MonsterMark
Dedicated LVC Member
Instead of teaching sex to kindergarteners, why don't we get the crap off TV . I cringe everytime a commercial comes on.
Slime tactics
- Thread starter TheDude
- Start date
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
No one is teaching sex to kindergarteners as part of school curiculem, if it was offered, the parents would still have control.
It's easy, change the channel and/or block the stations/programs you don't want your children watch. Comcast offers a parental-control type of service here, check with your local providers.
Is your remote broken?
I also don't see why you are worried, it sounds like you teach abstinence at home, your kids will be fine - right?
Here is the issue:
Most parents don't want their children having sex. They want their kids to wait at least until they are 18 (or, more vaguely, "old enough"), or to wait until a serious relationship or even marriage.
Now the school comes along giving sex ed. In those classes, they don't re-enforce that message from the parents; instead trying to play it neutral. They mention abstinence as a "viable alternative" but are very careful to not seem like they are promoting it. They present options for having "safe sex" as well, including demonstrating the use of a condom, etc.
Essentially, the kids are recieving mixed messages. In the kid's minds (being immature and thuse exceedingly self centered, and concerned more about immediate gratification), the message they get from the school is that promiscuity isn't bad, it is just a different choice and an "alternate lifestyle". Basically, the message that sex ed sends is that promiscuity is acceptable.
If the school is going to get involved in something like sex ed, then it should re-enforce and reflect the parent's lessons to their kids and values they try to impart to their kids. If it is not re-enforcing those values, then it is effectively countering them, considering the audience in those classes.
Having the "opt out" option only puts the added burden of peer presure and being ostricized on the kids who opt out and the parent's who chose to exclude them.
If anything, the class should be completely voluntary. You have to sign your kid up for the class.
Most parents don't want their children having sex. They want their kids to wait at least until they are 18 (or, more vaguely, "old enough"), or to wait until a serious relationship or even marriage.
Now the school comes along giving sex ed. In those classes, they don't re-enforce that message from the parents; instead trying to play it neutral. They mention abstinence as a "viable alternative" but are very careful to not seem like they are promoting it. They present options for having "safe sex" as well, including demonstrating the use of a condom, etc.
Essentially, the kids are recieving mixed messages. In the kid's minds (being immature and thuse exceedingly self centered, and concerned more about immediate gratification), the message they get from the school is that promiscuity isn't bad, it is just a different choice and an "alternate lifestyle". Basically, the message that sex ed sends is that promiscuity is acceptable.
If the school is going to get involved in something like sex ed, then it should re-enforce and reflect the parent's lessons to their kids and values they try to impart to their kids. If it is not re-enforcing those values, then it is effectively countering them, considering the audience in those classes.
Having the "opt out" option only puts the added burden of peer presure and being ostricized on the kids who opt out and the parent's who chose to exclude them.
If anything, the class should be completely voluntary. You have to sign your kid up for the class.
They are allowing it to be taught, and the parents have to "opt out". Even if you are going to allow sex ed to be taught to kindergardeners, it should be a purely voluntary thing. Not something that requires you to take action to opt out of it. Parents would have more control that way...
It honestly blows my mind that people are actually arguing the merits of sex education to kindergarteners. That's really reaching and it simply shows me the extent to which people will support Obama on whatever he wants. Is there anything he stands for that you liberals (no offense meant) oppose? I don't know of any conservative on this board who supports Bush or McCain in every area. Please give me something so I can rest a little easier tonight.
Actually, I do have an idea, because I went through that course. In fact, I probably went through it more recently then you...
I already answered this question in post #54.
Myopic is a very accurate discription of you here, because you seem to be unwilling to consider any unintended and/or indirect messages that might be sent by offering sex education.
If a school offered a class on how to commit murder, but didn't say that murder was bad or good, wouldn't it be effectively sending an indirect message that murder was acceptable? It would seem to be something the school thinks you need to know how to do, wouldn't it?
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
You clearly do not know what you're talking about. Sex Ed isn't an "opt out" course, the parent(s) has to literally give written permission before the child can sit through the course. If anything, it's an opt-in situation, any child that does not have the release form, is taken to the library (usually) to do homework and such.
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
No one is arguing for sex ed to be taught to kindergarteners. You can now rest.
