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Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by jdefaria
+1 Reply

With respect to the "sex ed for kindergarten age children" claim, evidence does exist, at the least sufficient to make any categorisation of this allegation as an outright lie absurb. To uncover this evidence (all based on mainstream media sources, not McCain campaign sources) all that is needed is a few hours of research.

The key sources can be broken down into the following,


1. Obama's reported position on sex education

This was reported by ABC News, July 18th 2007 and can be found at

<link>

which states "Sex Ed for Kindergarteners 'Right Thing to Do,' Says Obama" followed by

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do."

It is clearly reasonable for the McCain campaign to use the reporting of Obama's statements from an independent media organisation


2. The second issue then arises around the term "age appropriate". In the ABC article, referred to above, Obama is not specific as to what is "age appropriate", stating

'Nobody's suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,' Obama said. 'If they ask a teacher 'where do babies come from,' that providing information that the fact is that it's not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that's going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.'"

Since Obama is using vague and unspecific statements and terms (perhaps deliberately, however to be fair it may just reflect the complexity of the issue) it is reasonable for his opponents to examine the statements by his campaign spokespersons (specifically William "Bill" Burton) on what this sex education may involve.

It has been alleged that Obama Campaign Spokesperson Bill Burton referred to existing guidelines on Sex education, that encompassed children of Kindergarten age with reference to explicit education, again this allegation is based on independent media sources. This was reported by NBC's Mark Murray on First Read, this is available at

<link>

and the quote (as told, first hand, to NBC's First Read) was

"You can teach a kid about what's appropriate and not appropriate to protect them from predators out there." In addition, he issued a document showing that the Oregon Department of Education has guidelines for sex education for children in grades K-3 (which includes understanding the difference between a good touch and a bad touch), and that the Sexuality Information And Education Council of the United States has curriculum for those in kindergarten.

Furthermore the curriculum does exist,

<link>


On page 24 it refers to Level 1, starting from age 5, a Montgomery County Public Schools site indicates that age 5 is Kindergarten level

<link>


Page 25 refers to the messages for Level 1 which include pretty much of what has been stated by "Knumbknuts" (previous posting "the sex ad is true") but no specific reference to sexual intercourse.


So, what to make of this. First, as stated above, since Obama has hinged the education on being "age approriate" ( a very vague term) it is valid to examine his campaigns pronouncements to gain a better understanding of what "age appropriate" would entail. The main communication on this subject appears to be from Bill Burton who referred to the Siecus curriculum that does suggest a level of explicit sexual education to children from age 5.

Therefore McCain's advertisement does have a basis in truth (although exagerated in that Obama has not said specifically "Kindergarten children should receive x,y and z sex education). The basis for the allegations has been obtained from the statements of both Barack Obama and Campaign spokesperson Bill Burton as reported on by both NBC and ABC political reporters. McCain has done no more than to interpolate on the positions taken by the Obama campaign as is typical in any election campaign regardless of the party.

If anything this is the result of Obama not clarifying his position and stipulating what "age appropriate" means, such vagueness means that his opponents will try and fill in the gaps from other evidence available.


Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by middleview

So, in order for the McCain ad to be true, we would have to ignore the part about age appropriate and that parents were to review class materials and not mind that their kindergarten kids were being taught about vaginal intercourse.

Really?

Of course, the other problem is that the bill didn't pass, so calling it "his only accomplishment" is pretty misleading, isn't it?

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by jdefaria

No, you have missed my point entirely. Incidentally it is interesting that you refer to "age appropriate" as if just by stating this it invalidates any argument proposed you dislike. Au contraire, to invalidate/validate the McCain allegations one has to investigate what Obama believes to "age appropriate" as well as what is in the legislation as surely you must agree this term could mean many different things to different people.

Therefore I return to the communication from the Obama campaign whereby a reference is made to the level of education considered approriate. This is contained in the SIECUS document referred to by Bill Burton (as reported by NBC) and clearly states on page 25 that Level 1 (i.e 5 year olds) should receive some explicit sex ed. This is clearly one version of "age appropriate" that is proposed by the Obama campaign.

