I saw Burn After Reading over the weekend, and reading about York calling up senators and asking them questions just made me think of Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt’s vacant gym instructor characters trying to deal with rather serious people indeed, and as so often happens (now backed up with research!*) so utterly clueless and incompetent as to imagine that they’re doing a wonderful job.

* http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/unskilled.html

“Conservapedia, pulling out another trusty nickel and eyeing his trusty nearby trash can, cocked his hand back, thinking to himself, “I am the night’s unending vengeance.””

Oh, and that’s marvelous.

“Hunt the Mooses To Pieces”

Pretty sure I’m the youngest person here who will get that reference.  Ha!

See, the problem here is that the Democrats who sponsored this bill probably want their children to receive more thorough sex education in school, and the conservatives who oppose these provisions think all fact-based sex ed is icky. If you like the culture war, this story’s right up your alley. If you think more and better sex ed is a good thing, it’s a non-story.

Jumping German Jesus…does ANYBODY fucking LISTEN or PAY ATTENTION anymore?!
Why do I feel like despite the utter tool-osity of the McCain campaign, that they are going to sweep the vote November 4th?
Open your fucking eyes people. Damn. Time to get my freakin passport out.
The thought of Obama NOT winning fills me with so much dread, I can’t even describe it. Perhaps it’s the emotional-ness of youth (I’m 23), but I just can’t stand what is happening with this campaign. No matter how much shit McCain/Palin sling (or how many times they get lambasted, go Barbara Walters) I still see undecided voters that I know leaning towards him!
God…I think I’m going to throw up.

Unrelated, I had a huge crush on Sally when I read the Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid.

Huge.

particularly wanted some sort of contemporaneous account showing that Obama voted for the bill because of its inappropriate-touching provision.

And then…
<blockquote>Now, I’ll give you an example, [Obama said] because I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean. And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age. So, that’s the kind of stuff that I was talking about in that piece of legislation.”<blockquote>

So, basically, this guy got what he wanted, which was an account, fairly recent and about a controversy exactly like this one, that Obama actually did put a lot of thought into the idea of teaching kids about reporting molesters to trusted adults, and he’s still suspicious about his motives on this new bill same as the old bill.  Great work, detective.

Conservatism (of the Nixonland variety, which is about the only kind we have any more) is a mental disorder. It’s really that simple.

The problem these jerks have is that Obama has children who are the age of the target population.  He makes a good show of saying “I do this so that MY children will be safe”.

Kind of steals a fair amount of the moral outrage out of the “he wants to do this to nameless faceless kindergarten children” when those kids happen to be his own.

And in a perfect display of what’s wrong with investigative journalists today, Conservapedia didn’t bother to contact someone who might be involved creating guidelines for enforcing that legislation. Such people are a highly secretive (elected) cabal known in these parts (in hushed whispers) as the Illinois State Board of Education. Their guidelines, cryptically called “standards”, “benchmarks”, and “recommended curricula” are known only to their minions (called “teachers”) and people with access to the Internet.
Do these bozos not understand how policy is implemented? Do they enjoy reading legislation which is usually vague or in barely comprehensible legalese and harassing state senators (bless Senator Martinez, that man has the patience of a saint) when the ISBE has pretty clear guidelines for these things?

Just a thought: many conservatives understand that there are problems like molestation, teen pregnancy, kids who are HIV+, etc.  They just want that all to go away.

What they hate is that people like Obama acknowledge that these problems even exist, and then demand or even engineer ways to mitigate or solve them.  That DOES make the problems go away, but many conservatives don’t want that because the first step in solving a problem is ALWAYS acknowledging that it exists and assessing the magnitude of it. 

That goes outside their comfort zone.  They know these things are out there, but they just want them to go away through magical thinking, or, barring that, conspiracy of silence.

The bill gave parents and guardians the right to take their children out of sex-ed classes by presenting written objections.

This is actually a federal provision for all sexuality and drug education.  I invoke it to pull my son from discredited “abstinence only” curricula such as DARE and the sex education the schools don’t bother with until they are juniors in high school when there are already serious problems.

They are going to OWL at the UU Church instead.  I’m getting resistance, but the deal is that they won’t have to sit through scientifically ineffective drivel at school if they do.

Hey, the cover of that book is showing Encyclopedia Brown as a white boy?  I always thought he was black—his name IS Leroy Brown after all.

