Posted on 09/01/2003 9:31:21 AM PDT by Jean S
It’s “Back To School” time again, and here’s the first pop quiz. No, it’s not for the kids. It’s for parents, and they have to answer only one question: Do you know what your children are learning in sex-education classes? If you’re like most parents, the answer is no. But if the program is billed as “abstinence-based,” you probably don’t feel particularly concerned. The important thing, as far as you’re concerned, is that your kids are being taught to say “no” to sex.
But are they? The fact is, nearly all of the government-funded abstinence-based or “abstinence-plus” programs delivered in schools nationwide contain little, if any, reference to abstinence. They may mention it briefly, but it’s often presented as something that (wink, wink) kids in the “real world” will ignore.
Far worse, though, is what abstinence-plus programs do contain: explicit demonstrations of contraceptive use -- especially condoms -- and direct encouragement to experiment sexually.
This despite the fact that parents consistently say they don’t want their children to be exposed to such messages. A recent Zogby poll found that three out of every four parents disapproved or strongly disapproved of abstinence-plus curricula. About the same number say they want their children to receive an authentic abstinence education.
More likely, though, their children are being exposed to programs such as “Focus on Kids” (which, like other abstinence-plus programs, is heavily promoted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Kids are told, among other things, to go on a “condom hunt” to local stores to survey the various types of family planning methods and ask: “What’s the cheapest price for three condoms?”
Focus on Kids also has teachers stage “condom races” between teams of students. (Warning: Explicit language ahead.) “Each person on the team must put the condom on the dildo or cucumber and take it off,” the program says. “The team that finishes first wins.” But intercourse isn’t the only topic on the agenda. Teachers are told to have the kids “brainstorm ways to be close. The list may include … body massage, bathing together, masturbation, sensuous feeding, fantasizing, watching erotic movies, reading erotic books and magazines …”
Unfortunately, Focus on Kids isn’t the only program that takes such an approach. In “Becoming a Responsible Teen,” or B.A.R.T., kids get an education not only in condoms but in lubricants: “If you were trying to find something around the house, or at a convenience store, to use as a [lubricant] substitute, what would be safe? Why? … Some ‘grocery store’ lubricants are safe to use if they do not contain oil: grape jelly, maple syrup and honey.”
Then there’s the ironically named “Be Proud! Be Responsible!” program, which lists several ways teachers can show kids as young as 13 “how to make condoms fun and pleasurable.” For example, “once you and a partner agree to use condoms … go to the store together. Buy lots of different brands and colors. Plan a special day when you can experiment. Just talking about how you’ll use all of those condoms can be a turn-on.”
And who knows where you’ll be when the mood strikes? Perhaps that’s why the CDC-approved “Reducing the Risk” program advises teachers to tell kids, while they’re shopping for condoms, to “put down the store’s hours, too, because it may be important to know where to get protection at some odd hours.” There are also family-planning clinics, of course: Students who might worry about what Mom and Dad think are told, “you do not need a parent’s permission … no one needs to know that you are going to a clinic.”
It helps to engage in some “role playing,” too, according to the “Be Proud! Be Responsible!” program. Two females, “Tyceia” and “Felicia,” are told to “begin negotiating safer sex” together. They’ve been “sexually active with males in the past,” but now they can “accept” their bisexuality. Male students aren’t excluded: “Gerald” is told that “Allen has never used condoms. You want to have sex with him, but not without using condoms.”
It’s bad enough that these sex-ed programs hide under an abstinence-plus label while completely undermining what most parents want for their children. But when they encourage indiscriminate condom use and sexual experimentation, they’re sending kids a troubling message -- that we expect them to be sexually active and approve of it, provided it’s “safe.” And it’s all billed to you, the taxpayer. Is that what we want?
Robert Rector is a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org), a Washington-based public policy research institute.
Distributed nationally on the Knight-Ridder Tribune wire
I can understand your pessimism completely. But I would urge you to rethink your stand. It just might be that Bush will win again, it just might be that the Senate and House will have greater R majorities, it just might be that some conservative Rs with spines may get elected, it just might be that Bush can get a few normal Supremes into the Court, it just might be that more sheeple will wake up.... You never know!!
My lady is a teacher. I have just interviewed her for this post. She says that, at her school, sex ed is provided in the seventh grade science class and that the teacher does demonstrate the use of condoms in a very matter of fact way with either a cucumber or a zucchini squash (she isn't sure which). I am not talking about a public school. I'm talking about one of the most exclusive private schools in this country.
Should this kind of information only be provided to kids in private schools?
I will be thinking about it between now and then. The Supreme issue is what would tilt me toward voting. But would Bush be able to get useful Supremes past the blockades of the legislative branch?
Thanks for your reasoned response to this article. Trash the author.
You don't say!
Oh, dear, we all KNOW that. It isn't necessary to teach it unless your contention is that most kids are dumb as a box of rocks. Mine is they aren't, and further more, self-control and having standards of modesty and decency is a wholly desirable and attainable goal.
We're not naive here.
He might if there are more Rs elected... I vote R with my eyes closed, and sometimes with my nose held. Although in the recent Oregon election, I did not vote for Gordon Smith because he nauseates me, a real RINO for the most part. I voted for Lon Mabon, the notorious anti-"gay" rights guy, even though he's kind of strange too. I knew Smith would win anyway.
