans for public schools to teach basic science, comprehensive sex education, evolution, and the histories of science, technology, religion, and minorities. Schools should leave values to parents and religious institutions but provide and advertise confidential counseling services that meet all students' needs, and make condoms available to those who need them. A healthy, religiously free, diverse and vibrant democracy depends upon it. Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators