Sex Miseducation

From Crooks and Liars, a post by Steve Benen on funding for abstinence only sex education. Quoting the Reuters story:

Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems "rather elitist" that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. "I don't think it's something we should abandon," he said of abstinence-only funding.

John Cole's reaction:

Damned elitists with their facts and figures and numbers and statistics and fancy degrees. What do they know about public health that a regular Joe from Tennessee doesn’t?

There are really a couple of possible reactions to Duncan's nonsense. First, of course, is that Duncan is a nice tame Republican echoing the Bush line, which in turn spuports a faith-based approach to reality. (How else to explain this administration?) The corollary is that it will play well at home.

And there's the good ol' politician's double-talk. The experts aren't talking about what's appropriate, which is a purely subjective measure. They're talking about what works, which apparently is something that Duncan doesn't want to deal with. Of course, the real question here is is it appropriate to give kids accurate information? I think the answer to that is obvious.

To everyone except Rep. Duncan.