A fundamental conservative high school in Texas has an STD mess on its hands as there has been an outbreak of chlamydia, reported The Huffington Post.
Officials with the Crane Independent School District have sent letters to parents telling them that an outbreak of 20 cases of chlamydia has occurred in schools. The district has also notified middle school parents as a precaution.
One of the problems here is the school district’s sexual education course. The course is only three-days long and preaches only abstinence instead of responsible, safe sex practices. The school’s most recent handbook outlines its religion-laden sex educations practices:
- Present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior in relationship to all sexual activity;
- Devote more attention to abstinence from sexual activity;
- Emphasize that abstinence is the only method that is 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, STDs, and associated emotional trauma;
- Direct adolescents to a standard of behavior in which abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the most effective.
School superintendent Jim Rumage stubbornly defended the district’s failing sexual education program.
“That’s not a bad thing,” he said. “If kids are not having any sexual activity, they can’t get this disease. That’s not a bad program.”
And he’s correct. No sex means no diseases. But, where it fails is that these kids are having sex and will continue to do so. It’s better to teach these kids safe sex practices so the disease doesn’t spread. Rumage is betting these kids’ health on the impossible.
The school health advisory committee met this week to discuss the issue and come up with a plan, which will probably be laughable because if it’s one group that fails at public policy, it’s fundamentalist Christians.
