No Thanks

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

No Thanks

Advocate (12/26/95) No. 697, P. 23
Gallagher, John

Texas education commissioner Michael Moses recently rejected a $1.35-million federal grant on the grounds that it would have forced the state to discontinue its abstinence-based sex education program. Dianne Hardy-Garcia, executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, said, "There had been grumblings about the money, but nobody thought he'd send it all back." But Cecile Richards, executive director of the Texas Freedom Alliance, a coalition of moderate clergy and community leaders, noted that accepting the money would have meant confronting the religious right, which "has been very active in eliminating sex education in schools." The rejected funds came from a four-year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant used to finance HIV- and sexually transmitted disease-prevention training for teachers. Moses now says he will reconsider his decision, "provided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can furnish assurances in writing that Texas school districts will not be told how to teach sex education or health education." Carolyn Parker, executive director of the Texas AIDS Network, said that the state health education policy upon which Moses based his decision only requires that abstinence be part of the sex education curriculum, not the whole program. "There is nothing in [the code] that says we can't advance the discussion beyond abstinence," she observed.

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