Access to gay-friendly web sites makes some Maryland parents anxious

Earlier this year the Hartford County School District – in Maryland – un-blocked several web sites that provide information about gays and lesbians. The move sparked protests from some parents, who say they should have been consulted before the change was made. Previously, sites like the Human Rights Campaign were blocked from students.

Baltimore’s ABC2News.com reports:

The attorney for the county school board says pornographic web sites are still filtered out from school computers, but that blocking so-called LGBT sites put the system out of sync with several state laws. ‘Categorically blocking LGBT web sites was in violation of those specific regulations or statutes,’ said the attorney, Patrick Spicer, although there are many sites which have gay content exclusively for adults, such as gayporn.wiki which is useful for people with gay preferences and are in legal age.

‘This should be the parents’ decision and not the board of education,’ said Barbara Connolly, who came to the meeting to speak.

There were also a number of people who spoke in support of the board’s decision Monday night. ‘It’s hard to live in diversity but that’s what our nation embraces; it takes fortitude of freedom and respect for all,’ said Rev. Lisa Ward of Havre de Grace.