That's not what I'm reading in this thread. Do you disagree with Obama on anything?
sorry - to be fair - in Illinois the law does read...
No pupil shall be required to take or participate in
9 any class or course in comprehensive sex education if the
pupil's his parent or guardian submits written objection
thereto, and refusal to take or participate in such course or
program shall not be reason for suspension or expulsion of
such pupil.
Last edited by a moderator:
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
They don't "promote" sex, just as they don't promote abstience. With the exception, abstience is "promoted" in the sense that it is shown as the only way to 100% guarantee against STDs and pregancies. While sex is promoted by showing pictures of a vagina covered in genital warts etc.
Your guessing that the children in Sex Ed learn "promiscuity is acceptable", see above.
Being "ostracized" now, you don't think that's a bit of an exaggeration?
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
My error then... I guess it varies by state, in California (when I was in school), no child is allowed unless he/she has the written authorization from a parent(s) or guardian. I find the Illinois system flawed. Then again, I check in with my school's curiculem, so it wouldn't be an issue for me.
Maybe where you went to school, but clearly not everywhere. it was an "opt out" thing at my school, it is that way where my mother works. As Marcus pointed out in post #41, and foxpaws in post #61 it is an "opt out" system under the bill in question in Illinois...
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
Read through it again? No, he is the Golden Calf.
You simply cannot acknowledge that there may be some unintended and indirect message that the kids will recieve, can you? You keep mischaracterizing my argument...
I know how children think, in general. I used to work at a jail for juveniles, I have 5 cousins ranging from the 6 to 14, my closest friend has a kid and my mother works at an elementary school. Not to mention the fact that only 10 years ago, I was 18 myself.
You could call it a guess, but it is very well educated guess, based on a strong understanding of how kids think and interpret things...
Them getting a message of promiscuity as acceptable from sex ed is much more likely then not. Especially considering how a childs thought process is more focused on spinning things to their own immidiate self interest and gratification.
It is a very real possibility, especially with kids. If you don't think so then you don't know much about kids...
I'm reading that's what you're claiming. So you do agree with Obama on everything then?
TheDude
Dedicated LVC Member
And you simply cannot acknowledge that the children won't receive whichever unintended or indirect message you're trying to imply. That seeing a condom going on a banana and learning about gonorrhea won't act as a catalyst in them having sex when they normally would not have.
Let me guess, you're studying child psychology?
Some children are going to experiment with sex regardless, it's a strong natural urge, Sex Ed, Abstinence Only or a combo aside, correct? For those that are going to, it's obviously better they know the basics of birth and STD prevention.
Shall we compare silly anecdotes to see who knows more about children? A few teases and jabs from a few peers because little Billy's parents didn't want him in Sex Ed doesn't qualify as "ostracized"; you're making a mountain out of a pimple here. Billy probably has other bigger problems to deal with, like not being as good in sports, not having the "in" clothes or living on the right side of the tracks.
Edit: Since we're bringing in anecdotes, did Sex Ed give you an "unintedned message" to be promiscuous?
Because it is not likely. You have yet to provide any reason to think that. You just assume it and assert it as fact.
There is always some sort of unintended message and most oftern unintened consequences to any type of social change like this. Weather it be the War on Poverty and the current subculture of people dependant on welfare today, or and unintended message being sent with sex education.
You simply cannot acknowledge that, it seems. Intellectual honesty be damned, I guess. Ideology over reality.
Most all teens are going to have a strong urge to. It comes down to the values instilled in them and their own personal character as to weather they will act on those urges. If the school is teaching sex ed and not re-enforcing those values, if will effectively be countering those values in the teen's mind.
You are simply trying to downplay that very real and legitimate concern. A few "teasing jabs" is all it take.
It is rather clear that ideology trumps reality for you...
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
On Sex-Ed Ad, McCain Is Right
What was that Illinois sex-education bill really about?
By Byron York
In recent days, a consensus has developed among the Obama campaign and commentators in the press that John McCain has decided to lie his way to the White House. Exhibit A in this new consensus is McCain’s ad, released last week, claiming that Barack Obama’s “one accomplishment” in the field of education was “legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.”
Within moments of the ad’s appearance, the Obama campaign called it “shameful and downright perverse.” The legislation in question, a bill in the Illinois State Senate that was supported but not sponsored by Obama, was, according to Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, “written to protect young children from sexual predators” and had nothing to do with comprehensive sex education for kindergartners. In a stinging final shot, Burton added, “Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.”
Newspaper, magazine, and television commentators quickly piled on. “The kindergarten ad flat-out lies,” wrote the New York Times, arguing that “at most, kindergarteners were to be taught the dangers of sexual predators.” The Washington Post wrote that “McCain’s ‘Education’ Spot is Dishonest, Deceptive.” And in a column in The Hill, the influential blogger Josh Marshall called the sex-education spot “a rancid, race-baiting ad based on [a] lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison.”
The condemnation has been so widespread that the Obama campaign has begun to sense success in placing the “McCain-is-a-liar” storyline in the press. But before accepting the story at face value, it might first be a good idea to examine the bill in question, look at the statements made by its supporters at the time it was introduced, talk to its sponsors today (at least the ones who will consent to speak), and find answers to a few basic questions. What were the bill’s provisions? Why was it written? Was it really just, or even mostly, about inappropriate advances? And the bottom-line question: Is McCain’s characterization of it unfair?
21st-CENTURY SEX EDUCATION
The bill in question was Senate Bill 99, introduced in the Senate in February 2003. Its broad purpose was to change and update portions of Illinois’s existing laws concerning sex education. (The text of the bill is here, and everyone interested in the issue should take a look at it.)
When the bill was introduced, a coalition of groups including the Illinois Public Health Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Cook County Department of Public Health, the Chicago Department of Public Health, the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council and others issued a press release headlined “Coalition of Legislators, Physicians and Organizations Bring Illinois Into the 21st Century with Omnibus Healthcare Package.” It was a three-part campaign; Senate Bill 99, covering “medically accurate sex education,” was the first part, with two other bills addressing “funding for family planning services for women in need” and “contraceptive equity in health insurance.”
According to the press release, Senate Bill 99 required that “if a public school teaches sex education, family life education, and comprehensive health education courses, all materials and instruction must be medically and factually accurate.” The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Carol Ronen, was quoted saying, “It teaches students about the advantages of abstinence, while also giving them the realistic information they need about the prevention of an unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.” The release contained no mention of sexual predators or inappropriate touching.
What, specifically, was the bill designed to do? It appears to have had three major purposes:
The first, as Ronen indicated, was to mandate that information presented in sex-ed classes be “factual,” “medically accurate,” and “objective.”
The second purpose was to increase the number of children receiving sex education. Illinois’ existing law required the teaching of sex education and AIDS prevention in grades six through twelve. The old law read:
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
The bill’s third purpose was to remove value-laden language in the old law. For example, the old law contained passages like this:
The proposed bill eliminated all those passages and replaced them with wording like this:
The bill gave parents and guardians the right to take their children out of sex-ed classes by presenting written objections. The bill also specified that “all sex education courses that discuss sexual activity or behavior…be age and developmentally appropriate.” And, after covering a number of other provisions, the bill addressed the issue of inappropriate advances:
The wording of that provision suggests lawmakers were at least as concerned with protecting children from each other as from adults, and it doesn’t seem directed toward the youngest children, as Obama maintained.
But there is no doubt that the bill did address the question of inappropriate touching. On the other hand, there is also no doubt that, looking at the overall bill, the “touching” provision did not have the prominence that Team Obama has suggested it had, and it certainly wasn’t the bill’s main purpose.
TOUCHY SUBJECT
After the ad controversy erupted, I asked the Obama campaign to suggest who I might interview for more information. I particularly wanted some sort of contemporaneous account showing that Obama voted for the bill because of its inappropriate-touching provision. The campaign suggested I call Ken Swanson, who is head of the Illinois Education Association and a 20-year veteran of teaching sixth-graders.
“The intent of the language and inclusion of kindergarten was simply to make it possible to offer age-appropriate, not comprehensive, information for kindergartners so that those young children could be given basic information so that they would be aware of inappropriate behavior by adults,” Swanson told me. “Certainly, it was never intended to be some sort of inappropriate information that might be appropriate for junior high or high school students.” McCain’s accusation, Swanson told me, was “bogus.”
