Alabama to review sexual education policy after sodomy ban ruled unconstitutional

[n2doc]

Alabama officials are reconsidering state requirements saying public school sex education should emphasize that gay sex is illegal after the state's consensual anal and oral sex ban was ruled unconstitutional last month.

Passed in 1992, the sex education law provides the foundation for the Alabama Department of Education's health curriculum, one that critics allege is destructive to gay students. It states that homosexuality is "not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state."

An Alabama appeals court overturned the state's sodomy ban in June. Aimed at criminalizing homosexual sex, the law was used to convict a Dallas County man for sexual misconduct, although the jury found the homosexual encounter was consensual.

Due to the court's ruling, Michael Sibley, an Alabama Department of Education spokesman, told AL.com this week that the language in the state requirement is "is legally wrong and no longer operative," and that "'homosexual conduct' is not illegal in Alabama."

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http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/07/state_officials_to_review_sexu.html

[House of Roberts]

1. What? No appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court?

I can't believe Rabid Roy, that Jesus boy, won't get to overrule the verdict.

[JoeyT]

2. Even if he does, it'll get shot down again further up.

Although I admit my first cynical response on reading this was "Well now that they can't claim it's illegal, I guess they need time to make up lies.".

I don't have a whole lot of faith in the Alabama education system, especially where sex education is concerned.

[nomorenomore08]

3. I expect most of the Deep South to go on blissfully ignoring their sky-high teen pregnancy rates

- at the legislative level anyway. American right-wingers are notoriously blind to the effects of the very policies they champion.

[JoeyT]

4. Oh they see it, they just blame it on stuff they already didn't like.

Usually whatever music is popular these days (or given how current right wingers usually are, was popular five years ago), sex on tv or in video games, or the internet.

[nomorenomore08]

5. Also ignoring the blue states, and European countries, with far lower rates of abortion.

In some ways, they're awfully selective about something that they ostensibly abhor.

[Joe Magarac]

6. Wait a minute. Let me see if I understand this ...

The sex education curriculum taught the students about sodomy and then told them not to do it?