From the Fact Check Desk: Does Obama Support Kindergarteners Learning About Sex Before Learning How to Read?

news for TomF...I've had two kindergarteners (all grown up now). I'm very aware kids ask these sort of questions--I've answered them. But I wouldn't have wanted them to receive any sex education in kindergarten and feel the same way now. And I'd be willing to bet that if we polled American parents today, the overwhelming number of them would feel exactly the way I do. I don't want Barack Obama or any other legislator making decisions about what's age appropriate sex education for kindergarteners, which is entirely in line with what the Illinois state senate ultimately decided.

As a person who was abused as a child beginning age 2 and at various points thereafter I was scared to tell my parents. And to be honest my parents were scared to talk to me. They never had sex education and they never learned the appropriate way to broach the topic...Children are abused everyday and it affects them for the rest of their lives. It happened in schools, with my fellow students and sexually curious (children aren't necessarily monsters, they're just curious) young boys. Sometimes we as parents believe that we should just ignore topics that are uncomfortable and hide our children from the prospect of that discussion that we would have to clarify later. When I had my child I decided, based on education I eventually received that helped me understand what to say, to teach her about inappropriate touching and what to do in such a situation even when people threaten her or me...that she should get help anyway. As a tutor who worked in inner city schools, I learned as a teenager that younger children starting ages 8, 9, and on up were becoming sexually active. They have these feelings that no one explains so they try to act it out. I also learned as I got older that at somepoint because of fear parents don't teach their sons that if a woman says no, no means no. I now live in the suburbs and I have realized that the only difference between the city and here is that mom's are upstairs and kids in the basement sneaking into closets and trying the same things as opposed to parents being at work in the city as their kids try out sex. I also learned in the suburbs, that parents are more inclined to talk about their children being above those natural curiousities...that soccer and hockey take the place of those desires. I guess my point is, after what I've been through I am not bitter. I just understand that education is key to helping children understand their natural desires, hormones and curiosity and in the absence of parents doing their part, grass roots support often builds with cases of pregnancies and abuse and parents fight to get these bills introduced...other parents who are fearful knock it down but don't go home and make any changes. So, instead of calling Obama disgusting...I call him realistic. If the bill was presented to be, I would've voted yes too. Maybe it would help just one child from being sexually abused and that would be good enough for me.

News for KJL - If you had a kindergartener, you would know that they ask about this stuff, and that you need to respond in an appropriate way. If you are too squeamish to deal with it yourself, you should be in favor of having qualified professionals do it in your school.

For some reason the quote from the law got left out of my post. Here's the section in question:

Each class or course in comprehensive sex
14 education offered in any of grades K 6 through 12 shall
15 include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted
16 infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread
17 of HIV AIDS.

imo the debate over the ad misses the point. dollars to donuts, the majority of American parents don't want their kids getting ANY sex education in kindergarten, whether it's been deemed age-appropriate or not. since the bill didn't pass it's obvious there were enough leaders in the Illinois state with more common sense than Obama who got the bill shot down.

This is from the law in question:

>

The law says each course "in any of the grades K-12 shall include instruction." Not might include instruction, but shall include it. Meaning of course, that it is mandated that it will teach this particular subject.

Now, it would obviously be impossible to teach kindergartners about the transmission and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases without some explanation of how they are transmitted, right? Therefore, the McCain ad is factually accurate. And, the McCain campaign should continue to run the ad since it's a good ad and there's nothing wrong with it.

STD information for kindergartners is disgusting. McCain's ad is right on. The bill included 6-12 and the 6 was crossed out and K was inserted. Give me a break. He owns this just as he owns voting against the Infant Alive Protection Act. If they want to keep calling McCain and Palin liars, let them. It will ensure a McCain win.

Palin Derangement Syndrome is hitting the old propaganda media hard. The bottom line is that Obama does support pushing sleazy 'sex ed' propaganda down to the kindergarten level (and never mind leaving any responsibility with parents - the government is supposed to be God and control all things in a child's life), as the public record shows.

No amount of spin is going to change Obama's outrageous and extremist track record as a Stalinist supporter of centralized governmental power in every corner of our lives.

Senator Obama's argument is 'I am hip and cool. John McCain is old. Vote for me." That was working until he Senator Biden who has been in the Senate for 10 years longer than McCain. He chickened out in the biggest decision of his life, just like he chickened out in standing up to Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Chicago corrupt politics, etc....

While it's noble that by Obama's explanation he wanted to teach Kindergarteners about sexual abuse - that goal is negated when a parent or guardian can opt out of the education for their child by simply stating so in writing. I'm guessing that if a child was being abused at home by a parent or guardian, they would most likely never receive the education. Child abuse is horrible, and I'm not meaning to come off as flippant, just am pointing out the obvious since the legislators effectively took the teeth out of the law.

Read the bill. It changed the mandate for STD education from grades 6-12 to grades K-12, among other things.

