Once again, dear blog readers, I’ve neglected you. I’ve been meaning to write about this story since it first appeared in our Gannett fishwrap, but I’ve been way too swamped with other stuff. Since then Betsy at Pith and ThinkProgress have covered this, so hit those links if you want more info.
The bottom line is, some Fundiegelical conservative abstinence clowns somehow got approval to give a sex misinformation assembly at Nashville’s Hillsboro High, which happens to be the high school my kids would be attending had Mr. Beale and I not decided to stick a fork in Jesus’ eye and avoid breeding this lifetime. I know, how un-Christian of us.
The assembly was full of crackpot ideas, such as:
All medical textbooks say life begins at conception.
… and ….
Having sex with eight partners would be the equivalent of drinking a whole classroom’s spit…
… and ….
[…] “fetus” means the same thing as “baby” …
…. and ….
[…] a grim picture of the various types of abortion: dismembered fetuses, punctured uterine walls, bleeding for 8-9 weeks, death.
… and ….
As for adoption — never discourage it, she tells the class. Don’t even use the term “give up” the baby. If a girl says she’s pregnant, send her to the nurse, and she should start taking prenatal vitamins.
… and my absolute favorite:
If a girl becomes a single mom to a boy, she says: “Who’s going to do all those things that men like to do with men? Hunting, fishing, playing ball, all those things that teach them how to be a man and setting those boundaries?”
Got that fellas? So, if you don’t like to hunt, fish or play ball, you are not a man! You’re some kind of girly-man, sissified by your single mom. And Jesus hates you.
I’m trying to imagine how an assembly like this would have been greeted in my day. Back in the ’70s when I was in high school, these ladies would have left our classroom pulling spitwads and chewing gum from their hair, their model fetus baby reduced to shards and their Hope Center flyers transformed into origami 747s.
Of course, that was a more innocent age. Today kids record these assemblies on their cell phones and take it to the media. Bravo, unnamed student. My hat’s off to you.
I mean, I’m just trying to imagine what these kids thought when they heard this stuff about “who’s gonna teach your boy how to hunt and fish” and all. Did these ladies not think there might not be a few sons of single moms in the audience? What incredible idiots.
What’s really scary is that one of the presenters, Beth Cox, is a member of the Sumner County School Board. Cox is also on the board of directors for the organization which brought this nonsense to a Davidson County high school, Decisions, Choices and Options. Though the group claims everything they teach is “medical, fatual information,” the group has just one doctor on its board of directors: Dr. Bryan Bondurant, a veterinarian and failed conservative Republican candidate for Congress.
Hilarious. How did these Sumner County hayseeds get on the list of approved presenters in Metro Nashville schools in the first place? This stuff they’re selling isn’t medical, factual information! It’s an ideologically-driven misinformation campaign. In case y’all missed it, you lost the culture wars. Now fuck off.
My mom went to Catholic boarding school back in the 1940s. This is exactly the kind of “sex ed” kids of her generation were given. She told me the Jesuits taught that at the condom factory, one out of every 10 condoms is given a pin-prick. I asked her, “Did anyone ask the priests why a condom factory would do that?” No, she said. It didn’t occur to them.
That really was a more innocent age, when teenagers were a bit more gullible — though no less inclined to engage in sexual exploration. Kids today are a little savvier. And I’m glad at least one had the forethought to blow the lid off this ridiculous excuse for “education.” Now, let’s yank these clowns off the “approved” list for Nashville’s public schools. Because at the very least, our kids deserve factual information, not religious views and pseudo-science.
Southern Beale 
It irritates the snot out of me when I hear suggestions that it is a woman’s duty to produce a child for adoption. Now I think adoption can be a great thing, but it’s about homes for kids, not kids for homes. Nobody has a duty to be someone else’s incubator.
Well said. Also, no one ever addresses the issue of what it’s like to give a child up for adoption. I’ve read some incredibly painful personal stories. They act like everything’s fine and a birth mother just carries on as if nothing ever happened. Meanwhile, women who choose abortion are wracked with pain and guilt, suicidal thoughts, etc. It simply is not an accurate portrait AT ALL.
“Drinking a whole classroom’s spit”?
The odds of high-schoolers having acquiring other tastes (so to speak) is pretty damn high. After that, spit doesn’t seem like such a big deal, does it?
Please, someone, get me video. This threatens to be a gigglerific speech.
Video (it’s audio, actually) is at the link. Enjoy.
I think it’s time for a remake.
If Mel Brooks is unavailable someone else will have to helm, “Flaming Assholes”.
Scene:
After a particularly rancorous school board meeting, a secular biology teacher is being “mentored” by his older, cynical colleague (I could so BE that guy!) who says:
“So, what were you expectin’, SonnyJim? Did you think that the local pastor was gonna say, “Hey, you seem like a nice atheist, why don’t you marry my daughter?”.
These are the people of the new endtimes, Jim, the common clay of the second coming, y’know, MORONS.”
This bit about it being great to be adopted really irks me. I have family in Indiana, and whenever I go back for family re-unions the adoptions are always called out. Fergawdsake, it’s as if it were their middle name: “This is Beth, Nana’s adopted daughter.” Why the constant reminder? Are we focussing on Nana’s benevolence or reminding Beth of her second class standing?
As for “all those things men like to do with other men,” I just about spit out my cola. My Uncles taught me the hunting and fishing. But there was this special cousin, two grades ahead of me and in High School J-
ROTC who taught me about playing with his balls. Does that make me a real man too?
Oh. My. Gawd.
The absolute worst abuse I ever heard of in terms of letting an inappropriate speaker into a school assembly happened long ago, when I was a community newspaper editor. Some genius at one of the high schools we covered decided it would be a good idea to bring in a “Christian” speaker who was actually a representative of a cult. This was a very long time ago and I no longer remember the cult’s name, but it was an honest-to-God (ahem) cult, that kept kids in an isolated compound/commune and basically made them slave labor for Jeebus. It was busted a few years later and the leader arrested (can’t remember if it was the same asswipe who came to the school).
What especially infuriated me was that they actually managed to lure a few of the students over to that, literally, Godforsaken place, and I happened to know the backstory of one of the girls. She had been raped for years by her bastard from hell of a father (a village police officer), impregnated and forced to have an abortion. When this came to light and the bastard went to prison, her bitch from hell of a mother sided with him and drove the daughter out of the house. She ran to that cult compound from foster care. Of course Mr. Culty had laid in a big dose of pro-life twaddle at that school assembly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that got to the girl. I wish some of the public school administrators in this country would go out and grow brains.
That is a horrible story. Gawd.
Every time — every. single. time — I hear that ol’ “you have to have a daddy to do that” remark, this single mother of two fine, upstanding young men, who was widowed just in time to raise them through adolescence alone, wants to SCREAM. Is it hard work? Oh, hell yes! But we made it, through Little League, high school, football, JROTC (which one of my sons did really well in), two tours in Iraq, etc., etc. I had been the sole support of the family for years before, so I worked through it, too, because I didn’t have a choice. Easy? Nossirree, Bob. But if we could do it, so can anyone else in the same situation who’s determined to make it work, whether the kid’s an infant or a teen. Yep. Like a fish needs a bicycle. Sorry for the rant, but that one REALLY sticks in my craw. It makes me want to smash stuff that I can ill-afford to replace.
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