Alas, watching the General Assembly makes me wish I was making this all up, but no. It appears that this session's social crusader will be Delegate Scott Lingamfelter (R), who has introduced a pair of thoroughly backward and stridently myopic bills dealing with the General Assembly's favorite topic--sex.Tracking Virginia politics, I think I've written about sex so many times that I'd be banned in some circles, but hey...I report, you revolt. Or however the slogan goes.
As usual, an anti-contraceptive sentiment permeates these bills. First is Lingamfelter's HB 164, which is a bill to force local schools onto abstinence-only curricula, with language to nudge homosexuals to convert to heterosexuality.
Conservatives time and again ignore ther reality: while abstinence is the only option that is perfect, abstinence-only does not work. You cannot dissuade everyone from having sex. They will have sex. It is a given fact of life. Try as you might, you won't hold back the hormone tsunami.
So, once they do have sex, what does Delegate Lingamfelter propose we do? Leave them in the dark, let them get pregnant, and contract all manner of diseases. By ignoring contraceptives and safe sex, the risk for the population that will inevitably have sex explodes. Ignorance is not the answer.
This has been proven--abstinence-only without knowledge of contraceptives leads, in the long run, to riskier behavior.
Abstinent teens will ultimately be safer, but that does not mean Virginia should leave the rest behind.
Not only that, but the bill includes language dictating that "an emphasis on honor and respect for monogamous heterosexual marriage" be taught, as if sex-ed could convert wayward gays to heterosexuality. No, no, no. (While we're on the subject of marriage, HB 135 proposes a $15 increase in the marriage fee).
Perhaps the scariest part of the bill is subsection 5 (ii), which states kids be educated about "circumstances under which it is unlawful for unmarried persons to have sexual relations". If ignorance won't stop them, scare them, apparently. Watch what you kids do in bed. The police is watching.
In this anti-contraceptive march, Delegate Lingamfelter also brings us HB 173, a parental notification bill, which requires parents to be notified of emergency contraceptives. There is no language about health exemptions, or a parental rape exemption. Lingamfelter wants someone who has been raped by a parent to have their parents notified of emergency contraceptives. Hmm.
Scott Lingamfelter. Backwards as usual.
Lingamfelter's bills are ridiculus.