I suggested to Swanson that the bill seemed to provide for HIV education for youngsters before the sixth grade, and perhaps as early as kindergarten. “As I recall the discussion, there was a conversation where in different places in the state — that was something that should be left to local circumstances,” Swanson told me. “What might be appropriate in an urban inner city might not be appropriate in a rural community. I don’t recall anybody, from our perspective, having a one-rule-fits-all vision.”
Swanson suggested that if I wanted to know more I should get in touch with the bill’s sponsors. There were five — State Senator Ronen, as well as Sens. M. Maggie Crotty, Susan Garrett, Iris Martinez, and Jeffrey Schoenberg. All were from the greater Chicago area. But getting in touch with them was easier said than done.
Ronen has left the Illinois state senate. When I called her home, I reached a woman who did not give me her name but told me she knew how to reach Ronen. I gave her my information, but there has been no call back, nor has Ronen answered a number of follow-up calls.
An assistant in Garrett’s office helpfully gave me the senator’s cell-phone number, so I was able to have a few brief conversations with her. In one, she said she couldn’t talk and asked me to call back in a few minutes. I did, and then did again, and ended up doing so several times over an extended period, all without an answer. The next day, I reached Garrett again, who told me that since the debate took place five years ago, she couldn’t speak about it “unless I have the bill in front of me . . . I’d be happy to do that if I could just print out the bill . . . I just want to be sure I get it right.” We agreed that I would email her the bill, but after I did, she didn’t answer the phone. She still hasn’t.
I’ve gotten no response from Crotty or Schoenberg.
That leaves Sen. Martinez, who was kind enough to speak to me by phone Monday afternoon. Martinez began by saying that the bill was indeed about inappropriate touching. “We know that young children, very, very young, have things happen to them that they don’t speak about,” Martinez told me. “It’s important that we teach our young kids very, very young to speak up.”
When I asked Martinez the rationale for changing grade six to kindergarten, she said that groups like Planned Parenthood and the Cook County Department of Health — both major contributors to the bill — “were finding that there were children younger than the sixth grade that were being inappropriately touched or molested.” When I asked about the elimination of references to marriage and the contraception passages, Martinez said that the changes were “based on some of the information we got from Planned Parenthood.”
After we discussed other aspects of the bill, I told Martinez that reading the bill, I just didn’t see it as being exclusively, or even mostly, about inappropriate touching. “I didn’t see it that way, either,” Martinez said. “It’s just more information about a whole variety of things that have to go into a sex education class, the things that are outdated that you want to amend with things that are much more current.”
So, I asked, you didn’t see it specifically as being about inappropriate touching?
“Absolutely not.”
“THAT WASN’T WHAT I HAD IN MIND”
The controversy over the McCain sex-ed ad is a rerun of a similar controversy that erupted in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, when Obama’s opponent, the Republican transplant Alan Keyes, brought up the same issue. In a debate that year, when Keyes accused Obama of supporting sex education for kindergartners, Obama answered, “Actually, that wasn’t what I had in mind. We have a existing law that mandates sex education in the schools. We want to make sure that it’s medically accurate and age-appropriate. Now, I’ll give you an example, because I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean. And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age. So, that’s the kind of stuff that I was talking about in that piece of legislation.”
Obama’s explanation for his vote has been accepted by nearly all commentators. And perhaps that is indeed why he voted for Senate Bill 99, although we don’t know for sure. But we do know that the bill itself was much more than that. The fact is, the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten. Obama’s defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is.
What was that Illinois sex-education bill really about?
By Byron York
In recent days, a consensus has developed among the Obama campaign and commentators in the press that John McCain has decided to lie his way to the White House. Exhibit A in this new consensus is McCain’s ad, released last week, claiming that Barack Obama’s “one accomplishment” in the field of education was “legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergartners.”
Within moments of the ad’s appearance, the Obama campaign called it “shameful and downright perverse.” The legislation in question, a bill in the Illinois State Senate that was supported but not sponsored by Obama, was, according to Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, “written to protect young children from sexual predators” and had nothing to do with comprehensive sex education for kindergartners. In a stinging final shot, Burton added, “Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.”
