for
the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts
November
15, 2002
| Sociologist analyzes battle over sex education in US By Patrick J. Callahan, News Office Staff
eginning in the 1960s, the Christian Right found
the perfect vehicle for expanding its influence -- opposition to comprehensive
sex education, says Janice M. Irvine, associate professor of Sociology
and author of the new book, "Talk About Sex: The Battles over
Sex Education in the United States." For the past four decades, Irvine argues, the Christian Right has captured the terms of debate and continues to dominate the public discussion of sex education at both the local and national level. Since the 1960s, opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Americans call for expanded and more sophisticated sex education for young people, Irvine says. And yet communities have been arguing about sex education since then, often in response to harsh rhetoric and emotionally charged opposition fueled by well-organized elements of the Christian Right, she says. "This book is about culture wars, and how the right-wing is adept at using emotions for political purposes," Irvine says. "Volatile community conflicts over sex education are not simply spontaneous uprisings of concerned citizens. Instead, they are public occasions in which political activists evoke intense emotions in audiences and encourage the public display of combative feelings. Sex education debates are not inherently incendiary; they are flare-ups that have been ignited by provocative rhetoric, yet they have shaped the history and scope of the public discussion." They do this by using rhetoric - language, images, symbols - that is designed to play on broad public anxieties about sexuality, according to Irvine. Much of this rhetoric is inflammatory and misleading. For example, they falsely describe comprehensive sex education curricula as "pornography" and "child abuse," and they allege that programs "promote promiscuity" and "teach anal sex to first-graders." As a result of opposition by conservatives, the establishment of comprehensive sex education in public schools has been extremely limited, Irvine says. Intense opposition to sex education began in the late '60s, fueled by right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society and the Christian Crusade, she says. Sex education became a "bridge issue" between the Old Right and the New Right, with the emergence of the "pro-family" movement in the mid-70s. Their ways of talking about sex became idiomatic. Conservative opponents of sex education have managed to limit programs nationwide despite widespread support for sex education, public discomfort with political extremism, and mistrust of Christian fundamentalism. It is an impressive political accomplishment, Irvine says. |
