A Charleston, West Virginia high school has been in the news this week because the talk that they advertised as one on safe sex was not about that at all. It was funded by a conservative religious group that handed out fliers entitled "God's Plan for Sexual Purity". The main message was not even about abstinence. The speaker had two techniques, both delivered at high volume. One message was that teenagers who have sex are not worthwhile human. The culture of shaming teenagers in a sex education lecture has been shown to fail--as has abstinence only education. But that is not the worst of it. She gave out inaccurate information about the safety and efficacy of birth control. She stated that it made you more likely to be sterile in the future, and that it was ineffective. That is unforgivable. She probably isn't looking for my forgiveness, though. The fact that the school sanctioned it is even worse. It always makes me think she must have a sexually promiscuous past that she is unwilling or unable to confront, so she displaces her self-loathing onto others. But when you hate only yourself, you don't kill others--giving out incorrect information about birth control is a whole different story.
The icing on the cake is that one student contends that when she spoke up about the speaker's lack of expertise or education on the subject of safe sex, that the school principal threatened to inform the college that admitted her that she had 'bad character'. She has filed an injunction against the principal and filed a complaint with the ACLU--she is not taking this lying down, so to speak. If in fact this is true, I sincerely hope the parents of these teenagers make some noise. Seriously. This sort of behavior is unbecoming of our nation. Boston made us all look very good this past week, but this makes us look very bad indeed. Why fight the Taliban when we have the same kind of educational blackmail and repression right here at home?
No comments:
Post a Comment