Why would kindergarteners need to know about HIV and AIDS?

The same reason they need to know anything:  some day they will grow up and become adults, and people learn things better as children than as grown-ups.

Folks: please help me break this story!

It turns out that the “sex ed for kindergartners” bill that McCain has bashed Obama bill is essentially already Bush administration policy.

The CDC, under Bush, funds an organization (the NASBE) for the sake of producing guidelines on HIV prevention education for state boards of education. Those NASBE guidelines call for HIV education starting in kindergarten. Tennessee’s state board of education follows these guidelines (see page 6). Other states may also follow them, but that’s one socially conservative state already where we have documented proof that the guidelines are followed.

If he’s so bothered about sex ed for kids, why wasn’t McCain trying to stop these guidelines that the Bush administration was promulgating?

This was first reported here.

Apparently the secret decoder glasses provided to all wingnuts turns a sentence like “If children get sex education, it should be medically accurate” to mean “Barack Hussein Obama wants your five-year-old to have gay sex with his HIV-positive imam.”

Last year, Obama’s spokesmouth Bill Burton told MSNBC about Oregon implementing sex-ed guidelines for K-3 students, which itself is based on the guidelines from the group Sexuality Information and Education Council of the Unites States, or SIECUS (the link to the SIECUS guidelines: “http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/SIECUS Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education.pdf”).  If one reads through it, here’s what Obama’s bill could very well have taught kindergarteners, along with how to deal with inappropriate and illegal touching:

*    Both girls and boys have body parts that feel good when touched in a certain manner
*    An explanation of the sexual act
*    Homosexuality
*    Masturbation
*    Diversity
*    How values within a family, a religion, and the culture relate to sex

However, abstinence is not covered at the K - 3 level.  Not surprising with lawmakers who try to discourage abstinence.

Neither Obama or his spokesmouth ever mentions this.  Surprise, surprise.

Steven the Troll:

How does one teach children about inappropriate touching without a mention that it may feel good? 
How do you teach them about inappropriate touching by someone else, without giving them a complex about exploring their own bodies - which may result in them not using appropriate contraception later in life because they were taught in K that touching there is icky?
And how do you talk about the sexual act - which is certainly one form of inappropriate touching - without defining it?

Yep, thought so - you CAN’T do it.

While you’re at it, please answer another question - why are fundies and trolls soooooo dumb that they can’t deal with a complex interrelated question and must break everything down to single issues and black/white answers?

If one reads through it, here’s what Obama’s bill could very well have taught kindergarteners, along with how to deal with inappropriate and illegal touching

And your point is ... what, again?

Sorry, but any parent who is unaware that their kindergarten-age (or younger) child plays around with their genitals is either completely disconnected from their child’s life or punishes the child severely every time they catch them.  They’re not giving instruction in school—they’re pointing out what kids already do is totally normal and explaining to them how pedophiles can take advantage of that.

Sorry, but I’m not willing to go back to the days where boys were forcibly circumcised or girls had theiur clitorises removed as punishment for masturbation.  And I think you’ll find very few people who agree with you that we should go back to those days and pretend that it’s something that every kid does.

D’oh!  That it’s NOT something that every kid does.

What no one seems to mention is that the bill would pave the way for a change in the curriculum that was being taught. The Obama campaign itself referred to SIECUS which does spell out in detail what is considered “age-appropriate”, even for children as young as 5. No matter how you vote or how much you despise the other side of the political coin, please check out the rest of the story at the SIECUS link below and read it in its entirety. Is this curriculum only about protecting young children from inappropriate touching? Is some of this information really appropriate for the age group indicated? If it were YOUR child in the Illinois school system, how would you want your Senator to vote?

http://www.siecus.org/_data/global/images/guidelines.pdf

Of course in Steven the Ill’s lexicon, talking about different family structures = “teaching homosexuality”.

Sorry asshat, but I have young relatives in Oregon schools and you are projecting your foul imagination on this.

Makes you wonder if Steven the Ill is a pedophile and wants his “don’t ask don’t tell” target population back?

phylosopher:

How does one teach children about inappropriate touching without a mention that it may feel good?
How do you teach them about inappropriate touching by someone else, without giving them a complex about exploring their own bodies - which may result in them not using appropriate contraception later in life because they were taught in K that touching there is icky?
And how do you talk about the sexual act - which is certainly one form of inappropriate touching - without defining it?

