Threats to Arrest Sex-Ed Teachers?

This article is about a month old, but it is worth reviewing, especially as a contrast to the Canadian sex education article I posted a few days ago. The Healthy Youth Act, recently passed in Wisconsin, attempts to establish a more comprehensive, and successful, sexual education curriculum (though vague language, lots of 'may's and 'if's, may harm this goal). The law requires any such sexual education program to include "age-appropriate" material, such as the proper use of birth control; it does, however, have a built-in political and legal buffer, both permitting schools not to offer sexual education and allowing parents to remove their children from such classes, if they are offered.

This buffer is not enough, however, for Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth. The article states that Southworth's objection is that "the new law promotes sexual assault of children," a situation that would allow him to arrest teachers. His logic is, of course, warped and politically motivated. He never directly alludes to actual sexual assault (the teacher physically assaulting the student), but suggests an indirect form of "sexual assault" where the student, utilizing the information given by the teacher, has sex, or may have sex, with another child.

This, besides being downright silly and an unfortunate stretch of the law, is also extremely problematic. By Southworth's logic, any parent that gives their child sexual information (the, usually conservative, idea that sexual education should emerges from the household) is also guilty of sexual assault, and can be arrested. This also sets a bad precedent for education in general. It makes the teacher directly liable for any actions that result from education. For example, if an English teacher has their students read Frankenstein, and then a student kills a child by strangling, like the Monster, can the teacher then be liable? The major difference, of course, is that murder is illegal; sex, unfortunately for Mr. Southworth, is not, and neither is education (a type of education which is directly condoned by a new law, nonetheless).

This is, however, what he is attempting to argue: "Moreover, the teacher could be charged with this crime even if the child does not actually engage in the criminal behavior," he wrote, adding, "Our teachers should never be put in this position." There is no actual "crime" or "criminal behavior" here, but merely what he has labeled a crime through a vague and indirect allusion to "sexual assault" (is he suggesting that sexual education may cause rape? Then, of course, that goes back to the Frankenstein example). I don't even know why I'm entertaining his connection; sexual assault can occur with or without sexual education (sexual organs don't suddenly grow after you've passed a sex ed class).

He is right about one thins, our teachers definitely shouldn't be put in this position. However, they aren't being put in the position by the law, or the school board, or themselves. They are being put into it by Scott Southworth.

Southworth also alludes to sexual identity in his letter: "Southworth's letter also said the new law requires schools to condone controversial sexual behavior because they must teach students about gender stereotypes. He said that would likely mean teaching about homosexuality and transgender and transsexual people." To see where he was getting this information, I read the law, and could not find any direct or indirect suggestion that this would be the case (though, I don't object to it, but Southworth's objections are based on his own political bias and hysteria). Which is ironic, seeing as Southworth stated that "the new law injects an intense amount of unnecessary politics into our human growth and development classrooms." The only person that seems to be interjecting unnecessary politics is, again, Mr. Southworth.

His solution to all of these problems of sexual assault and teaching children about transgressive sexual identities? Suspend sex education indefinitely, until the legislature "amends or repeals these new mandates." I honestly don't think it gets any more political than that.