House Bill 363 would strictly limit Utah’s sex health education by restraining discussion of contraception, sex health resources, or homosexuality in Utah schools. Only abstinence could be openly talked about. Districts could even opt out of offering sex health classes altogether if the bill passed.
That type of policy is troubling on its own. More troubling was the fact that teachers and students, those who will be directly affected by this legislation, are not being listened to.
"There's inappropriate curriculum we are teaching," said Bill Wright (R-Holden), the bill’s sponsor, during the committee hearing. “This [sex-ed] is not an important part of our curriculum.”
That belief is terrifyingly out of touch with the reality students face. Human sexuality and health are brutally pertinent and important, and ceasing to talk about them will not make them disappear. Sexuality is so often misrepresented and misunderstood, and preventing teachers from speaking openly about the issues creates a culture of misinformation and secrecy in schools.
The purpose of education should be to expose students to information and ideas, and let them act based on their own personal values. Not to limit information based on our ideologies.
"I think you're silencing and putting fear into teachers," said Representative Carol Spackman Moss (D-Salt Lake City). She was a professional teacher before running for office.
She argued and voted against the bill. So did the other teacher on the House Standing Committee on Education, Marie Poulson (D-Salt Lake City).
“Why is it ok for us to supersede the elected school board officials and dictate curriculum in their area?” she asked. “What about high school counselors? Would we limit discussion? That's the language in the bill.”
From the student perspective, one student from West High spoke alongside her mother against the bill and in favor of much more in depth sexual education even than we have right now.
She was the only person under the age of twenty whose voice was heard as part of the decision making process.
Lest you think that those students and teachers who lobbied in committee are simply partisan ideologues, other teachers felt exactly the same way.
“Kids need to know what their options are,” said Patti Hendricks, a teacher from Sunset Bridge Middle School in West Jordan, who was at the capitol last week with the Utah Education Association.
Allowing districts to opt out entirely of sex education classes would mean thousands of kids would have no idea what type of options and advice are available to them.
“It should be the school’s job to present facts,” added Kathryn Welch, a former teacher from Jordan School District, also at the capitol with the UEA. “The family can take their values and apply them,” she noted, “but it’s not the place of schools to indoctrinate kids on what’s right and what isn’t.”
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned.
This bill will affect teachers and students, and most teachers and students oppose it.
In a sane and rational world, the bill would die based on that alone.
But a Legislature where the voices of the Eagle Forum, the Sutherland Institute, and entrenched ideologies drown out the voices that will actually be affected is hardly sane and rational.
On a good day, it's hypocritical and disconnected. Right now it's threatening students’ well being.
Legislators who have so often preached about the need for less government control have no problem mandating what cannot be talked about. Our leaders clearly do not trust students or teachers enough decide what discussions should happen.
And that contradicts the painfully obvious need for complete open discussion.
49 percent of teenage mothers aged 15-17 in Utah thought that they could not get pregnant when they conceived, and a shocking 24 percent thought that they or their partner was sterile, according to a study conducted for the Center for Disease Control and reported by The Salt Lake Tribune.
22 percent of those mothers stated that they had a hard time getting birth control.
Yet Governor Gary Herbert was quoted in The Tribune before the first committee meeting on the bill as saying "I think how we have it right now works pretty well."
If that's our state's definition of education that "works pretty well," we're in serious trouble.
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