Holt Health, Garrettsville, OH
- Artist/Author/Producer: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Publishing
- Confronting Bodies: James A. Garfield School Board of Education, parents
- Dates of action: August 1993
- Location: Garrettsville, Ohio
- Description of the Art Work
- The Holt Health textbook for tenth grade students.
- Description of incident
- A tenth grade health text book some parents say condones homosexuality
will be reviewed by a parent committee proposed by the James A. Garfield
Board of Education. Garfield officials agreed to form the committee
after several parents, a local minister, and one board member protested
the text book, Holt Health.
Rev. Peter King read a letter to the board urging them to reconsider
their approval of the book. He said there was a growing exodus of
students into parochial schools because of the teaching of values
symbolized by the textbook.
The controversy centers on three paragraphs that say it is not unusual
for adolescents to have sexual feelings for those of the same sex and
even act on those feelings but be heterosexual as adults. Citing recent
research, the book also explains that homosexuality is determined at
birth rather than as a lifestyle that is chosen.
- Results of incident
- Parents also expressed dismay over a sex survey, distributed in a tenth
grade health class last spring, that asked questions concerning anal sex,
homosexuality, and masturbation. Board president James Dennedy said the
survey was distributed by a teacher without the board's knowledge.
Source: Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association