Advocates rally for sex education

This from the Courier-Journal:

Advocates for sex education in the public schools rallied in the Capitol Thursday in support of legislation that would require schools teaching the subject to use a science-based curriculum.

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat who is sponsoring House Bill 119, said the measure is needed to protect teens not only from teenage pregnancies but also from sexually transmitted diseases.

“We're in the 21st century,” Marzian said in expressing outrage that sex education standards are not in place in the schools. “You would think teaching sex education was teaching voodoo or whatever.”

She said she decided to sponsor the legislation after her daughter, a public school teacher, told her of questions her students asked during health class that were based on wrong assumptions.“It terrified me,” she said.

Sex education isn't currently required in public schools. Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, said a 1980s law requiring it was repealed by the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.

Marzian's bill requires that a school teaching sex education must use age-appropriate, culturally sensitive and medically accurate information and not limit instruction to discussion of abstinence or contraception...