Parents Rights

In December of 1996 the new County Commission was sworn in. 

Earlier in that year, a local County funded agency, the Mecklenburg Council on adolescent pregnancy (MCAP), had been issuing various newsletters (partially paid with County money) advocating "Comprehensive Sexuality Education" was required. See articles on this subject at:

Also see the following link to see the evolution of the policy adopted by the Board of County Commission (before its rescession by the Democrats in 1998):

This advocacy was in violation of NC law in several respects. First, NC law mandated that the only permissible teaching allowed in NC schools was "abstinence only" education unless the local school board had a public hearing to expand that teaching. In addition, NC law criminalized certain perverse sexual practices, among them, homosexual sex (NCGS 14-177).

Several newly elected County Commissioners had received calls about this issue as parents and others complained that what MCAP was advocating, if implemented, would remove their ability to teach moral values to their children.

As a result of this event, Commissioner James introduced a resolution on December 16, 1996 to require that any county funded agency be required to "follow the law" in order to receive County funds. There was no question that the proposal was legal and initially the media reported that a majority of the Commission supported this proposal (the 4 Republicans and Democrat Hoyle Martin).

Up until the day of the vote a debate raged on radio and in the Observer about the whether "Gay sex facts" should be funded. At issue was that "Gay sex" was unhealthy and it was illegal. A study presented at the meeting showed that homosexuals die earlier than those that don't engage in the behavior. Exclusive of "AIDS", the activity is dangerous (medically speaking) and therefore should not be "endorsed" as acceptable by society and by government.

The night of the Dec. 16th vote, Commissioner Martin was pressured by the Democratic Chairman from his own party, Parks Helms, to defeat the motion. Commissioner Martin made a speech that night indicating that he thought the proposal "went to far" (but did not indicate how far that was). Later, after the vote there was a break in the proceedings and as commissioners stood around to get soft-drinks, the media descended on Commissioner Martin to ask him to explain his shift. It was in this setting that Commissioner Martin, standing at the side door of the meeting chamber made his infamous comment "if I had my way I would push them [homosexuals] off the face of the earth".

After the initial defeat of the parents rights proposal, Commissioner James wrote Commissioner Martin a letter indicating that he hoped that the Commission could work together to draft a set of guidelines that a majority could except. Clearly, the Democrat's on the County Commission (exclusive of Commissioner Martin) were not interested. 

THE NEW YEAR'S PROPOSAL

After the Christmas holidays, Commissioner Martin approached Commissioner James and indicated that he had received his letter and was in fact working on a revised agenda item.

As it turned out, this agenda item was the "arts war" agenda item that landed on the Commission's April 1st, 1997 agenda.

See the following link for a more descriptive discussion of this event:

Commissioner Martin drafted his "arts" resolution with a "part b" proposal. See the following link to view the evolution of the policy as adopted:

During 1997 as the debate over arts funding intensified, the Commission received comments on the parents rights proposals from various sources. Polls conducted by various media outlets showed that between 2/3's and up to 75% of the public supported requiring parents to be notified before a child was counseled regarding sexual matters.

The initial resolution was re-drafted and split to contain TWO parts:

POLICY ON HUMAN SEXUALITY COUNSELING AND EDUCATION

POLICY ON HUMAN SEXUALITY COUNSELING OF CHILDREN 

The Mecklenburg County Medical Society opposed Part 2 on the basis that it would "interfere" with their ability to counsel children. This was untrue as State law excluded Doctors and nurses from its application. 

The Commission debated (and re-debated) this matter over several months including protections for children of rape, incest and other situations. A judge was allowed to replace a parent of neglect or child abuse was involved.  In the end, the policy was ratified (both parts) and was implemented for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1997.

THE HOMOSEXUAL QUESTION: 

The local paper (The Charlotte Observer) ran a series of stories on the issue of homosexuality. Various church leaders and others came forward with statistical infomaton on the health risks associated with this behavior. A number of the statistical polls asked about Charlotte's views of homosexuality (March & April 1997). They are shown below.

While this web page contains the public polling data, detailed information on the debate over homosexuality is at the link provided below (THIS LINK NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN):

CMS AGREES TO INVOLVE PARENTS AND DROP MCAP's "Straight talk" SEXUALITY EDUCATION

The following is the e-mail from CMS' server documenting that MCAP's  "straight talk" (comprehensive sex education) was deleted from CMS' information for children.  CMS also requires informing parents about such matters.

THE MAP CONTROVERSY

During the fall of 1997 after the policy had been fully adopted, a group of 13 year old inner-city girls were being counseled by volunteers from the Metrolina AIDS Project (MAP). MAP received a portion of its money from the County Commission (taxpayers). The Counselor passed out a booklet to these children that included graphic "how to" examples for various perverted and unhealthy forms of sexuality (including those that are criminal acts under NC law).

The parents contacted Commissioner Martin who wrote the head of MAP, Les Kooyman asking for an explanation. Because the letter from Commissioner Martin has  explicit excerpts from the flyer it is shown with parts redacted. 

Because the information supplied to these children was so grossly offensive, it took the wind out of the sails of those that opposed parents rights.

MAP  threw itself on the "mercy of the court" (or in this case the County Commission and indicated that it was a mistake, that they would follow the rules and the individual responsible (a HIV infected woman) came down to apologize on TV to the Commission. The Commission determined that MAP's funding did not need to be removed but the episode did prove the larger point that a parents rights "rule" for taxpayer funds was needed.

The parents rights policy remained in effect until the Democrats re-took effective control of the County Commission in December of 1998. The following Spring of 1999, they quietly rescinded the policy.

During the debate in 1999, a new Republican, Commissioner Tom Cox joined the Commission. He voted with Commissioner James to keep the existing policy because staff had said that it was "working" and was "effective". 

During the 2000 County Commission elections two additional Republicans joined the board (now 4 of 9). These two Republicans, Ruth Samuelson and Jim Puckett have said that they would re-instate the policy if another vote is found.

If the Republicans re-take the County Commission in 2002, Commissioner James has said that if he is a part of that Commission he WILL re-introduce the measure and ask for its re-instatement.