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March 11, 2005

Simply Mind-Boggling (UPDATED) « GWOM »

A man tries to send an email to complain about the subjects being taught to high schoolers, and his email get rejected because of "adult content!"

That's right, folks: the terms and subjects many liberals (groups like Planned Parenthood and the like) are saying we need to use in teaching our teenagers, are deemed inappropriate for adults to have to hear/see!

So, exactly how were they going to teach this course? Have a teenager teach it?

Sooner or later, liberal ideology always twists itself into a hypocritical pretzel.

UPDATE: Andy points out the article if hard to find. Apparently Townhall's C-Log "permalink" really doesn't work. Even if you link the specific entry, it still brings you to the most recent post, so you have to scroll down quite a bit to find it. The title is Smut for thee, but not for me

You can find a summary/reaction in Friday's Best of the Web. Scroll down to the entry entitled, "Dispatch from the Porn Belt".

I've also included the complete text of the original Townhall post in the extended entry.

Please note: This is the post by Mr. Bothwell; all the words following are his, not mine:

This is absolutely unbelievable. It appears Montgomery County (Maryland) public schools can implement a new sex education curriculum singing the praises of condom use and homosexuality, and, apparently, teaching about anal sex, but state taxpayers who write the school board to complain of such trash are being censored due to inappropriate content in their emails!

That's right. Here's the exact message I sent to the Montgomery County Board of Education last night after being informed by a member of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum that the school district intends to instruct children in the practice of anal sex:

Dear Montgomery County BOE [cc: Gov. Robert Ehrlich]:

I strongly oppose your use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate Maryland's public school students with the Left's visions of a hypersexualized society, including discussion of anal sex and the like. It is absurd that our schools would provide our kids with the knowledge to indulge in their basest fantasies, much less neglect to educate them about the potentially disastrous consequences of having sex out of wedlock. And please don't attempt to justify these actions; I'm a former Maryland public school teacher from St. Mary's County and am well aware of how our districts operate. It is because of ridiculousness such as this that I am now a "former" teacher in Maryland.

http://www.therightreport.com/bothwell/2005/03/liberal_indoctr.html

Best,
Trevor Bothwell
Host, therightreport.com

Now, here's an automatically generated email that I received from the board of education's email administrator informing me that my message was not delivered due to "inappropriate content."

The message referenced in the details below was not delivered due to inappropriate content. It surpassed the threshold set in the Adult Content dictionary.

The action on the message fell into the following category:

Messages that were dropped (Content Filtering)

If you believe the message was blocked in error, please resend it to "Help_Desk@fc.mcps.k12.md.us" and include the name of the intended recipient so it can be forwarded.

E-mail Administrator, Montgomery County Public Schools

I'm struggling to pinpoint exactly which portion of my letter "surpassed the threshold set in the Adult Content dictionary," but my guess is that the words "anal sex" might have had something to do with it.

So, you got that? It's "inappropriate" for one adult to write to a group of adults expressing concern over topics addressed in a school district's curriculum (indeed, the board's own web server admits the terms "anal," "sex," "anal sex," "hypersexualized," or any combination thereof, violate standards of appropriate language laid out in the "Adult Content dictionary" and are thus filtered from receipt by the school board), but it's apparently fine and dandy to reference such terminology in schools filled with impressionable tenth-graders.

Email the Montgomery County Board of Education at boe@fc.mcps.k12.md.us. Oh, and be sure not to offend their delicate sensibilities by mentioning sexual terms that are good enough for our adolescents but not those who thrust this smut upon them.

Posted by Nathan at 03:08 PM | Comments (3)
Comments

Hmmm... the story seems to be missing now.

Posted by: andy at March 12, 2005 08:57 AM

OK, read it.

Unfortunately, his argument is flawed at its very core. Similar problems have happened with the word "breast" even thought I doubt many would take issue with a discussion of various cancers.

The goal of the filtering is to prevent e-mails like "Super XXX Hot Anal Doggy Action Sluts LIVE!" from getting through and junking up e-mail inboxes, not from preventing legitimate dissent with school administrators.

Unless the author wishes to ininsuate that the teachers are in favor of hard core porn movies in the classrom (which I would highly doubt), I'm afraid it's much ado about nothing.

Posted by: andy at March 12, 2005 09:55 AM

I see your point. This is doesn't actually prove anything...although it is fairly ironic.

Because while we wouldn't have a problem discussing breast cancer, the words "anal sex" were blocked for sexual content, not scientific...and the classroom curriculum is also sexual in content, not scientific.

While I still agree with you that his email doesn't prove anything, your argument actually strengthens his point to some slight extent. If adults cannot look at sexual content in a professional setting, it seems silly to designate a public classroom as a professional setting in which sexual content is required.

There are ways that sex education can be conducted in a purely clinical matter...but I think a discussion of "anal sex" as an alternative itself goes way beyond those boundaries.

Posted by: Nathan at March 12, 2005 10:55 AM
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