NC Senate passes changes to sex-ed curriculum
Yesterday, the North Carolina Senate passed Senate Bill 602, the Technical Corrections Act-2, 2005.
EqualityNC, our state’s oldest and largest LGBT state-wide advocacy group, praised the passage of the bill in an email sent out to members and supporters today and a statement placed on their website yesterday.
According to the statement from EqualityNC, the bill makes corrections to legal and medical inaccuracies within the sex education curriculum for North Carolina public schools, including:
- eliminating some bias against gay and lesbian students,
- correcting medically inaccurate language regarding HIV transmission,
- ensuring that more accurate statistics on condom failure rates are used, and
- requiring that students are taught that drugs and alcohol lower inhibitions and increase the likelihood of risky behavior.
The largest change to the curriculum, and the one which could cause the most controversy, is a change in how “homosexual acts” are taught and told to students. Before the Senate changes, the law required that when homosexuality or LGBT people are mentioned in sex education classes teachers must also tell students the “current legal status of such acts.”
According to EqualityNC:
Although there has never been a North Carolina law against homosexual acts specifically, and the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all sodomy laws in 2003, in many schools students are falsely instructed that homosexuality or homosexual acts are illegal. The bill passed today eliminates that provision in the law.
EqualityNC Executive Director Ian Palmquist noted in the statement: “The passage of these changes is a small, but important step forward. However, North Carolina students are still exposed to anti-gay, medically inaccurate information under state law, and are denied access to all the information they need to protect themselves from disease if they choose to have sex.”
For more information, please visit the EqualityNC website.
The full text of Senate Bill 602 is available online, and the section concerning the teaching of HIV/AIDS, STDs and “homosexual acts” is below (stricken text represents that text which has been removed; underlined text represents that which has been added):
SECTION 54.(b) G.S. 115C‑81(e1)(3), (4), and (5) read as rewritten:
“(3) The State Board of Education shall develop objectives for instruction in the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus infection,HIV/AIDS, thatincludesinclude emphasis on the importance of parental involvement, abstinence from sex until marriage, and avoiding intravenous drug use. Any program developed under this subdivision shall present techniques and strategies to deal with peer pressure and to offer positive reinforcement and shall teach reasons, skills, and strategies for remaining or becoming abstinent from sexual activity; for appropriate grade levels and classes, shall teach that abstinence from sexual activity until marriage is the only certain means of avoiding out‑of‑wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitteddiseases,diseases when transmitted through sexual contact, and other associated health and emotional problems, and that a mutually faithful monogamous heterosexual relationship in the context of marriage is the best lifelong means of avoiding diseases transmitted by sexual contact, includingAcquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS);HIV/AIDS, shall teach how alcohol and drug use lower inhibitions, which may lead to risky sexual behavior, and shall teach the positive benefits of abstinence until marriage and the risks of premarital sexual activity.Any instruction concerning the causes of sexually transmitted diseases, including Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), in cases where homosexual acts are a significant means of transmission, shall include the current legal status of those acts.
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Although I totally love the new changes to this law, there is still much to be done. In other sections of the bill, curriculum requirements on the teaching of abstinence until marriage is still in place. I’m not saying take abstinence out of the curriculum completely, but more comprehensive sex education is needed. Some focus needs to come off abstinence until marriage and be re-focused on safe sex, condom use and HIV/AIDS and STD education.
From a purely LGBT perspective the abstinence until marriage curriculum doesn’t work. As someone not too far removed from my days in high school sex-ed classes I can tell you that whenever abstinence was discussed I completely ignored it, knowing that what the state was teaching wasn’t meant for me. Marriage, according to the state is comprised of one man and one woman. If I were to listen to what the state is teaching, I’d never be able to have sex my entire life.
The state makes it very clear that they want students to be straight. They make it very clear that they are disapproving of relationships between gay people. Afterall, according to the bill, “a mutually faithful monogamous heterosexual relationship in the context of marriage is the best lifelong means of avoiding diseases transmitted by sexual contact.”
I can’t get married to the person I love and I’m not going to marry a woman. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to marry a woman. I mean, what are me and woman going to do? Look at each other?
Some good changes have been made, but I think there needs to be more. Maybe we’ll get it in the next session.
Matt, 22, is an LGBT journalist, activist and youth advocate currently living and working in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the Editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT news source. A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is still continuing to pursue his bachelors degree. He is the Owner & Editor of InterstateQ.com and has been active in LGBT advocacy work since the age of 14.
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