Radical Right Reality Check

The persistent efforts to prevent accurate sex ed and to keep hitting kids

The fear of knowledge and progress: It's long been a hallmark of conservative groups fighting to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving world. Whether it's American opponents of integration a half-century ago or present day foot-draggers in the fundamentalist regimes of the Middle East and the decrepit leadership in China, these groups all share a fear of modernity and change.

Often, this fear takes the form of resistance to allowing public access to complete information and to placing limitations on state-sponsored violence. Witness for instance, North Carolina's infamous "speaker ban" law and the pervasive censorship and draconian criminal justice codes that are so much a part of modern China and Saudi Arabia.

Here in North Carolina this spring, we have been witness to some fear-based behavior that is mildly reminiscent of these reactionary examples. It involves the stubborn opposition to a pair of bills on familiar topics: sex education and corporal punishment. In both cases, opponents of change have launched desperate, almost poignant, campaigns to stem tides that seem sure to eventually pass them by.

Sex ed (without the sex)

The debate over sex education remains one of the most remarkable and illogical phenomena in modern America. In a society drenched with sex - sex on TV, on the Internet, in magazines, in every imaginable medium - a dedicated core of backward-looking groups and individuals strive mightily to put the genie back in the bottle.

Rather than combating the negatives of the situation with the tools that would most effectively address such an important public health challenge (i.e. education and accurate information) the sex ed opponents work desperately to censor what we tell our curious and already half-informed kids.

It's as if society were to confront the problem of cleanliness in restaurants and cafeterias with a "just say no" approach to germs; No word on what food borne bacteria actually are or how one might properly clean one's person or equipment - just a simple and repetitive message that urges all workers to avoid spreading them and that leaves it up to each establishment to decide for itself how to make that happen.

In the North Carolina General Assembly, this "just say ‘no' to information" approach has ruled the roost for several years. Under current state law, local school districts are strongly discouraged from teaching anything more than the inadequate and dangerous "abstinence only" curriculum. Even if a parent (or group of parents) wants their children taught in a thorough and comprehensive way, the school district cannot provide such information unless it jumps through several burdensome hoops.

This year, in a rare moment of common sense on the subject, the House of Representatives passed a compromise bill that would spare local administrators from making such a burdensome and time consuming decision. Under the bill, parents would be free to opt for the curriculum they want their child to receive: "abstinence only" or comprehensive sexuality education.

Unfortunately, the idea of "parental choice" - something that the right has long clamored for when it comes to school assignment and integration - loses some of its luster when it comes to sex ed. As a result, sex ed opponents have continued to battle the bill - even in its compromise format.

This week, the naysayers succeeded in forcing the compromise bill to be further watered down in a Senate committee. Under the amended version of the bill, all students will again be subjected to the inadequate and dangerous "abstinence only" curriculum. After that, if the parents okay it, kids will also be able to receive additional information about contraceptives and disease control.

In effect, it will be like telling the food service workers: "Just say no to germs. If you have questions, ask your co-worker. Oh and, by the way, there are these things called disinfectants that some people use sometimes."

Even this change, however, was insufficient to satisfy the North Carolina Family Policy Council. It voiced horror that the watered down version would allow parents to permit their children to hear about "all FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved methods" of contraception. 

Saying "yes" to hitting

The debate over corporal punishment features a similar "through the looking glass" quality. As with sex ed, the House passed a bill earlier this spring that emphasizes parental involvement. It would do three main things in the in school districts that continue to permit school officials to strike children:

1) It would require school officials to try and contact parents before administering corporal punishment,

2) It would give parents the option of signing a form at the beginning of the school year to direct that their child or children not be subjected to corporal punishment, and

3) It would require local school officials to keep records and statistics on the kids they hit.

(Note that right now, about half the state's school districts have abolished physical punishment and about half retain it - though because most of the more populous districts have stopped using it, only about 20 to 30% of children still face the prospect of being struck.)

Unfortunately, rather than accede to the compromise solution, opponents fought ardently against the change. As a result, the Senate committee discussion quickly degenerated into an all-too-familiar discussion about "the good old days" in which lawmakers "joked" about the beatings they or other legislators had received while growing up.

Perhaps the low point in the debate came when one senator related that he was opposed to the bill because his wife, a third grade teacher, opposed it.

In other words, a woman who teaches eight and nine year olds is fearful of giving parents a veto over her striking their children or going to the "trouble" of calling them before she does so. How will she manage to cope with such a radical change?

Though, the bill passed the committee unscathed, it has run into strong opposition on the Senate floor and faces an uncertain future.

Reality check

Given the overwhelming social, scientific and common sense evidence of the benefits of providing our kids with more information and less physical abuse in a confused and violent world, it seems certain to be only matter of time before North Carolina abandons state-sponsored beatings and inaccurate sex education in its public schools.

How long it will take is hard to say. History tells us that the fear of change and modernity can be a powerful and persistent political force.

Happily, however, history also teaches that such fears can and will be allayed eventually. We've seen this in North Carolina innumerable times in the past and, indeed, see evidence of it in the current debates as well.

Ultimately, truth is a powerful antidote to fear and reaction. Let's hope proponents of real sex education and an end to corporal punishment keep speaking it regularly.  

 Email This Post  Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Radical Right Reality Check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.