Misguided sexual education does more harm than good

After the passage of the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Mississippi, a state with one of the highest birth rates in the country is requiring educators to teach abstinence in the place of more comprehensive sexual education programs.

In addition to this legislation, anti-homosexual rhetoric is required by law in the classroom, the product of a controversial bill signed into law last week.

Teachers in Mississippi are now required to convey to students that homosexual intercourse is “unnatural” and an “abominable crime,” stated an MSNBC article.

The author, Amanda Sakuma explains that while teachers may have an opportunity to opt out of such a program, they cannot go against the state’s anti-sodomy statute.

In Oxford, a similar case has been brought to the attention of the public. A worker in public health from that district expressed her disgust at her school’s sex education program as students were promoted to open up a Peppermint Pattie and pass it around to other students while being told to study how dirty the candy became.

The health worker, in an interview with the LA Times, stated “they’re using the Peppermint Pattie to show that a girl is no longer clean or valuable after she’s had sex.”

All the while, Mississippi has an exceptionally high rate of teen pregnancy and is second in the nation for teen birth rates. The state’s birth rate indicated 50 out of 1,000 girls from the ages 15-19 had a child this year.

It does not take a scientist to understand that minuscule sexual education and abstinence-only programs do little to teach young students about sexual health and the consequences of sexual activity.

When a young teen’s only understanding of sex comes from a teacher monotonously reading prewritten dialogue about homosexuality and abstinence, they are going to enter the adult world with no reliable or valuable knowledge.

Telling someone not to engage in a certain activity does little to deter them from doing so. Without explaining why and indicating how it is important, students will form their own preconceived, oftentimes wrong and outlandish notions and take unnecessary risks.

As I have stated in a previous article, religious liberties are important, and the freedom to practice whatever religion you choose should be an inalienable right. However, I cringe at the idea of teaching an impressionable child to believe that homosexuality is evil and an abomination of human civilization.

Students should be taught the biological implications of sexual activity, not certain religious ideology. The separation of church and state is important, and students would benefit greatly from a comprehensive sexual education program that would teach them the consequences of sex and give them the knowledge they need to practice sex safely.

Shame, guilt and fear do not properly prepare children for the adult world.

It is not just a state like Mississippi that would benefit from this. All states, including South Dakota, would benefit from programs that teach students about their bodies specifically.

The purpose of a sexual education program is to teach the students how to approach sex and everything that comes with it, not to make them feel guilty for their sexual orientation or their sexual habits.

A more educated population means less teenage pregnancy. It is that simple. Once we accept that sexual education is important to the lives of the children in our state and in other states, we can begin to rectify the problems that plague our country.