First off, we’re talking about the government doing this, not parents, who could have had (had this bill been signed into law) their kids opt-out of this education if they filled out the right paperwork.  Second, We’re talking about 5-year old children.  These are children who are just starting out reading and learning about the meaning of words, and you would want to throw this at them?  5-year olds?  Hey, if you want to explain it on your own time as a parent, far be it from me to say anything.  But we’re talking what lawmakers decide they want government schools to teach, not parents.

parents, who could have had (had this bill been signed into law) their kids opt-out of this education if they filled out the right paperwork

Bullshit.  I had no problem at all pulling my kids from that unproven, unscientific waste of time known as “DARE class”.  I will also be removing my son from any and all “abstinence only” sex education, for the same reasons. All I had to do was write a note.

This is federal law, and has been for a great long while.  Does the term “Hatch Amendment” ring a bell there Steve the Ill?

And, yes, I still think that you must be a troll from NAMBLA if you oppose teaching kids these things.

“* Diversity”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Also, how the hell do you teach abstinence without mentioning what they’re supposed to be abstaining FROM? You’ve set up an awesome catch 22 here.

Second, We’re talking about 5-year old children.  These are children who are just starting out reading and learning about the meaning of words, and you would want to throw this at them?

So we’re supposed to leave kids easy prey for molesters because some parents aren’t comfortable discussing these topics with them?  Why do you hate children so much, Steve?

What’s to throw?

At that age, my parents were perfectly fine with teaching me about “sex” in terms of “when grownup people love each other they get married” and “when a woman is going to have a baby, it grows in her tummy” and such, leaving details until later.

In the modern age, saying that some people fall in love and get married to members of the same sex isn’t any sort of stretch, nor does it have to include a value judgement either way. Just saying it happens doesn’t require any further evaluation. Just as my Catholic parents had no issue responding to my questions about people eating meat on Fridays during Lent with “we don’t do that,” parents are free to say that yes, it happens, and they think it is wrong. Just as vegetarian parents are, or orthodox parents, or atheist parents.

Getting the government to hide inconvenient realities so you don’t have to be uncomfortable teaching your children is not the answer.

If it were YOUR child in the Illinois school system, how would you want your Senator to vote?

I would want him or her to vote for it.  I did read it in it’s entirety and there are only three reasons why I think someone could oppose it:  1.  The person is dumb enough to think that explaining basic biological functions (some body parts “feel good;” boys have penises, girls have vaginas; babies are the result of intercourse) won’t be expressed in age appropriate terms.  2.  The person is enough of a prude to think that expressing these facts, even age appropriately, is detrimental to children.  3.  The person is a disingenuous asshole who is looking for any excuse to trash Senator Obama.

So which one are you?

And, yes, I still think that you must be a troll from NAMBLA if you oppose teaching kids these things.

So we’re supposed to leave kids easy prey for molesters because some parents aren’t comfortable discussing these topics with them?  Why do you hate children so much, Steve?

With such insightful questions, how could I resist explaining it?

There are ways to tell 5-year old children about where on the body it is inappropriate for someone to touch, to tell them that this touching is wrong at their age, and that they should tell mom and dad what happened.  If they ask why, then the parents can take it from there if they’re comfortable doing so.  But, as 5-year olds, it isn’t necessary to go into the whys and wherefores of sex and the sexual act until they are mentally and emotionally ready.  I can’t see how not going into the details would stigmatize a 5-year old, provided the parents tell the child that it isn’t the body parts that are “dirty”, but that someone doing this to a 5-year old is.  And there’s no reason a government school should go beyond saying that and referring any why questions to the parents. 

Let me put it this way.  You, as a parent, tell your 5-year old child not to knock over a lamp, and you tell them that it could break if they do that.  Now, do you then give the 5-year old a dissertation on the workings of the incandescent (or other) light bulb and the wiring that makes it work?

Dear Steve,

O.o?
Kids are smarter than you give them credit for. Not teaching them factual sex education becaues they might get TMI (the horror of calling a spade—a spade, or in this case, a vagina—a vagina!) is like assuming a teenager won’t have sex if s/he doesn’t know how to work a condom. Now go hold hands with Ann Coulter and sing a happy happy song.

Love,
Lindsay.