It's clear that Obama supports STD transmission and prevention education in kindergarten. The ad is not misleading; it's accurate.

MOVE ON FOLKS, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, OTHER THAN THE USUAL OBAMA CAMPAIGN TALKING POINTS BEING SPEWED BY JAKE TAPPER OF abc. The answer is, yes, obama does support sex ed for kindergarteners. Read the text of the law. Its all there.

SYD WROTE:

This ad literally made my stomach turn in a non-pleasant way, it made me sick. The photo they used of Obama beside this inaccurate and gross attempt at maligning him It's flat out reprehensible. And that whole "Wrong for your families" statement is just playing with fear and fire.

This is the father of two young girls. I think this goes far beyond a political attack -- it's personal, it's racial, it's so far out of bounds that it makes the politics of far less developed countries look admirable by contrast.

I'd agree with the one poster who recommended that the video of the ad be taken down. This grossly inaccurate "ad" is not fit for viewing, much less for publicly broadcasted television.

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Well said. I hadn't taken into consideration the racial component. It's just sick.

Posted by: Jed | Sep 12, 2008 4:44:29 AM

stand up to lies???
like bho flip on wright, rezko, ayers(annenberg papers), his citizenship( no birth certificate shown, only a certificate of live birth),etc.
everytime bho gets in a bind he either lies to say he never said it, or says he miss spoke.....or, i quess could say he was just "present"

Thank you Jake! It is so important that the media stand up to the LIES and gutterball garbage dished up daily by the McSame campaign. It is SO important that the media do their jobs and call lies for what they are! Imagine if the media had done their job and called Bush on his version of Republican LIES when he was getting us into the useless Iraq war. The media doing their job then could have saved over 4,000 American lives and $1 trillion. Well better late than never...

Another HUGE Obama mistake. The Sex Education Program in question, supported by Obama, was read aloud on Fox News. Like all of these programs that get targeted at schools, it has tiered programs for different ages. THIS ONE HAS A PROGRAM FOR 5 YR OLDS (!!) There is absolutley nothing 5 year olds need to know about sex. Period. Obama is a half-baked socialist green-horn, and his supporters are suffering from celebrity infatuation.

I read the bill in it's entirety. It was poorly worded and certainly not legislation that was telling kids to avoid predators. The intentions of Obama's supporters from Chicago seem to be good. However thank God it didn't pass. I would not want my 5 year old to learn sex ed under the terms and conditions of the bill written and taught by the group of bozos that are trying to explain it.

I'm sure that Obama never even read the bill and his intentions were good. However the attempts he has made and the lies he has told about both the IL and US Senate partial birth abortion bills are not so commendable. But I'm sure that his vote was calculated to get NARAL and women's groups to support him. One of the rare stands Obama has made anywhere and it appears to have been pandering otherwise he would not lie so often and publicly about it.

Just one more story that will not be told in forums like this.

The ad is misleading but ... it certainly plays on the meme that the Democrats are a party is that is heavily influenced by the let-it-all-hang-out mindset from the 60s. A meme that is not entirely lacking validity.

One commenter mentioned that the ad seemed "racial" to them (yeah that's the non=gender, singular "them", deal with it because it's coming). Well, in case you've not notice the black illegitimacy rate is around 70 percent, something completely unacceptable in the white middle-class. Also, black puberty begins at around 18 to 20 months earlier than white puberty, on average. This has pretty significant implications for patterns of sexual behavior. So, yes, there are innate biological differences between the races, making different education timelines appropriate.

Our society needs a serious and honest conversation regarding the intersection of race and sexuality, and I don't see that coming anytime soon.

Don,
I do believe that there have been many "party line" votes made by Republicans who are unwilling to negotiate or compromise (it goes both ways you know). One may vote "party line" because one believes that the party has the correct point of view. "Party line" is not necessarily a negative, but it can be.
c. blake,
In education we usually talk in terms of the whole curriculum that needs to be covered. Concepts are introduced at each grade level in an "age appropriate" manner. Math is taught in Kindergarten in terms of learning numbers, counting, manipulating objects, adding them and subtracting them----even the concept of square (multiplication) numbers can be taught using songs like "The Ants Go Marching One by One"---just not doing it the way it's done in third grade. (The difference between the Math curriculum and sex ed curriculum is that parents can choose to have their children excluded from the sex ed, but not the Math.) George in Texas

Jake, read the bill!The changes from 6-12 to k-12 and the words "shall include" say it all. What's the use, you shill for Obama so you are a propagandist.
Tomorrow's hysteria will be that Palin wants WW3. When all she said was that yes, if Georgia and the Ukraine were members of NATO we would be obliged to defend them. If Russia invaded France, Obama would be calling for meetings and wringing his hands. That is why Obama is the truly dangerous candidate. If he gets elected, Iran, Russia, China would all test him immediately. Chamberlin and Czechoslovakia all over again.Weakness not strength leads to war. Clinton's wimpiness in the face of terror attacks led to 9/11.