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Supporters of sex courses include an impressive variety of medical, religious and governmental groups. While they are in agreement that the basic responsibility for teaching children about sex rests with parents, many educators add that too many parents have abdicated their responsibilities, because of incompetence or neglect. Answering persistent complaints that the courses prematurely draw attention to sex, Dr. Calderone points out: "Sex is so intrusive and our culture is so permeated with sexual messages that planned and relevant sex-education programs are vital now." As for Parsons' argument about the latency period, she argues that "sex is so ubiquitous now that the child is getting sexual information from the time of birth."
According to a recent Gallup poll, 71% of adult Americans approve of sex education in one form or another. Under the concerted conservative attack, the programs are being questioned and even halted in many areas. Notably, boards of education in three California cities have been sued because of sex courses by citizen groups charging invasion of privacy. Legislators in Arizona, California, Iowa, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma have recently debated the merits of sex-education programs. Last May, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller approved a conservative-backed law withholding state funds from sex education courses, and a similar bill has been proposed in Congress to withhold federal monies. Tennessee has adopted a new law making it a misdemeanor for a teacher to present sex courses without prior approval of both the state government and local boards of education.
Health and Development. The very term "sex education" is a trifle misleading, because almost all programs include sex courses only as part of a broader study of health and human development. To be sure, the courses and their teachers vary considerably both in quality and competence. Typically, the programs include study of family living, growth, hygiene and, in the higher grades, responsible social behavior, the hazards of indiscriminate relationships and premarital sex, as well as basic facts about the reproductive system and its purpose. In many schools, parents can request that their children not participate.
The strongest opposition to sex courses comes from the middleaged; more often than not, it reflects their discontent with the changes taking place in a world different from that in which they grew up. The schools, for their part, are obviously not responsible for creating today's sexual revolution; they are merely trying to help students cope with it. To eliminate these courses is to deny many children access to essential knowledge that can ease their difficult psychic transition from adolescence to adulthood.