Obama Supports Age-Appropriate Sex Ed for Kindergartners?

Yes. Obama supports teaching kindergarteners about inappropriate touching and protecting themselves against abuse, not explicit sex.

Article: McCain Hits Obama on Sex-Ed Law
September 9, 2008, 7:55 pm
Nick Timiraos reports on the presidential race.

John McCain went up with a hard hitting ad Tuesday, ostensibly attacking Barack Obama on education policy on the same day the Illinois senator unveiled initiatives on education.

But the ad goes straight for voters’ attention with a different appeal: sex.

The ad bashes Obama for an Illinois state senate bill he supported that allowed for “age-appropriate” sex education for K-12 instruction. The ad said that measure represents Obama’s only accomplishment on education.

The McCain ad characterizes Obama as someone who supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners. The voiceover in the ad incredulously asks: “Learning about sex before learning to read?”

The Obama campaign cried foul, calling the ad “shameful and downright perverse” and pointing to the bill’s intent to protect young children from sexual predators — not teach them about the birds and the bees. “Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why,” said spokesman Bill Burton.

The attacks are new in this election, but Obama has faced them before, in his 2004 Senate campaign. Obama defended the bill as a father of two young daughters who wanted to make sure his children knew about “the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean,” he said in a debate. “And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse.”

Later in the campaign, Obama told voters, “Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it.”

The issue arose again last summer when Republican candidate Mitt Romney made attacks similar to those raised today by McCain. Obama defended the measure “to provide age-appropriate sex education” as “the right thing to do.”

As for the Republican ticket, John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, both support abstinence-only programs. On an Eagle Forum questionnaire during her 2006 gubernatorial bid, Palin offered a terse statement: “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”