Talk sense about sex
Parents in Massachusetts are very confused about sex.
In court, one set of parents is suing a private school for not talking enough about sex with its students. At the State House, other parents are excoriating public schools for trying to talk about it at all.
The parents of a Milton Academy student booted last year for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl want his expulsion expunged from his transcript because, among other things, they say that underage sex is happening ''all over campus, day and night." Their son just did what everyone else was doing because the school failed to talk enough about sex or to supervise students in its role ''in locus parentis."
In contrast, the parents who packed a Beacon Hill hearing room yesterday had just the opposite beef. They do not want educators to act in their stead and discuss sex with their children at all, because information itself might prompt their offspring to engage in sexual activity.
Is it any wonder that so many teenagers rely on each other for information about sex, its dubious reliability notwithstanding?
The lawsuit filed by the family of Jay Driscoll, one of five students accused of the statutory rape of a classmate at Milton Academy, is concerned primarily with what it argues is the school's legal responsibility to protect all students. The Driscolls contend that Milton ''ignored its legal and contractual obligations to Jay and his parents" when it urged him to sign incriminating statements without his parents or an attorney present.
That is an interesting legal question. But even more fascinating, in light of the near-hysterical resistance in some quarters to the idea of school-based sex education, is the Driscolls' view of the school's responsibility for the sexual activity of its students. The Driscolls fault Milton for failing to include specific guidelines for sexual conduct in its Upper School Handbook. By not discussing sex, the suit alleges, ''the message at Milton Academy thus appears to be 'anything goes' when it comes to sex."
That 'anything goes' message is just what conservative public school parents contend their children will receive if the topic of sex is included in a comprehensive health education program that lawmakers are considering making a requirement for graduation from a Massachusetts public high school. Schools, these very agitated moms and dads argue, are trying to usurp the role of parents.
That is not all these parents say, of course. Mobilized by the same activists who are urging the removal of Supreme Judicial Court justices who endorsed the right of same-sex couples to marry, these parents warn that sex education is nothing but a cover for the left wing to espouse its ''homosexual agenda."
Representative Alice K. Wolf, a Democrat from Cambridge, is the chief homosexual propagandist, according to opponents of legislation she is championing to make comprehensive health education part of the state's core curriculum. Wolf points out there are 13 subjects besides sex -- including nutrition, exercise, drug abuse, and violence prevention -- covered by the health program. ''They don't talk about those very much," she says.
It is only the section on sex that opponents find so threatening to their parental rights. This despite a state law allowing parents to remove their child from sex education classes they find objectionable. Making health education part of the core curriculum would not nullify that law.
''It is a simple idea, really," says Wolf. ''If you learn more, you will know more, and you will be prepared to make better choices."
In 2003, the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the state Department of Education found that 63 percent of high school seniors reported having had sex, many of them without using contraception. I am sure none of those students are related to any of the aggrieved parents at yesterday's Joint Committee on Education hearing, but, since only public school students were surveyed, they cannot have gone to Milton Academy, either.
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 