Jim Rob has made some VERY convincing statements about this issue, if I can find them I'll post them on this thread. If the Dems regain control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, I can't even imagine how hellish it will be.
It is ridiculous to think this needs demonstrating.
Robert Rector is very respected for his writings about children (primarily welfare and poverty related is what I have seen) and can be found at the Heritage Foundation web site. You may not be familiar with his work, but Rush has been citing it for years.
He isn't a fly by night weirdo getting off on sex talk.
Actually, isn't one of the problems found with condoms that the kids were using them improperly so that they were breaking? I don't know if that is true, or if it was just what was asserted to be a problem.
My son just started 6th grade and has had no sex ed at school of any kind. They didn't even do the menstruation movie for the girls (unless it was secret).
There is a manual which shows you what you will find somewhat farther ahead..."Brave New World". It was written in 1932, and gets more accurate with each passing year. It is depressing, but unfortunately it is also inevitable.
College is a bit different than middle school or high school but it sounds like your speaker was horrid. Ugh, I had an extra credit in a senior College sociology course where we were shown a "documentary" showing elderly people getting way down and dirty. We thought it was supposed to be about nursing home care! I'd never seen such and I don't think many others had either so were speechless but no one had the nerve to tell the prof off (of course this was back in the dark ages). Nothing against the elderly having a little fun but this would have been XXX rated no matter what.
This type of propaganda in our public schools has been around for years, and is getting worse.....much worse.
James Dobson of Focus on the Family...use to encourage parents to be involved in their children's schools.....work from within.....effect change when you see negatives....etc.
Many of us did just that!
When SexEd came to our county, we networked the whole county ..... making sure many parents who were not aware....became aware of the 'new' curriculum that the school board was about to pass on to our children....kindergarten through 12th grade!
If the schools wouldn't display the curriculum for parents to come by and take a look at...(& many of them did)...we would hold 'curriculum parties' at our homes, and invite our friends and neighbors in.
I happened to be on an advisory board of my son's junior high, so therefore was one of the first parents to see the curriculum.
I was so naive about the political tactics going on.....but I was smart enough to recognize Planned Parenthood's handprints all over this curriculum and what I saw alarmed me!
Hundreds of parents, teachers (the ones not afraid)...business leaders, pastors, etc. started showing up at the board meetings to voice their disapproval....
...and as of 11 years ago, we we were able to turn the tide & insist on an 'abstinence only' curriculum ....(and the School Board continued to do so for a number of years.)
And we were fortunate to get that, because by the time 'we, the parents'....actually heard of the curriculum, it was almost a done deal....
...Tallahassee had already passed it....and it was going to happen. Period!
What we did at the 11th hour, is change the direction from Planned Parenthood curriculum to a absolutely abstinence only curriculum that parents, teacher and pastors helped write.
Even so, many parents saw the handwriting on the wall, and started homeschooling.....and some private Christian schools started up within a year or so, because of the demand of parents for them.
Now, however, it is so bad and so rampant.....James Dobson is no longer telling parents to ..'work within the school to effect change'...
He's telling them to ...PULL YOUR CHILDREN OUT!
Parents, if you don't wake up and take control of this situation, you will look back someday, I think, and regret it!
Even the best parenting, I know, is not always perfect or produces perfect results.....
...but why not try to stem this tide against our children.
Why throw little kindergarten children into unsavory situations that they can't and shouldn't have to handle!!!
Please wake up!
Please!
Yank the cable from your TV, too!
We pulled the cable when our two were in their formative years!
Don't leave your children in Sodom......it's only getting worse!
I read the letter in Eureka about 3 years ago, I don't remember the outcome. The girl had guts to write a letter to the paper at age 12. I do remember that PP and the school promised they wouldn't use such "divisive" and "hurtful" tactics again in their efforts to indoctrinate all the kids into hedonism in general and the queer world in particular. In that same area, a good friend who has a (then 10) year old daught enrolled her in a charter/home school, and at the first parent and kid get together, the main teacher revealed that her MAIN PLATFORM was to have a "rainbow cirriculum" - get this - FOUCSING on gay issues! My friend was horrified and left, and is continuing on with her independent home schooling.
BTW, this friend homeschooled her two other kids (now over 20 year old) and they are incredible human beings. Extremely mature, responsible, moral, talented great guys. Homeschooling is the answer for now, unless one can find a really good private school - and be able to afford it.
It sounds as though the porno sex ed classes are very regional. Note the post above, seems from FL, about parents and local people getting involved and preventing Planned Parenthood (now why are the primary abortionists in the country in the schools anyway?) from doing the dirty work.
Here on the West Coast it is very bad. Probably more conservative areas haven't gotten on board yet. Another thing is the flagrant sex ed teachers - often outsiders like PP, or representatives from GLSEN and other homosexual groups are brought in in an undercover mode, and the parents are not notified - as a matter of stated policy - because the hedonists know parents would put their foot down. The hedonist activists know that once the kids hear and see the crap - their minds are polluted, and it is a lot hard to undo what they've put in there.
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