Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 1:14:22 PM
I owe you a follow-up after having defended The One on this last week. FactCheck says the ad’s unfair,
partly because the bill never passed and therefore doesn’t qualify as
an “accomplishment” and partly because it did include language, as
Obama’s long asserted, that each grade level’s sex-ed classes should be
age-appropriate. Indeed it did, says York. But it also said this:
The old law read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any
of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention,
transmission and spread of AIDS.
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.
He tracked down the five state senators who sponsored the bill —
only one of whom would talk to him, natch — to see how honest Obama’s
been in stressing that the thrust of the bill was to teach kids how to
recognize molestation
In fact, the bill was a comprehensive overhaul of the state’s sex ed
curriculum, replete with replacing language about teaching abstinence
as the “expected norm” with language about abstinence being just one
method of preventing pregnancy. Read York for details. My question’s
simply this: How do we square the passage on teaching kindergarteners
about STDs, which is located in subsection (a) of the bill, with the age-appropriate language in subsection (c)? Quote:
All sex education courses that discuss sexual activity or behavior intercourse shall satisfy the following criteria:
(1) Factual information presented in course material and instruction shall be medically accurate and objective.
(2) All … course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate.
Obama shills are ignoring the STD clause while Team Maverick’s
ignoring the age-appropriate clause, the better to make it seem like
The One endorses interrupting sandbox time for show-and-tell sessions
involving rolling condoms onto a banana. Alas, they’re both in the
bill, leaving us to wonder what sort of information on AIDS and
syphilis is “developmentally appropriate” for five-year-olds. The most
charitable explanation I can come up with it is that the lessons on
inappropriate touching are themselves a form of STD prevention: E.g.,
“Don’t let the bad man make you touch him down there. Not only is it
wrong, but you could get sick.” Any alternate theories?