PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Sex education has become the most hotly debated topic in American elementary education. In recent months, a carefully orchestrated campaign led by political conservatives has embroiled one school district after another across the nation in angry argument over sex courses. State legislatures have argued the subject; school-board and P.T.A. meetings have been disrupted by angry opponents of sex education, who have sometimes labeled its advocates Communist sympathizers and proponents of "psychological VD." The nationwide offensive against sex education was a major topic at this month's annual convention of the National Education Association, which passed a resolution strongly reaffirming its support for the courses.
The attack on sex education began last fall with the publication of an angry little pamphlet called "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?" This diatribe was produced by the Christian Crusade of Tulsa, a right-wing, anti-Communist organization headed by Fundamentalist Preacher Billy James Hargis. The pamphlet focused on the Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S., a non-profit health organization that advises schools on sex-education courses. The council's director, Dr. Mary S. Calderone, a nationally recognized authority on sex education, was accused of "tossing God aside . . . to teach American youth a new sex morality independent of church and state," and of telling young people about "their right to enjoy premarital intercourse . . . if they so desire."
Filthy Plot. The Crusade's crusade was quickly taken up by the John Birch Society, whose founder, Robert Welch, decided that sex education was a "filthy Communist plot," akin to community fluoridation plans. So far, communities in 35 states have become embroiled in disputes over sex courses, inspired by such colorfully named parents' organizations as Sanity of Sex (S.O.S.), Parents Against Universal Sex Education (PAUSE), and the Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE). Although the unsubtle hand of the Christian Crusade and the Birch Society can be detected in most of these groups, the campaign against sex education has enlisted the support of many concerned citizens without right-wing affiliations who oppose the courses on religious or psychological grounds.
Opponents of sex education raise a wide variety of charges—some plausible, some not—against the courses. At the lowest level, the attacks consist of nothing more than innuendoes that the teachers involved are degenerates eager to seduce youngsters into a life of blatant immorality. A more serious argument is that such courses are too specific, too early and too stimulating. Miami Psychiatrist James Parsons, for example, actively opposes any sex education in primary schools because "there is a latency period, between the age of six and the time of puberty, of sexual interest." Forcing sex education on children in this period can cause them to "become overstimulated and obsessed" and can "produce perversion in adults." Still other critics of the courses argue that the schools are illicitly taking over an educative function that properly belongs in the home or with the churches.