Newspaper, magazine, and television commentators quickly piled on. “The kindergarten ad flat-out lies,” wrote the New York Times, arguing that “at most, kindergarteners were to be taught the dangers of sexual predators.” The Washington Post wrote that “McCain’s ‘Education’ Spot is Dishonest, Deceptive.” And in a column in The Hill, the influential blogger Josh Marshall called the sex-education spot “a rancid, race-baiting ad based on [a] lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison.”
The condemnation has been so widespread that the Obama campaign has begun to sense success in placing the “McCain-is-a-liar” storyline in the press. But before accepting the story at face value, it might first be a good idea to examine the bill in question, look at the statements made by its supporters at the time it was introduced, talk to its sponsors today (at least the ones who will consent to speak), and find answers to a few basic questions. What were the bill’s provisions? Why was it written? Was it really just, or even mostly, about inappropriate advances? And the bottom-line question: Is McCain’s characterization of it unfair?
21st-CENTURY SEX EDUCATION
The bill in question was Senate Bill 99, introduced in the Senate in February 2003. Its broad purpose was to change and update portions of Illinois’s existing laws concerning sex education. (The text of the bill is here, and everyone interested in the issue should take a look at it.)
When the bill was introduced, a coalition of groups including the Illinois Public Health Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Cook County Department of Public Health, the Chicago Department of Public Health, the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council and others issued a press release headlined “Coalition of Legislators, Physicians and Organizations Bring Illinois Into the 21st Century with Omnibus Healthcare Package.” It was a three-part campaign; Senate Bill 99, covering “medically accurate sex education,” was the first part, with two other bills addressing “funding for family planning services for women in need” and “contraceptive equity in health insurance.”
According to the press release, Senate Bill 99 required that “if a public school teaches sex education, family life education, and comprehensive health education courses, all materials and instruction must be medically and factually accurate.” The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Carol Ronen, was quoted saying, “It teaches students about the advantages of abstinence, while also giving them the realistic information they need about the prevention of an unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.” The release contained no mention of sexual predators or inappropriate touching.
What, specifically, was the bill designed to do? It appears to have had three major purposes:
The first, as Ronen indicated, was to mandate that information presented in sex-ed classes be “factual,” “medically accurate,” and “objective.”
The second purpose was to increase the number of children receiving sex education. Illinois’ existing law required the teaching of sex education and AIDS prevention in grades six through twelve. The old law read:
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
The bill’s third purpose was to remove value-laden language in the old law. For example, the old law contained passages like this:
The proposed bill eliminated all those passages and replaced them with wording like this:
The bill gave parents and guardians the right to take their children out of sex-ed classes by presenting written objections. The bill also specified that “all sex education courses that discuss sexual activity or behavior…be age and developmentally appropriate.” And, after covering a number of other provisions, the bill addressed the issue of inappropriate advances:
The wording of that provision suggests lawmakers were at least as concerned with protecting children from each other as from adults, and it doesn’t seem directed toward the youngest children, as Obama maintained.
But there is no doubt that the bill did address the question of inappropriate touching. On the other hand, there is also no doubt that, looking at the overall bill, the “touching” provision did not have the prominence that Team Obama has suggested it had, and it certainly wasn’t the bill’s main purpose.
TOUCHY SUBJECT
After the ad controversy erupted, I asked the Obama campaign to suggest who I might interview for more information. I particularly wanted some sort of contemporaneous account showing that Obama voted for the bill because of its inappropriate-touching provision. The campaign suggested I call Ken Swanson, who is head of the Illinois Education Association and a 20-year veteran of teaching sixth-graders.
“The intent of the language and inclusion of kindergarten was simply to make it possible to offer age-appropriate, not comprehensive, information for kindergartners so that those young children could be given basic information so that they would be aware of inappropriate behavior by adults,” Swanson told me. “Certainly, it was never intended to be some sort of inappropriate information that might be appropriate for junior high or high school students.” McCain’s accusation, Swanson told me, was “bogus.”
I suggested to Swanson that the bill seemed to provide for HIV education for youngsters before the sixth grade, and perhaps as early as kindergarten. “As I recall the discussion, there was a conversation where in different places in the state — that was something that should be left to local circumstances,” Swanson told me. “What might be appropriate in an urban inner city might not be appropriate in a rural community. I don’t recall anybody, from our perspective, having a one-rule-fits-all vision.”
