Saturday, April 15, 2006
The Good Old Days
To listen to the theocratic majority on the Kansas Board of Education, some Kansas schools, those that teach the facts about preventing unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, aren't upholding societal values.
Kathy Martin, and others of the wingnut majority, want to go back to the good old days when schools taught the values -- of some -- instead of facts. In fact, they'd like to go back to the days when girls who got pregnant were either forced into marriage or painted with a scarlet letter "A."
An editorial in the Parson's Sun by Ann Charles points out the fallacy of that sort of thinking:
Kathy Martin, and others of the wingnut majority, want to go back to the good old days when schools taught the values -- of some -- instead of facts. In fact, they'd like to go back to the days when girls who got pregnant were either forced into marriage or painted with a scarlet letter "A."
An editorial in the Parson's Sun by Ann Charles points out the fallacy of that sort of thinking:
People like to think that back in the good ol' days teens didn't have sex and family values were stronger. The reality is that there's a whole lot of ignorance out there about what really went on.
The teen pregnancy rate is the lowest it has been since the 1940s, when records were first kept. And it is still falling. Keep the politics out of it.