Within the legislation itself, which can be found at

<link>=

reference is made to

Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV

Therefore to sum up,

1. Obama has supported sex education for children of kindergarten age. This is validated by the independent media and the amendment itself

2. His campaign has made reference to SIECUS guidelines that contain a definition of age approriate that does include some explicit sexual education for children of kindergarten age

3. The legislation makes specific mention of the type of sex education that will apply for children grade K through to 12

It is silly therefore to propose that Obama has not helped to push through the legislation that proposes sex education for children grades K to 12. The fact he has is well documented.

Of course the McCain ad contains hyperbole, as, yes, parents/guardians can object. However this is par for the course in any political ad and the basic message is correct

Of course I do not propose that this is not a good thing (some form of sex ed for children grades K etc), it may very well be important/necessary for this education to occur

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by TruthJustice&Amway

The kind of ads that are 1) misleading and 2) require a jesuitical multi-point answer like yours to even show any "basis in truth" is EXACTLY what the article is talking about.

When Karl Rove says you're not campaigning truthfully anymore, you can be absolutely sure you're into the politics of pond-scum.

The worst part? I volunteered time to the McCain 2000 campaign to FIGHT just this sort of swill in national politics. And I have defended him more times than I can count. No living politician has disappointed me as much as John McCain has in this campaign and it not only just about breaks my my heart to watch him "fall off the wagon" and in to the gutter, it makes me sick to my goddamned stomach.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by opus512

TruthJustice&Amway:

The kind of ads that are 1) misleading and 2) require a jesuitical multi-point answer like yours to even show any "basis in truth" is EXACTLY what the article is talking about.

When Karl Rove says you're not campaigning truthfully anymore, you can be absolutely sure you're into the politics of pond-scum.

The worst part? I volunteered time to the McCain 2000 campaign to FIGHT just this sort of swill in national politics. And I have defended him more times than I can count. No living politician has disappointed me as much as John McCain has in this campaign and it not only just about breaks my my heart to watch him "fall off the wagon" and in to the gutter, it makes me sick to my goddamned stomach.

Rove also said the exact same thing about Obama. So, is Rove telling the truth about McCain but lying about Obama?


Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by entj4sure
All of us who believed McCain when he said this would be a clean campaign are sorely disappointed. McCain has suffered in the past from this type of campaigning, one would think he would be a reformer this time around. He sold out to the Rove folks.
Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by middleview

You miss my point. Parents have the right to review the course material and opt out. Who would inlude the kind of sex ed that McCain thinks is so objectionable, knowing that parents would read this stuff and go nuts?

Have you found anyone in the state using that material who would validate your assertion that kindergarten kids are being taught about vaginal intercourse at 5? That a book may contain that info doesn't mean it is being taught. It would be interesting, since we know where the material is being used, to see if anyone objects.

The fact is that the bill does not reference which material to use. It basically directs Illinois educators to put together a course and the campaign spokesman says "well, probably like that"....but since the bill didn't pass and the material was never developed, how can we actually judge what might have been? Obama has said what he intended. That was to protect young children against predators.

<link>

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by opus512

entj4sure:
All of us who believed McCain when he said this would be a clean campaign are sorely disappointed. McCain has suffered in the past from this type of campaigning, one would think he would be a reformer this time around. He sold out to the Rove folks.

As Obama claimed to be running on hope, change and a 'new kind' of politics and then picks a 35 year white male Washington insider?

There have been disappointments aplenty on both sides of the spectrum this elction, starting on the left in the Democratic primaries. This is why I'm voting McCain, to keep the Democrats from running everything the same way the GOP ran everything. Split the difference.

McCain tried being a reformer in 2000 and his own party ass raped him for it.

There is only two ways to get elected president in this country, and tat is either as a Republican or a Democrat. There is no third way. Obama and McCan have both made compromises to secure their respective party's backing, or do you honestly think Biden was Obama's first choice?

Again, split the difference.

It might help if you review the material
by middleview

<link>

This is the level 1 course.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by shinethelight

OK. I am going to continue to post this little bit of information until it finally soaks in. See if you can make the connection. Of course this is what the main stream media won't go near. Please read closely the following;

Who's Really Teaching Sex Education

By Carol Everrette

When I was in the pregnancy termination business, my unwritten goal was three to five pregnancy terminations from every girl between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. If she started early, pregnancy termination would come to be her method of contraception and ensure business for my clinics through her childbearing years.

