The subject of History may be a treacherous tangle of names and dates, but I am fairly confident that any child about to enter high school could tell you the following two things about it:

  1. Ignorance has caused a lot of problems over time.
  2. The solution to those problems is open dialogue and education.
A vocal part of the community of Montgomery, Maryland has recently decided to forgo this common-sense approach to a difficult problem in favor of the fundamentalist-approved "If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist" method. This alternative has of course been a resounding success in the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. In this case, to no one's surprise, we are also talking about sex, specifically sex education for teenagers.

As part of a wider curriculum overhaul, the school district produced a short video discussing abstinence, safe sex, and proper condom use. Also added were discussions of homosexuality and transgenderism. Previously these topics were off-limits except by a direct student question, and condom use was not demonstrated. The new curriculum was developed in 2003 by school district staff, reviewed by a board appointed committee, and scheduled to be implemented in November...

...Until word got out that young adults were going to be engaged in an open, honest way about sex. Then the feathers flew, including some of those on our foul friend Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute, who must have precious few left to ruffle. A group called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum sponsored a viewing of the video and community forum to discuss it. Lest you be fooled by the lack of the word "Family" in their name, I'll point out that they also handed out a list of things they deemed "offensive, immoral, or inappropriate" and a petition to the school board to revoke the changes.

Much of the article is devoted to quotes from various individuals. I'll hilight a few here:

"Condoms are not working," said Walter Harders, an insurance agent who took a turn at the microphone. "Our children are getting pregnant, and they are getting sexually transmitted diseases, and it has to stop."
Check out the logic here. Curriculum mentions condoms. Kids are still getting pregnant/infected. As a result, condoms are the reason for these problems. Last time I checked, just knowing about condoms wasn't enough. You have to understand the reasons for using them, the proper way to do so, and then actually put one on. I wonder how one might go about making that clear... they should probably have a class, that people are required to take in school...

"Any young person there knows what's the cool thing that they were portraying, and it wasn't abstinence,"
Here's the thing. There's no way to make abstinence seem cool. Abstinence is all about logic. If no mention of contraception was made at all, kids are still going to want to do it, and those who aren't getting any are going to envy the kids that are. That's how hormones work. Additionally, sex-ed isn't a manual on how to get laid. My classes taught me almost everything I could want to know about men, women, sex, attraction, and contraception, and it didn't make me one bit more attractive to the girls who wouldn't date me.

But the voices of reason were not entirely lost. This is perhaps the most level headed, apropos comment I have ever read on this, and it could apply to a great number of things that fundamentalists whine about.

"You're worried about a four-minute video and the impact it will have on your kid, when 23 hours and 56 minutes they're with you," said Karen Troccoli, an audience member who works for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. She said she was speaking for herself, not her employer.
That's the bottom line. These classes are intended to help those kids whose parents suck. Who won't or can't talk to them about these things to make sure they understand what they face and how to deal with it. So that these kids can make informed choices and maybe not ruin their lives through ignorance. To help them understand their own and others' desires, so that GLBT people aren't scary or threatening. But I suppose this kind of tolerance is exactly what the parents of Citizens for a "Responsible" Curriculum are looking to avoid. I'd like to know just who they'll think is responsible when one of their children contracts AIDS because he was too afraid to talk to them about being gay, and he didn't know how to use a condom with his guilty anonymous hookups.

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