Back in May, Bill Scher wrote a short post about abstinence only funding from the Federal government:

CQ reports that congressional leaders, spooked by the “tricky” politics of sex ed, plan the let funding expire without “calling attention” to it.

The politics of sexuality educations actually aren’t that tricky.  Overwhelming majorities of American parents favor comprehensive sexuality education, which discusses abstinence and teaches students the facts about contraception.  In Talk about Sex, by Janice Irvine, she discusses the ways in which conservative activists have spent decades creating a recognizable language and tactics for opposing sex education – at first any and all sex education and later comprehensive sex education.  Irvine reflected on the ways in which the same stories and language cropped up in school districts nationwide.  In recent years, conservatives have slightly altered their tactics – they continue with the same discursive opposition, but have now added paeans to the endless joys of abstinence (I tried removing the snark, but once it’s there it won’t completely come out).  Consider:

. . . congressional policymakers would know why sexual abstinence is the singular message our youth need to hear, a message that points to the path that guarantees that the hopes and dreams of our teens will not be derailed by the consequences of sexual activity.

. . . Please, we would love to have you, our congressional member, or one of the members of your staff come and visit our classes and see for yourselves. If you see it, you will know the truth of what is happening in abstinence education, the truth and support given teens in choosing to remain sexually abstinent, securing their healthiest and happiest futures . . .

These quotes, from Jane Jimenez, perfectly exemplify the ways in which conservatives argue about sexuality – just come and see how happy everyone is when they’re not having the sex and they’re talking about not having the sex.

In Bill Scher’s original post he made the point that you build trust in government by funding effective programs and by revamping or ending programs that fail to produce results.  Republicans love to trot out the old chestnut that no program can ever be ended once begun; that statement is of course untrue; the public won’t support simply ending programs upon which people rely, but we will support changing them to make them serve better and be more cost effective.

The evidence against abstinence only sexuality education is overwhelming and continues to mount.  Not only are the programs ineffective, in most cases they contain inaccurate, misleading and outright false information, as well as gender stereotypes:

The report, released Dec. 1, 2004 by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif), examined 13 of the most popular abstinence-only curricula, which are taught to millions of children between the ages of nine and 18. Of these, 11 were found to include patently “false, misleading, or distorted information,” such as the following gems: half of gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for AIDS; pregnancy can result from touching another person’s genitals; and women who have abortions are more prone to suicide and sterility.

Within the larger context of failed conservative policies, these programs are just one more example of the ways in which conservative social policy utterly fails to meet the needs of real live Americans and prefers advocating their morals to effective government programs.

The politics of sex education have been driven by cultural conservative opposition to honest discussion of sexuality.  Consider this post from the Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog which seems to perfectly capture the worldview.

The sex education children receive in public schools is part of a worldview agenda that has major consequences not only on the lives of every young person,  but the entire culture. I read a poll in which, when asked if the country was headed in the right direction morally, 69% said NO! Value neutral sex is a myth. The safe sex demagoguery is a myth,  Their studies are financed by Planned Parenthood and the radical left. Their accuracy is a myth. Nothing will
determine the future of America more than this subject. License is not liberty. It is molestation of the minds of our kids using tax dollars. It is indoctrination of the pathology of perversion. The question is: Should the subject of sex be left to Planned Parenthood, Playboy, pornographers, left wing politicians, pundits and perverts?

The language of the post is deliberately provocative – and deliberately confuses a wide array of issues.  Notice the way in which the post deliberately misleads about comprehensive sexuality education – asserting that it teaches “value neutral” sex.  The post declares that sex education is molestation, that it teaches perversion; that sex education is about pornography.  When this sort of statement is made in a school board meeting, people hear a few key words (perversion, molestation, pornographers) and any attempts at rational discussion vanish.  These statements are intended to serve one purpose and one alone: to push people’s emotions to a fever pitch.  They normally succeed.  People are scared for their kids where sex and sexuality are concerned.  Most people carry emotional scars from their sexualitiy, experiences they want their kids to avoid.  By deliberately evoking negative emotions, opponents of comprehensive sexuality education make any policy discussion painful.  The tactic is brilliant and works at two levels; ab-only advocates may not get what they want, but they also make certain comprehensive sex ed doesn’t happen and that proponents are fearful of bringing up the topic again.

A story common in conservatives circles – and trotted out whenever sex education comes up – relates an entirely fictional account of a teacher demonstrating how to perform oral sex on students.  The story first appeared in the 60s through the John Birch society and has bubbled around conservatives circles for years.  These narratives deliberately mislead parents about the content of comprehensive sexuality education, play on their fears about their children’s sexuality, and introduce a volatile emotional aspect to the debate.  Advocates of comprehensive sexuality education are accused of believing teachers should demonstrate how to have oral sex in class.  The tactics are not geared to foster discussion.

Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats have proven themselves incapable of dealing with the dishonest tactics and have voted to increase funding for abstinence only.  From Debra Haffner’s blog:

the House DEMOCRATIC leadership has just INCREASED funding for ineffective, moralistic abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. They have developed a “compromise” about the bodies and futures of America’s young people. This, despite, their own Congressionally mandated study, released a few months ago, that these programs don’t work to help young people abstain.

It’s never really about young people — or promises of “prevention first.” Let’s remember that it was the Clinton administration that gave us welfare reform, “don’t ask, don’t tell”, and oh, abstinence-only programs in the first placeMy faith tells me that young people deserve so much more. We have a moral obligation to truth telling, to giving young people life fulfilling and life saving information. How sad that political dealing caused the Democrats in Congress to turn their backs on the nation’s young people.

Feministing has the best summation of the legislation:

 ”Yes! Contraception is important and it works! But shhhh… don’t tell the children.”

Over at Reproductive Health Reality Check, they offer these choice words:

Is this just more of the weak-excuse-for-a-stance “middle-ground” that Hillary proposed when talking about abortion? Are we willing to give this “special consideration” with the understanding that politics is really just a big game?

Abstinence-only funding does not begin and end in a House chamber in Washington, DC. The funding is a stream that flows from public school to public school throughout this country ending up in the hearts and minds of the young people who are unlucky enough to be the recipients of this kind of ideology-based “education.” So while we all debate the merits of whether or not this kind of a negotiation is really necessary, our young people are still left without the tools they need to protect their health and navigate their sexual lives successfully.

This “compromise” is exactly what’s wrong with Washington DC inside the beltway we’re all just a bunch of friends politics that far too God Damn many Democrats believe represents serious policy making.  The idea that if we’re all serious we’ll be bipartisan ignores the Republican party’s tendency for fantasy based policy.

The only comfort I’m taking has to do with the way in which Dems are seemingly reversing the Mexico City Policy approach – they’re apparently cutting internatonal abstinence only funding.  When people don’t complain about that then they’ll start working on the domestic policy.