Girls do not automatically get pregnant when they are thirteen years old. It must be encouraged. We accomplished that objective by interesting the girls and boys in sexual activity through sex education. When I went into a school, I would tell the administration we were there to help with the students’ sexual activity. We said, “Abstinence is best, but they are not going to abstain, so we must teach them how to have ‘safe sex’.”

(We do not take our children out, get them drunk, and try to teach them how to drive safely drunk. Why would we give our youth a low moral standard to live down to, rather than the very highest and best – God’s plan – abstinence until marriage?)

Planned Parenthood and other family planners used programs that actually started in kindergarten. The kindergarten sex education specialist put the children in a circle and went around the room asking each child what their parents said to call their private parts. Every family has a different name for their private parts, so by the time the third or fourth child spoke, it was clear to the children their parents simply did not know what they had.

But we did. The difference was explained as, “Boys, you have a penis; girls you have a vagina. Do not be ashamed of your private parts.” At the first opportunity, you could see children sharing with each other and, of course, looking at each others’ “private parts”.

In the first, second, and third grades, the agenda was slightly different … it was actually intercourse. We used small square books with nude six and seven year old models with diagrams to show how to have intercourse. These were used in the classroom – one book per classroom because you did not want a parent finding this book. The children were allowed to browse through the book at almost any time.

Today’s most common elementary sex education book is It’s Perfectly Normal by Candlewick Press, author Robie Harris, endorsed by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. and Ann Landers. This book is pornography for children and will embarrass any adult. It can usually be found in public libraries. Some school libraries carry this and other sex education books for juveniles.

In the fourth grade, children were encouraged to masturbate – first alone and then in groups of four or five. Today some of the books tell our youth that “it is perfectly normal” to dream about people of the same sex and even to experiment with their friends.

What lifestyle did this encourage? (Go to www.plannedparenthood.org where homosexuality is encouraged through the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality – NARTH – positions. Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire is especially revealing as it talks about “Am I Gay If I Dream About Girls?” and “Safer Sex 101 for Lesbians”. The article “What Does It Mean to Be ‘Gay’?” directs: “Ask yourself this: Are you right-handed?” then “Now ask yourself, are you straight?” This normalizes perverted behavior for children on the Internet, perhaps in their own home.)

I specialized in the fifth and sixth grades. I would go in and get the children to laugh about their parents. “Your parents do not understand you sexually, do they? Your parents have all these rules. They are always saying ‘No’ to you. If you decided you wanted to have sex, how would you keep from getting pregnant? Don’t worry about that. Come to me. Here is my card.”

I passed out my cards from the pregnancy termination clinic, and the next day my phone would start ringing. The girls would come in, and we would deliberately prescribe a low-dose birth control pill that we recognized had to be taken accurately at the same time every day in order to provide any level of protection. We knew that no young person does anything at the same time every day. So the pills would not be taken properly. The pills would not work and we could accomplish our agenda of three to five pregnancy terminations between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.

I held the hand of one young woman while she had her ninth pregnancy termination. Today pregnancy termination is a method of birth control with a forty-two percent repeat rate nationally.

A sixteen-year-old daughter of a friend went to a well-respected high school class only to be unexpectedly confronted with a stylish young woman for “sex education”. She encouraged them to laugh about their parents and their values, instructed that sex was normal at any age, they could get birth control pills without their parents’ knowledge, and they could be protected. Before she left the room, every girl in the room was required to put a condom on the finger of a boy. Yes, the next day parents came to the class, but those images were already in the young minds. All they talked about for days was sex.

Should a couple go to a family planning facility, they may be encouraged to be “educated” in groups or alone. Male and female genitalia may be displayed and the children instructed on how they actually work together, many times working those children into a frenzy. They are sent out into the night with free condoms. These children are encouraged not to “rob themselves of joy” by focusing on old-fashioned ideas about what is normal or nice. “Just communicate and enjoy it.” According to George Grant in his book Grand Illusions – The Legacy of Planned Parenthood. In the peer groups, family planners use the anatomy terms to familiarize these kids and break down that natural modesty.

Your question is: “Are they doing this in my child’s school?”

Go to the school. Check the library for the sex education books. Go to the administration and read the sex education curriculum. Inquire as to the organization conducting the classes – in-house teachers or outside groups? Ask to be in the room when your child is taught the course (the presenter will be less graphic with a parent in the room).

