Sex education in Arizona is a lesson in ignorance

For decades the only lesson learned from the debate over Arizona’s sex education curriculum has been ignorance.

Not only ignorance about sexuality, but about education, and about the law.

A meeting Monday of the Arizona State Board of Education proved all of those points.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman actually had to issue a statement afterward in which she attempted to politely educate the public about what the state board can and cannot do.

She wrote in part: “Sex education curriculum is determined by districts and local school boards. Parents have always had the right to opt their child in or out of these health courses if they wish to provide that information themselves.

“The language proposed today did not attempt to change this, nor did it mandate or institute additional curriculum. The minor changes were intended to clean up outdated language in state guidelines and ensure that any curriculum a district chooses is medically and scientifically accurate.”

Finally ending 'no promo homo' law

Unfortunately, sex education in Arizona has never been about information that is medically or scientifically accurate. It has been about politics. Which is often ignorant of facts.

It was just this past legislative session that lawmakers repealed Arizona’s “No promo homo” statute, enacted in 1991. That law, among other things, forbade sex ed teachers from portraying homosexuality as a positive alternative lifestyle. Who knows how many vulnerable young people were harmed by such a law.

A lawsuit filed in March by Equality Arizona challenged the ugly, biased law's constitutionality. That finally did it in.

Not education. Not understanding. A lawsuit. And Attorney General Mark Brnovich saying he wouldn't defend the law.

Superintendent Hoffman, in her statement, also said,  “However, for decades, codified bigotry has denied too many children information about their sexual health … I am greatly concerned with the health of our students. With rising rates of suicide, depression, and transmission of STIs, it is my utmost priority that all students have access to medically accurate information so that they can make healthy, informed choices. It is a matter of safety and respect.” 

The danger of inaccurate information

It's difficult to quantify the amount of damage done by keeping kids in the dark or turning some of them into targets for scorn, or worse.

Sen. Tony Navarrete said after the “No promo homo” law was repealed, “Things could have been a lot different and I could have come out a lot sooner. I didn’t understand the different things that I was going through as a young man.”

Sen. Lisa Otondo said she was reminded of friends who died of AIDS.

“I often wondered, if they had the education, could their deaths have been prevented?” she asked.

Meantime, at Monday’s meeting the voices of ignorance were in full force, among them Republican Rep. Kelly Townsend, an anti-vaxxer proponent, a voter suppression supporter, a lawmaker who posted a fuzzy shot of a topless marcher from a demonstration at the state Capitol and said the woman's “moral defiance” … “will have no defense when you are sexually harassed or even worse, raped.”

The dangers or ignorance

No defense. For rape.

Superintendent Hoffman is correct about the increasing problems with suicide, depression and sexually transmitted illnesses among young people. The best preventive measure against such problems is knowledge. Accurate, factual information.

Rep. Townsend, railing against that notion, said, "Instead of creating more Planned Parenthood customers, let's put our energy into improving the reading ability of our children.”

This illustrates another a real world lesson that people like Townsend have yet to learn.

Sex education does not create more Planned Parenthood customers.

Ignorance does.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.