Swanson suggested that if I wanted to know more I should get in touch with the bill’s sponsors. There were five — State Senator Ronen, as well as Sens. M. Maggie Crotty, Susan Garrett, Iris Martinez, and Jeffrey Schoenberg. All were from the greater Chicago area. But getting in touch with them was easier said than done.
Ronen has left the Illinois state senate. When I called her home, I reached a woman who did not give me her name but told me she knew how to reach Ronen. I gave her my information, but there has been no call back, nor has Ronen answered a number of follow-up calls.
An assistant in Garrett’s office helpfully gave me the senator’s cell-phone number, so I was able to have a few brief conversations with her. In one, she said she couldn’t talk and asked me to call back in a few minutes. I did, and then did again, and ended up doing so several times over an extended period, all without an answer. The next day, I reached Garrett again, who told me that since the debate took place five years ago, she couldn’t speak about it “unless I have the bill in front of me . . . I’d be happy to do that if I could just print out the bill . . . I just want to be sure I get it right.” We agreed that I would email her the bill, but after I did, she didn’t answer the phone. She still hasn’t.
I’ve gotten no response from Crotty or Schoenberg.
That leaves Sen. Martinez, who was kind enough to speak to me by phone Monday afternoon. Martinez began by saying that the bill was indeed about inappropriate touching. “We know that young children, very, very young, have things happen to them that they don’t speak about,” Martinez told me. “It’s important that we teach our young kids very, very young to speak up.”
When I asked Martinez the rationale for changing grade six to kindergarten, she said that groups like Planned Parenthood and the Cook County Department of Health — both major contributors to the bill — “were finding that there were children younger than the sixth grade that were being inappropriately touched or molested.” When I asked about the elimination of references to marriage and the contraception passages, Martinez said that the changes were “based on some of the information we got from Planned Parenthood.”
After we discussed other aspects of the bill, I told Martinez that reading the bill, I just didn’t see it as being exclusively, or even mostly, about inappropriate touching. “I didn’t see it that way, either,” Martinez said. “It’s just more information about a whole variety of things that have to go into a sex education class, the things that are outdated that you want to amend with things that are much more current.”
So, I asked, you didn’t see it specifically as being about inappropriate touching?
“Absolutely not.”
“THAT WASN’T WHAT I HAD IN MIND”
The controversy over the McCain sex-ed ad is a rerun of a similar controversy that erupted in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, when Obama’s opponent, the Republican transplant Alan Keyes, brought up the same issue. In a debate that year, when Keyes accused Obama of supporting sex education for kindergartners, Obama answered, “Actually, that wasn’t what I had in mind. We have a existing law that mandates sex education in the schools. We want to make sure that it’s medically accurate and age-appropriate. Now, I’ll give you an example, because I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean. And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age. So, that’s the kind of stuff that I was talking about in that piece of legislation.”
Obama’s explanation for his vote has been accepted by nearly all commentators. And perhaps that is indeed why he voted for Senate Bill 99, although we don’t know for sure. But we do know that the bill itself was much more than that. The fact is, the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten. Obama’s defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is.
Marcus
Dedicated LVC Member
This insipid article just rehashes the same weak arguments you guys have been making and then jumps to the same crazy conclusions without anything to back it up. The bill DOES NOT MANDATE teaching sex ed. It mandates what must be included in the curriculum IF sex ed is taught. The choice of teaching sex ed or not is left to the local school districts. And I can guarantee you that if a local school board mandated teaching kindergarteners about condoms, the board would be tarred, feathered, and strung up on a flag pole.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
This entire angry rant is filled with BS. Completely filled with it. Especially your stupid guarantee. I'll bookmark it and come back when it happens, just so I can say I told you so.
Marcus
Dedicated LVC Member
Who's angry? Not me. Just flabbergasted at how gullible you are.
Your article is complete and utter BS. Show me where I'm wrong about it not MANDATING sex ed for kindergarteners.
Your article is complete and utter BS. Show me where I'm wrong about it not MANDATING sex ed for kindergarteners.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Actually, he does a good job of showing you just that. Why don't you show me where the article is wrong, specifically, instead of painting with your weak-assed broad brush.