Barack Obama and that ‘Age-Appropriate’ Kindergarten Sex Ed (Updated with Romney reaction)

I can’t help but suspect Barack Obama is trying to play both sides of the fence in his recent ‘sex ed in kindergarten’ remarks.

Once he’s pressed to explain by what he means when he says he wants to see “age-appropriate sex education” as early as kindergarten, it sounds rather innocuous:

When Obama’s campaign was asked by ABC News to explain what kind of sex education Obama considers “age appropriate” for kindergarteners, the Obama campaign pointed to an Oct. 6, 2004 story from the Daily Herald in which Obama had “moved to clarify” in his Senate campaign that he “does not support teaching explicit sex education to children in kindergarten. .
 The legislation in question was a state Senate measure last year that aimed to update Illinois’ sex education standards with ‘medically accurate’ information . . . ‘Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,’ Obama said. ‘If they ask a teacher ‘where do babies come from,’ that providing information that the fact is that it’s not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that’s going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.’”In addition to local schools informing kindergarteners that babies do not come from the stork, the state legislation Obama supported in Illinois, which contained an “opt out” provision for parents, also envisioned teaching kindergarteners about “inappropriate touching,” according to Obama’s presidential campaign.

Okay, no stork talk, and a rudamentary talk designed to prepare them if, God forbid, they encounter a predator. But the problem is, what he says before Planned Parenthood:

“‘Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergarteners,’” said Obama mimicking [2004 rival Alan] Keyes’ distinctive style of speech. “Which — I didn’t know what to tell him (laughter).””But it’s the right thing to do,” Obama continued, “to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools.”

That sounds like catnip for the Jocelyn Elders crowd.

I can understand some hesitation or doubt about abstinence-only education. But I can’t quite grasp the furious how-dare-you rage it provokes in some quarters. If you want your child to know a lot more than abstinence-only, then go ahead and teach them more, that’s your right. What the anti-abstinence-only crowd is insisting that no parent has the right to choose abstinence-only curricula for their children; they demand that the child be taught more, whether or not the parents approve. It’s an explicit overruling of parents’ beliefs and values.

At the center of this debate is the argument, “We know better than parents.” And my thought is, “Even if you did (and I’m not convinced) it’s not your decision, it’s parents’.”

UPDATE: Romney goes after Obama on these statements. “How much sex education is appropriate for a five year old? In my view, zero is the right amount,” he said, apparently addressing an audience from the set of the movie Patton.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Romney’s jab seems to have left this opening:

In a Planned Parenthood questionnaire he filled out during his 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney checked ‘yes’ to a question asking, “Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: And now Team Romney shoots back, telling me, “Governor Romney has consistently said that he believes in “age-appropriate” sex-education, but he’s made clear that, unlike Senator Obama, what’s appropriate for kindergarteners is no “science-based sex-education” at all.  And he’s successfully fought to promote abstinence education in Massachusetts classrooms.” They point to a Boston Globe story from April 21, 2006, stating, It will be the first time that the state will spend federal abstinence education funds in Massachusetts for classroom programs. The state has received $700,000 in abstinence money yearly since 1998, but the money has gone only toward a media campaign urging teens to wait before having sex.”

And with three updates, I’m eager to move on to other topics…