What Sex Educators Really Think

Not long ago, the Georgia legislature passed a sex education bill. But when it crossed the governor's desk, he saw a sentence in the bill that said, "No instruction . . . shall encourage violation of Georgia law"—and he vetoed the bill.   Hold on a minute. Are we to believe a governor vetoed a bill because it forbade schools to encourage law-breaking? That's what the news reports tell us. But what you need to understand is that in Georgia there are laws on the books against fornication, adultery, and homosexual relations. So the governor's veto was not really about law-breaking so much as about sexual morality, and what should be taught in public schools. On one side of the controversy are parents—the parents who worked with legislators to draft and pass the bill that the governor vetoed. Their philosophy is that in sexual matters there are standards of right and wrong, and that children ought to be taught those standards. On the other side of the controversy are professionals in health and education, who say that teaching any one set of standards is "biased." For example, many Georgia parents want a curriculum that teaches teens to reserve sex for marriage. But a governor-appointed panel voted the proposal down. The professionals on the panel said teaching that sex is for marriage discriminates against singles and homosexuals. The language of civil rights is being used to promote what is really unabashed moral relativism. In fact, moral relativism has reared its head throughout the Georgia controversy. It all began when the state issued a training manual that contained some very revealing phrases. For example, listen to this sentence from the manual: "Those who live in America have an inalienable right to diversity." In context, that word diversity referred to diverse sexual practices, from promiscuity to homosexuality. But since when did polymorphous sexuality become an "inalienable right"? Which Declaration of Independence have these sex educators been reading? Listen to another quotation: "Avoid the use of the word 'normal' when answering questions." Here the manual is instructing teachers not to confer special legitimacy on any one sexual practice by calling it normal—nor to label any other practice as abnormal. In other words, teachers are not to hold up any standard as normative. Here's a truly revealing quotation: "The teacher is the major person to help the child understand the behaviors that are and are not considered acceptable." Every parent ought to react viscerally to that kind of statement. The teacher is not "the major person" to teach children what is acceptable. Teachers should play a supportive role to the child's own parents. When parents in Georgia caught wind of all this, they protested vigorously, and the training manual has now been withdrawn for revision. Nevertheless, the episode was a tip of the hand revealing the way many sex educators really think. Hats off to the parents of Georgia who were alert enough to catch the manual before it was put into use. Each of us needs to be just as diligent in calling the educational establishment to accountability, wherever we live. Schools are meant to serve parents, not to supplant them.

02/8/93