And keep communication lines open with your children! The "safe sex education" programs are designed to do the following:

  • break down the natural modesty
  • separate children from their parents and their values
  • set the presenter up as the sex expert in children’s lives.

They do not work if parents have relationships with their children which allow discussion of any subject.

Safe sex education programs count on the child being so embarrassed they are not willing to tell their parents, recognizing that if they tell their parents, their parents would probably come to school to protest the curriculum.

Pray the Lord will remove these ungodly sex education programs from the schools of our nation and turn our principles back to abstinence until marriage – God’s plan – which still works every time!

Carol Everett, former Director of abortion clinics, is now making a difference in the right-for-life movement. Carol experienced a change in her life when she came to know Jesus Christ as her personal Savior. She is the Founder and CEO of The Heidi Group, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping women with unplanned pregnancies. She is a speaker and authored Blood Money, which chronicles her life's story and exposes the abortion industry.

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Point of View Radio Talk Show uses the powerful tool of live, daily, national talk radio to defend a Biblical Christian worldview and to proclaim Christian solutions for the problems of America. Point of View---and its parent ministry, NCFR---aims to restore the greatness of Christian thought and values to every area of American life. Point of View is a non-profit ministry which serves because of the gifts of like-minded Christians throughout the nation.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by middleview

I've met Biden and gotten to ask questions and hear what he has to say. In my opinion he'd have been the best candidate for president. The fact that he is on the ticket with a guy who will actually seek his advise will work for me. You think because he has been in Washington for so long that he is corrupt. The very fact that his net worth is so low makes that statement invalid. He hasn't made himself rich as people like Phil Gramm have.

The fact is that the republicans screwed the pooch. The republican administrations have repeatedly borrowed like crazy. Take a look at the national debt from 1981 to now. Dick Cheney said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. McCain says he'll balance the budget by doing tax cuts and cutting earmarks. That is a prime reason to vote Obama. McCain is clueless or he is dishonest. One or the other.

The Bush campaign took us to war with lies. McCain thinks he'll get elected by lying.

Vote McCain4Bush3......

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by middleview

When you read the course material you realize how silly the McCain claim is.

<link>

It is 30 minutes to cover body parts and why nobody touches you there.....

I supported McCain in 2000. I left the republican party because of the Rove campaign and the dishonerable way McCain was treated.

This stuff just makes me want to work harder for Obama.

Country first? Not when you appoint the mayor of Wasilla to be VP. That shows me that McCain would rather risk the nation than lose an election.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by TruthJustice&Amway

Gee opus512,

You tell me which way a campaign operative’s criticisms should cut deeper. Also, take a moment to actually read the article.

The bottom line is that the McCain I once supported actually believed in transcending cynicism and partisan sleaze mongering enough to build a whole campaign around it. It was the center of his message and his appeal. To have him now running this kind of ads is pure 100% unadulterated betrayal of his own declared principles.

I think that it is the ultimate sweet little irony that John continues to campaign on "changing Washington" even as he has finally succumbed and been changed by it.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by middleview

I find no evidence that Carol Everett is affiliated with the democratic party....as a matter of fact, I can only find a couple of references on the internet. I have no way to judge who she is or how accurate this article is.

On the other hand. Here is the course material that McCain says is so foul that Obama supported teaching.

<link>

It is supposed to taught in 30 or 40 minutes in the course of a year. It is intended to teach kids what bad touching is. The purpose is not to encourage 5 year olds to have abortions.

Re: Some evidence exists for the Sex Education Claim
by jdefaria

Yes, hmm, middleview, my assertion on "vaginal intercourse"? I think you will find that I stated

"but no specific reference to sexual intercourse"

which of course does include vaginal intercourse (if this is confusing I would suggest one of Siecus's courses, perhaps level III), in fact the only person who has brought this up is you, repeatedly, leaving one to wonder your obsession with this term.

The fact remains that McCain's ad however hyperbolic is based on truth, Obama did suport legislation that proposed sex education for children of kindergarten age

However, and I repeat this how many times, this is not the same as saying McCain is correct and children of this age should not receive such education it may well be a good thing and Siecus's guidelines do not appear to be extreme

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