Joshua Miller, a sophomore majoring in English and political science remembers this, above all else, as the meat of his sexual education program in high school. The AIDS guy, as the students called him and as he introduced himself the second time he spoke to Miller’s class at Sylacauga High School in Sylacauga, Alabama, gave a clinical description of AIDS and told the students how to avoid it. This, Miller said, was pretty much the extent of his school’s sexual education program.
Other than that, the only thing even closely resembling sexual education that Miller received in high school was a single chapter of a textbook in a half-semester health class.
“We copied it out of the textbook instead of being taught, so we literally sat in that class and wrote what was in the book in the span of a day or two,” Miller said.
Miller is not alone in lack of sexual education. According to Alabama Code – Section 16-40A-2, sexual education programs in the state of Alabama are required to teach that abstinence outside of marriage is the expected social standard for unmarried school-age persons, emphasize that self-control and “ethical” conduct pertaining to sexual behavior is crucial, and teach that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.
Miller said the program at his school talked about contraception and birth control and advocated for abstinence. However, they never learned how to properly use contraception, and they never touched on LGBTQ+ issues in Miller’s sexual education classes. He said this ties into the differences between northern and southern sexual education.
“I see a difference less in what we learned, but in how much we learned,” he said. “We didn’t have a class dedicated to sex ed.”
He wasn’t in the school system for middle school, but said his classmates told him they learned the same things in middle school. The AIDS guy even came and presented several times before the students reached high school.
Laura Hatfield, on the other hand, a registered nurse in the state of Kentucky who taught sexual education in Madison, Alabama, believes the sexual education program, at least in Madison, Alabama, is fine.
“I think anything is better than nothing,” she said. “To give you an example, being in Kentucky, my sons are in a school system where they don’t have sex ed, I think what they have in Alabama is sufficient.”
She said when she taught sexual education in Alabama, an age appropriate curriculum was set for the instructors. Medical terminology was always used. In fifth and sixth grade, they would teach about washing their faces and how they would soon start noticing classmates of the opposite sex. At the seventh, eighth and ninth grade levels they’d begin using what she called scare tactics.
“Teen pregnancy wasn’t as big a focus as trying to make these kids understand about STDs, and of course with the girls, making them understand about the importance of not having multiple partners because of HPV and possibilities of infertility and reproductive issues later in life,” Hatfield said.
In Alabama, parents are not obligated to allow their children to receive sexual education. Hatfield said around 80 to 85 percent of parents would allow their children to receive this education while other parents refused, usually due to their culture or religion.
Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, a nonprofit organization that works to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Alabama, disagreed with Hatfield, saying Alabama’s sexual education problem is not better than nothing.
“Sex ed is not run in Alabama,” Watson said. “The students, I believe, have a constitutional right to information regarding sex ed, but the legislature doesn’t agree with me.”
She said she’d rather see parents teach their own children sexual education instead of letting them learn through the school systems, because what the school systems teach is not only not enough, but also not always accurate.
Watson said Alabama needs to teach its children factual information about preventing STDs and pregnancy. In addition, Watson said, aspects of Alabama’s sexual education laws are challengeable legally.
“The law says homosexuality is illegal, and it isn’t illegal,” she said. “In Lawrence vs. Texas, the Supreme Court ruled that they couldn’t arrest someone for practicing same-sex sex.”
Lambda Legal is a national legal organization whose mission is to achieve rights for members of the LGBTQ+ community. According to the Lambda Legal website, in 1998, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested and jailed overnight after an incorrect report said they were having sex. This was in violation of Texas’s “Homosexual Conduct” law. The criminal convictions made the two men register as sex offenders in several states, according to the website. The Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional and established that same-sex sex is legal in all states. Alabama’s sexual education policies have not changed to reflect this.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, sexual education in Alabama is not required. It doesn’t have to be medically accurate, and it can promote religion. It doesn’t have to include life skills for healthy decision making or family communication.
“I’m sure other places have to be better,” Watson said, expressing exasperation over Alabama’s sexual education laws.
Miller agrees that something needs to change.
“It definitely wasn’t enough,” Miller said.
He said that while the information was never misrepresented, there wasn’t enough information to keep his friends from making mistakes.
“The handful of things that I know happened could’ve been avoided, like a handful of teen pregnancies for friends who had their act together and then all the sudden had to deal with that,” Miller said. “I know a few people who had to get a lot of STD treatments because they just did not know what to do.”
