Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a law on Friday banning schools in the state from teaching students about “gateway sexual activity” in sex education classes. According to drafters of the bill, so-called gateway sexual activity includes any type of “intentional touching of the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttock or breast of a human being.” Under the signed bill, HB 3621/ SB 3310, sex-ed classes will be required to “exclusively and emphatically promote sexual risk avoidance through abstinence, regardless of a student’s current or prior sexual experience.” The bill passed the House in a 68-23 vote and the Senate in a 29-1 vote.
President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Memphis Region, Barry Chase, said in a statement statement, “Most parents in Tennessee want students to get comprehensive sexuality education that includes messages about prevention as well as abstinence. They expect that the schools will equip their young people with the information they need to protect themselves. This bill ties the hands of educators in Tennessee and will prevent them from providing the comprehensive education that students want and need and their parents expect.”
Under the law, teachers or outside educators can be fined as much as $500 for violating the law. Opponents have criticized the bill for being vague and making it so that teachers can’t even mention hand-holding and kissing in sex-ed classes.
MSNBC 5/14/12; ABC News 5/13/12; Reuters 5/11/12; Planned Parenthood of Greater Memphis Region Press Release 5/11/12
3 comments
Brandt Hardin says:
May 14, 2012
This year’s TN legislative session is an embarrassing three-ring circus gaining our state nothing but negative media attention. Our lawmakers should focus on improving the state economy and education instead of intruding on civil liberties and violating students’ rights, gay rights, women’s rights, immigrants’ rights and even monkey rights! Read about how these elected officials are turning our back yard into a testing ground for the most extreme Right-Wing agendas in the entire country at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-stereotype-and-seeing-red-in.html
A R Leonard says:
May 15, 2012
The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same think and hope for a different result. It has been proven that abstinence teaching results in very pregnant teen agers while birth control information does not. So if you want more pregnant teen agers, keep spouting abstinence without offering birth control and if you do not want more prenant teen agers, pass out the condoms, the foams and the birth control pills.
When I was a kid, all we got was abstinence instruction and half of most high school graduation classes had girl leaving school early to get married because they had to.
Now kids tell each other, unless they are more ashamed to use birth control than they are to have sex.
Gateway Sexual Activity: Fact or Fiction? – VenusPlusX | English says:
Aug 13, 2012
[...] labeled it, into law in May. According to drafters of the bill, HB 3621/ SB 3310, this so-called “gateway sexual activity” includes any discussion of “intentional touching of the primary genital area, groin, inner [...]