According to a story on cnn.com, teachers in Juneau County Wisconsin are being warned that if they teach kids the sex education curriculum specified by law, they could find themselves facing charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Because the law requires teachers to instruct children not only about contraceptives but about how to use them, Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth said, schools are forced to encourage students to “engage in sexual behavior, whether as a victim or an offender.”
And since minors can’t legally have sex in Wisconsin, teachers would essentially be endorsing the behavior and could be held liable, Southworth said in the letter.
Yeah, Scott. Better that the kids should find out about safe sex from their doctor when he’s treating them for some STD or from their OB/GYN after they get pregnant. This reminds me of Texas conservatives objecting to HPV vaccine because it could eliminate the cervical cancer that they consider to be a handy deterrent to teen sex. Next we’ll be telling teens they can’t use seat belts because it encourages reckless driving.
The law doesn’t force any schools to teach the sex education classes, but it sets out strict guidelines on what should be taught in the schools that choose to do so. The law passed narrowly in the legislature and was the topic of a fierce battle between Republicans and Democrats: No Republicans voted for it, and it was signed by a Democratic governor.
Has anyone else noticed how the two political parties seem to be so completely absorbed with fighting each other that common sense is completely lost? If one party came up with a way to cure cancer, the other party would oppose it simply because it wasn’t their cure.
Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, a Democrat, told the Wisconsin State Journal that she believes there’s no problem with the law.
She said Southworth, a Republican, is a “zealot” who wrote the letter to try to scare people out of teaching the sexual education classes.
Well, you know, all serious crime has probably been eliminated in Wisconsin, so prosecutors have nothing else to do but target teachers.
“The teacher could be charged with the crime even if the child does not actually engage in the criminal behavior [of having sex as a minor],” Southworth wrote.
If democrats really wanted to do something positive with their legislative majority on Wisconsin, they’d grow a set of balls and scrap the law that turns kids into criminals for having sex.