Where on earth did these people get the idea that sexuality is something that is put into children’s heads through evil outside influences?  That child molestation and teen pregnancy will disappear if we would just not say anything ever about sex to them - or if we program them with the “sex is dirty” meme?

Does.not.work.  See also Bristol Palin.

Oh, and my Dad grew up on a farm where we regularly witnessed public sexual acts.  I’m sure he was scarred for life by that knowledge.

My explanation was merely an example of what you could do as parents, not what you should do; I wasn’t making a statement of judgment on anyone as a parent. 

But, I do have another question.  If there’s all this hostility towards me, whom you don’t know at all, from you all believing I was telling you what to do, why isn’t there this same hostility towards a stramger, and a politician, like Barack Obama who wants government schools to do your jobs instead of you?  And don’t tell me he or politicians like him “care” about your children; that answer is a cop out.

Er, no, Steve, we don’t resent you telling us what to do. We resent your opposition to educating children so that they’ll be safe.

Man, I *heart* INTPagan for that post. You only every hear about the “bad” daycare workers out there - good to remember that the majority of them are wonderful.

SteveIl, you’re missing the point. We’re not disagreeing with you because you’re “trying to tell us what to do” - we’re disagreeing with you because you feel that parents are the only ones that should be ever ever ever discussing sex - a basic biological concept - with children. Or disease prevention, or contraception. We have noticed that this approach does not work, that millions of children are sexually active or pregnant before they’re ready. Or abused, or diseased, which should never happen. We, along with someone else who agrees with us, Obama, has presented a solution! That has been proven to work! Offering professional, accurate, age-appropriate instruction on these topics.

I just went, “Oh, okay,” and skipped along my merry childhood way and didn’t worry about it anymore since I knew everything I needed to know.

IIRC, my reaction was along the lines of, “Ewwww, why would anyone want to do that?”  Which is pretty much the reaction you get from most kids until adolescence.

SteveIL, here’s the other thing:  the law provided a no-questions-asked opt-out for parents.  If this law had passed, and you didn’t want your precious little Madison to hear any of that filth, you could opt out.

So now the question becomes, why are you imposing your decision to opt out on all of the other parents at that school?  Why are you insisting that your decision to leave your child in ignorance should be enforced on all of the other children at the school?

I just went, “Oh, okay,” and skipped along my merry childhood way and didn’t worry about it anymore since I knew everything I needed to know.

Ah, the memories.

My parents kept foster babies, and apparently I asked Mom one day how the nice mother-girl could have a baby if she wasn’t married. Mom had to explain that a boy and girl don’t have to be married to make a baby, they just have to be “adults”, or some such thing. I was satisfied with the explanation, apparently, but we were on the way to church and she had to admonish me not to openly declare what I had just learned to everyone. *grin*

The backstory behind THAT being that apparently I had, a few years back, and as soon as we crossed the church threshhold, announced, “We got lice!” when one of the foster babies spread lice to the rest of the family.

Oh, good lord.  My public school had a sex ed program back in the ‘80s that was exactly like what this bill is pushing, and it wasn’t exactly shocking.  In first or second grade, I remember an instructor—maybe a cop—coming in one afternoon and teaching us to tell a trusted adult if someone touched us in a way that made us uncomfortable.  No graphic details, just the idea that adults didn’t have the right to molest us.  We had full sex ed in fifth grade.  It was taught by a stern nurse, probably on loan from Akron General, and, no, it was not remotely erotic.

This licentious curriculum caused me to turn to prostitution at age five.  Oh, wait, no it didn’t.

The only difference I can see between what I grew up with and the bill Obama supported is that the new version includes room for education about HIV and gay families.  Why?  Because HIV and gay families are now things kids are likely to have questions about.  If there’s a kid in the school with openly gay parents, it’s useful for the school to be able to explain that.  If the playground is abuzz with rumors about how Jacob totally has AIDs and you can get it from using the toilet after him, teachers should be able to clear up the misinformation.

Yes, yes, I know, but sex is filthy and evil and our innocent children would never even guess that it exists if we didn’t tell them, and pedorasts wouldn’t exist either if we didn’t teach children to report them.  I can feel brain cells die as I argue.

Of course the world never changes, slang terms for drugs are the same as they were 30 years ago, pressures and peer stuff is always the same, culture never changes, parents can direct their children’s sex lives, kids never lie or embargo information from parents, kids can always ask parents anything, the earth is flat, parents will always know the right answers, kids will always listen to parents over culture and peers, and purple unicorns ate my garden last night.

