But What's the Plan?

Here's just a little something, just a question, really; some discussions in our comments section leave me wondering about some stuff.

Let's say you don't like gay people. OK, there are lots of people like that, they think it's wrong, they think it's gross and dirty, they think gay people spread diseases or are immoral, they think everybody should be "normal," they think gay people are all sissies, or whatever. Some people just feel weird about it and don't have any reason.

Given that, what would be your recommendations for a sex education class?

That's the question here, not whether it's cool or not, but what the schools should teach.

The schools teach about communism and fascism, viruses and plagues, wars, slavery, and irrational numbers without a second thought, so there is obviously nothing wrong with talking about things that are un-nice. Nobody complains about that stuff, ever. Learning about communism doesn't turn you into a communist, and you can even learn about it without approving of it.

What would possibly be wrong with teaching students to identify some of the major dimensions of sexual variation? So they learn that some boys and some girls are more masculine and some are more feminine -- so what? They know that anyway, intuitively, we are simply giving them some terminology to use, and giving them a way to think about it clearly. So they learn that some men are attracted to other men, and some women to women -- so what? It's a fact, even if you think gay people are terrible, mean, and nasty. So what could be wrong with discussing a simple fact of the real world?

Does anybody really think that if you don't talk about it, it will go away?

Does anybody think it is better not to know about things, that ignorance is somehow preferable to knowledge?

Or do they really think that learning about homosexuality in health class will make children gay? They do say that, but can anybody really mean it?

It's all fine for people to parade their indignation, to go to the school board and the media and tell everyone that their moral values are so lofty that they find these concepts to be simply reprehensible. But they can't really say these things don't exist, and they can't say they would exist less if we didn't talk about them.

The important thing: simply expressing moral outrage doesn't give us any information about how to teach the topic in school.

Without any plan of action, an observer might conclude that the whole point in complaining is for them to assert their own superiority.

The Montgomery County school district had a good plan, a curriculum outline that was very moderate, that brought up important topics without dwelling on them, that gave students information in a cool, objective way that would have empowered them to make smart decisions about themselves and the world around them. This plan would have made our children happier, healthier, and wiser. It was supposed to go into production this year, but instead the county has had to wait while a small group of moralistic crybabies complained.