Tennessee Governor Signs Bill Defining Kissing And Holding Hands As ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’
6:51 pm - 05/13/2012
Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslem has signed the ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’ bill into law. Earlier this year, the Tennessee Republican controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed the bill, passing the House 68-23 and the Senate 28-1. The governor signed the bill before the Mother’s Day weekend.
The law is so vague that it could define kissing and holding hands as ‘gateways to sexual activity’ and make it difficult for sex education teachers to address such activity in class. The law also may prevent sex education teachers from discussing contraception.
The new law allows teachers who do encourage the use of contraception to promote safe sex to be punished, which could scare teachers from even mentioning contraception at all, meaning sex education courses would consist of just abstinence-only programs, which are proven to not work in preventing teen pregnancy.
The law also levies a fine of up to $500 to guest speakers who promote safe sex or “gateway sexual activity.” So if a speaker from Planned Parenthood or another organization visits the sex education class to speak, talking about anything that isn’t abstinence-only would be punished. What this amounts to is the punishing of free speech and it’s the Republicans who passed it.
Sex education teachers are being boxed in by a party that has been hijacked by religious extremists who think anything they consider sexual is evil. This bill has made Tennessee a joke. To outlaw crucial information from being discussed in sex education is unfair to students who will one day have to go out into the real world unprepared. Sex is a part of human nature and when abstinence-only is all that is taught, the likelihood that students will have unsafe sex that lead to unwanted pregnancies increase.
If Republicans really believe that teaching only abstinence will stop kids from having sex, they’re living in a dream world. If there is one thing teenagers are curious about when they hit puberty, it’s sex. No matter what parents do to keep their kids from engaging in sexual activity, they can’t protect their kids all of the time. That’s why teaching about safe sex methods is critical. Because if kids are going to have sex, they should at least have the knowledge to make it safe. But since when do Republicans actually want our children to learn anything at all? It’s almost as if the GOP wants our kids to be stupid and unsafe.
Source
The law is so vague that it could define kissing and holding hands as ‘gateways to sexual activity’ and make it difficult for sex education teachers to address such activity in class. The law also may prevent sex education teachers from discussing contraception.
The new law allows teachers who do encourage the use of contraception to promote safe sex to be punished, which could scare teachers from even mentioning contraception at all, meaning sex education courses would consist of just abstinence-only programs, which are proven to not work in preventing teen pregnancy.
The law also levies a fine of up to $500 to guest speakers who promote safe sex or “gateway sexual activity.” So if a speaker from Planned Parenthood or another organization visits the sex education class to speak, talking about anything that isn’t abstinence-only would be punished. What this amounts to is the punishing of free speech and it’s the Republicans who passed it.
Sex education teachers are being boxed in by a party that has been hijacked by religious extremists who think anything they consider sexual is evil. This bill has made Tennessee a joke. To outlaw crucial information from being discussed in sex education is unfair to students who will one day have to go out into the real world unprepared. Sex is a part of human nature and when abstinence-only is all that is taught, the likelihood that students will have unsafe sex that lead to unwanted pregnancies increase.
If Republicans really believe that teaching only abstinence will stop kids from having sex, they’re living in a dream world. If there is one thing teenagers are curious about when they hit puberty, it’s sex. No matter what parents do to keep their kids from engaging in sexual activity, they can’t protect their kids all of the time. That’s why teaching about safe sex methods is critical. Because if kids are going to have sex, they should at least have the knowledge to make it safe. But since when do Republicans actually want our children to learn anything at all? It’s almost as if the GOP wants our kids to be stupid and unsafe.
Source
Apparently the people at http://www.addictinginfo.org don't understand the difference between abstinence-only and abstinence-centered education. There is a big difference. Nor do they understand the difference between discussing (which is allowed by the bill) and promoting (which is not).
Further research also indicated that gateway sexual activity is defined in the criminal code and it's not vague enough to include hand holding or normal kissing.
Not saying everyone has to love the bill, but it would be nice if they got their facts straight. I think it's a good thing, particularly when I actually read it and learned what it's replacing and clarifying.
Edited at 2012-05-16 12:17 am (UTC)
This is what I think they really do want. An army of uneducated, ignorant people who won't realize that they deserve better, that they can demand better wages and working conditions, that they can demand their rights to equal treatment, etc.
There is such a sneaky backlash against all the advancements we've made over the last thirty to forty years and it's really scary.
Edited at 2012-05-14 02:07 am (UTC)
Because best to believe teens were still fucking outside of marriage then.
but how can you have abstinence-only programs if you can't tell people what to abstain from, jw
That was basically the message I got from mine in my Catholic high school.
(Although it's funny my sister had a Comprehensive Sex Ed from hers and hers is a Catholic Central HS, meaning they are more under the control of the local Archdiocese than main, which was a Regional one.
So with each step the states like North Carolina and Tennessee take, we got backwards up in time? Fuck this shit, I am staying up in the Northeast for the rest of my goddamn life.
Brb getting on that shuttle to Mars ...... Anybody coming with me?
How many studies will take to get this sink into their brains that teenagers will fuck no matter what? Why know give them the knowledge to protect themselves? Why don't you let them have a well-informed decision?
Why are they being just power-hungry shitbags? Fuck them.
Edited for grammar.
Edited at 2012-05-13 06:40 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2012-05-13 07:11 pm (UTC)
Bills like this really make me wonder how desperate are they to hold on to whatever power they think they have.
Ignorant masses are more likely to rely on churches and authority figures to tell them everything. Of COURSE that's what they want.
Also, I'm using this post for a gratuitous booty gif: