MCPS Superintendent Thanks Hate Group Leader for "Thoughtful Participation"

This is unbelievable. The Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, Joshua Starr, has sent an official letter to Peter Sprigg, thanking him for "your willingness to engage in the sometimes difficult work of ensuring that Montgomery County Public Schools' students have access to the strongest possible curriculum."

Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, which has been designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was a member of the MCPS Citizens Advisory Committee for Family Life and Human Development. Sprigg was appointed to the committee to represent Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, or PFOX, a sadly homophobic group that promotes the idea that gay people should become straight.

Starr gushes on, "Your thoughtful participation in the committee's work helped create a collaborative environment."

The letter is dated August 4, 2011, but PFOX only publicized the document this week on their blog HERE. There is a link to the letter itself on their site: HERE (pdf).

Here's how RightWing Watch summarizes Peter Sprigg's career. He:

• Said that he would “much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.”


• Supported the criminalization of homosexuality.


• Lobbied to make it harder for students to join Gay-Straight Alliances because “homosexuality is harmful to society.”


• Argued that gays and lesbians shouldn’t be judges because a gay judge can’t “be held up as a role model.”


• Linked homosexuality to pedophilia even when scientists rejected their correlation.


• Opposed allowing same-sex partners or their adopted children from collecting their deceased partner or parent’s Social Security benefits.


• Cheered on Lisa Miller after she kidnapped her daughter and fled to Central America in order to evade court order granting custody to her former partner.

Over the period that the citizens advisory committee worked on the sex-education curriculum, it cannot be said that Peter Sprigg did anything at all to make the curriculum better.

Since I first witnessed his speech at the CRC's Hate-Fest in April, 2005, I have considered Peter Sprigg to be one of the more dangerous extremists. Here's what I said at that time:

Now, I'll give Peter Sprigg this: he speaks in complete, well-formed, and even complex sentences. He sounds like a real smart guy, lots of vocabulary, references to scientific journals, and so on.

But listen to what he's saying! With nearly every "myth," he points out the form of discrimination that is involved, and then explains why the myth is inaccurate. The point is clear -- he's not even trying to hide it -- that he and his audience believe that it is right and proper to discriminate against gay people, to penalize them, to keep them out of certain jobs. He makes no bones about it -- he's here to justify discrimination against homosexuals. He doesn't think they should be included in our society, and here are his intelligent-sounding reasons why. Tune Up Your Hate-dar

Peter Sprigg is polite, cheerful, articulate. He violates your expectation about what hate should look like. He is not angry, shouting, rolling his eyes, he seems very civilized. You want to agree with him, he seems like a nice guy.

You have to look at what he's saying it and why he's saying it. The "research" he cites is bogus, the conclusions he draws are consistently discriminatory. The fact that his demeanor is pleasant is not relevant when you are determining important policies.

It is just weird that the county's Superintendent of Schools would choose to send a congratulatory letter to someone who has done so much damage in the world, embarrassed our county, and worked to undermine the county's public schools. Sprigg was added to the committee as part of a legal settlement, attorneys agreed that CRC and PFOX would each have a representative on the group. The district may have left him on the committee as a concession to conservatives, that's fine, I don't mind if multiple perspectives are represented. But to single him out for praise, that's too much.

Here is the full text of the letter:

[On Montgomery County Public Schools letterhead ]

August 4, 2011

Mr. Peter Sprigg


Dear Mr. Sprigg:

Thank you for your six years of service to the Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development. This important effort requires committed citizens willing to give their time and energy to support meaningful educational opportunities for all students. I want to personally thank you for your willingness to engage in the sometimes difficult work of ensuring that Montgomery County Public Schools' students have access to the strongest possible curriculum. The committee often deals with issues that evoke strong emotions and your thoughtful participation in the committee's work helped create a collaborative environment. Your commitment to the work of the committee is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Joshua P. Starr, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools

Copy to:
Mr. Barclay
Dr. Lacey
Mr. Edwards
Mr. Lang
Ms. Brown
Ms. Webb
Mr. Ikheloa
Dr. Plotsky