As I posted last week, a small group of parents backed by the the bigots of the Illinois Family Institute, are trying to bully the Park Ridge, Illinois District 207 school board into removing part of the science curriculum because it discusses birth control.

At a packed school board meeting in which the issue wasn’t on the agenda, the IFI supporters tried to make their case. Amazingly, the board didn’t laugh them out of the room.

The Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reported:

While most of the 17 people who spoke were Park Ridge parents, a sign-in sheet of the close to 60 visitors showed various out-of-town individuals affiliated with the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a Christian not-for-profit group, were also there. The IFI rallied its membership last week to attend and show support, while two sets of local parents, in touch with the IFI, had sent a separate mailing to Maine South parents.

Pro-science parents also spoke:

Matthew Petersen, who supports the current course, said his sophomore daughter said she did not feel uncomfortable in the class. But he gave his own illustration of how demands to censor coursework can damage education:

“Because I never liked quadratic equations, please remove their teaching from algebra class,” he suggested. “Because the Holocaust makes me personally uncomfortable, please do not teach it in history class. Because Shakespeare sometimes makes sexual innuendos in his plays, let’s never mention his works in English class.”