Science or Sex: Which Does the Right Hate More?

http://www.alternet.org/story/155999/science_or_sex%3A_which_does_the_right_hate_more/

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A principal in Onalaska, Wash., was accused of “raping” her fifth-grade students. Not actually — this isn’t a case of, you know, rape-rape but rather rape as an inappropriate metaphor: “rape” by sex ed. James Gilliland, the parent of an 11-year-old girl who took C.J. Gray’s class on the birds and the bees, told Seattle’s KING 5 News: “It’s basically the same as raping a kid’s mind and taking their innocence.”

What got this father and other parents so fired up? In a recent lesson on HIV, Gray answered a student’s question about what oral sex and anal sex are. Onalaska superintendent Scott Fenter told KING 5, “She only gave factual information, no demonstrations.” Gray herself told Centralia, Wash.’s Chronicle, “It was very factual and it was dropped. I did not demonstrate it.” Yes, despite at least two parents likening her answering of kids’ questions to child molestation — and others inundating her with angry phone calls and letters — she did not actually demonstrate the act; there were no photos or videos, either. It was just a matter-of-fact explanation of the basic mechanics.

This small-town story has garnered national attention — and, of course, lit up conservative sites like Glenn Beck’s the Blaze and anti-choice outlets like LifeNews.com — because the backlash isn’t just about these kids or their hyperbolic parents; it’s really about a larger culture war, as well as fundamental, bipartisan fears about kids and sex. It’s a case study on the parental terror, ignorance and sometimes willful blindness that often accompanies the fight against comprehensive sex education.

The curriculum Gray was using, the Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH) program, was developed in the state — despite conservatives’ claims that it was the result of Planned Parenthood’s “puppet-mastery.” The lesson plan for the HIV portion of the fifth- and sixth-grade classes explains, “We use the term ‘sexual intercourse’ as an umbrella expression to represent all three risky sexual behaviors: oral, anal and vaginal intercourse,” it says. “These will be spelled out in later grades.” But here’s the important part: “That’s not to say that you can’t define them simply if students ask about them.” That’s exactly what Gray did: A student asked about oral and anal sex, and she responded with a straightforward description.