That right?  Well, I say it is, so therefore it MUST be!

My sister is an elementary school teacher. Last year she taught fourth grade. She had to have private discussions with several students about wearing appropriate clothes to school because she would have girls come in t-shirts that were not long enough to be dresses and tights that were too sheer to be leggings. Guess why? Because their parents didn’t stop them from going to school dressed like that. Did the parents not notice? not care? or had they already left for work before the kids left for school and wouldn’t return from job #2 until the kids were home and in bed? Regardless, if a teacher had to make sure they weren’t showing their underwear or more, someone other than a parent probably also needed to make sure that these girls were getting age-appropriate sex ed too. Fortunately she’s in a part of the country that is not puritanical about sex and she doesn’t have her hands tied by abstinence-only curricula. Time that is scheduled for anything other than math and reading so that we have critical thinkers with an understanding of history and science and not just ones who can add, well, that’s a different topic.

Years ago I was a middle school teacher. I taught a girl who chose me as the adult to tell that she was being raped by her father. He was also the only parent she lived with. I am grateful that I taught in a school system that taught the students about appropriate and inappropriate sexual attention and not just “don’t do it.” And didn’t leave it up to the parents. That would have done this girl no good. I don’t know that CPS ultimately helped her either, but at least she knew to tell someone who would advocate for her since her parent was the predator and not the protector.

When I was a kid, reading age-appropriate books, sometimes the more daring characters would take a blood oath—they each made a small cut, on their fingers, I think, and smeared the wounds against each other.

What with HIV (and hepatitis, and who knows what else) out there in the world, I think it would be very age-appropriate to teach kids you don’t get one wound in contact with another because germs can spread that way that are much nastier than catching someone’s cold. You could even show how to do first aid care if you have a cut hand, using a sandwich bag to shield the injuries from each other while working. *That* would be age-appropriate HIV prevention for the children.

Again, you all are reading things into parts of what I’ve said instead of the whole thing.  First off, we’re talking 5-year olds, not pre-teens and teenagers.  Second, I’ve never said that a government school shouldn’t assist the parents in telling 5-year olds about what is inappropriate touching.  If you look at the third comment I put in, I do just that.  This is also in line with what the Obama campaign is saying what they wanted with the bill in question; plus, I noted already that it has an opt-out feature.  However, I reject the Obama campaign’s argument that this was nothing more than what they were calling age-appropriate sex education for 5-year olds.  Obama’s spokesmouth refers to the SIECUS guidelines that clearly shows what they believe 5-year old children should be taught in government schools, and it goes way beyond protecting children from pedophiles.

One of the things I see in these comments is that the parents here don’t have a problem with a more comprehensive sex-ed curriculum, even at an early age.  Fine.  But as you all can see, there are others who disagree with that idea, and disagree vehemently.  These parents are probably just as loving to their children as you all are, and believe they shouldn’t be told how to parent their children as you all believe you shouldn’t be told how to parent your children.  This is why even government-run education in this country needs to have control remain at the local level.  Parents then have a greater chance to look at the curriculum choices available and elect people (a school board) to implement those choices.  Once it gets beyond the local level, and is moved to the state and/or federal government, the government then takes away that choice from the parents.

Now, I went to elementary school in the Appalachians, and maybe it was the Clinton Years talking - I was in 3rd grade in 1992 - but for whatever reason my elementary school did a lot of AIDs education. In the third grade, we were taught that it’s safe to hug people with AIDs but if someone’s bleeding all over the place you should let an adult with gloves on handle the situation. I call that pretty age-appropriate.

Here are the age appropriate guidelines for sex education from the Oregon Department of Education, which the Obama spokesman referred to. They were (loosely) based on the SIECUS K-12 program

A. Grades K-3:
1. Good touch, bad touch
2. Understanding body parts, proper anatomical names, stages in basic
growth process
3. Communicable/non-communicable diseases, the concept
4. Behaviors that reduce the spread of communicable diseases (washing
hands, not sharing eating utensils, using Kleenex)
5. Accepting of their uniqueness and a positive regard for themselves and
others
6. Recognize risk behaviors (sharing body fluids) and methods of prevention
7. Unsafe objects (needles, broken glass, drug paraphernalia)
8. Refusal skills, role playing
9. Personal hygiene
10. Emotional development