Crossposted on Amplify

September brings about the start of the 2010/2011 school year, and in North Carolina sexual health advocates are celebrating. The Healthy Youth Act (HB 88) goes into effect this year, effectively ending North Carolina’s decade long policy of abstinence-only sex education. This bill replaces abstinence-only sex education with a more comprehensive reproductive health and safety program that promotes abstinence as the best method for avoiding pregnancy and STI’s, but also teaches about contraception, safe sex, and healthy relationships. State Senator Ellie Kinnaird, one of the bills supporters, commented saying:

I am pleased that the NC Legislature was able to pass the Healthy Youth Act last session. However, it was not without great difficulty. Several religious groups and some Republican Senators objected to broadening the information available to students. But on the other side, we had many allies who worked the halls just as hard to make sure that students have accurate, complete information about sexual health.

I thought that the main reason why we had high teen pregnancy rates was because the law would not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education. We worked to pass our bill last year, and over the summer it became law. Hooray! So now what? Now that the bill has passed, I have had my eyes opened up a bit about what we are really fighting for. Passing the bill was a tremendous step, and the NC legislature should be proud that they stood up for young peoples rights to accurate information, but there is MUCH more work to do.

Crossposted on Amplify
Once again Colbert has proven to be the man.  Check out this clip from Thursday's show about William Phillips choosing not to say the Pledge of Allegiance because gays cannot marry.

Cross posted on Amplify

Last Tuesday, North Carolina State Activists Lee, Joe, Eli, Emilio, Me, and Wake Teen peer education Gabi were interviewed by CNN for a story about sex education. When I first heard the news, I didn’t know what to expect. I have been extremely frustrated with TV news coverage for quite sometime because it has been shallow, inaccurate, playing to people emotions rather than peoples minds, and in FOX News’s case, coverage has been racist, full of lies, etc.  Most coverage of sex education that I have seen hasn’t been very accurate and the stories have been super short (usually 20 seconds-1 minute), and the reporters never really seem to get it. When I heard that our NC efforts were going to be on CNN I was very excited, but skeptical that the story would be any good. 

Here is our group on the CNN set: