A Sexual Rights Agenda

Posted by Marty Klein, Sexual Intelligence at 5:00 PM on November 7, 2008.

Dear President Obama:

For months, I've been predicting that when you win, nothing will change regarding sex. I've said you won't stop the government's War On Sex; you won't demand respect for sexual rights as human rights; you won't prevent religious fanatics from controlling non-believers' sex lives.

You now have your big chance: prove me wrong. Here's what you need to do:

* End funding for abstinence-only training in public schools.

* End the Department of Justice's war on adult entertainment. Keep the war on child porn. Make it clear they're two different things.

* Decriminalize all consensual sex that teens have with other teens. Decriminalize teens sharing photos of themselves having sex.

* Increase financial support for Planned Parenthood, an investment proven to reduce poverty and domestic violence.

* Take the moral leadership to decrease abortion -- by funding contraception services and comprehensive sex education, not by criminalizing abortion.

* Require all sex education programs to be scientifically accurate. Isn't that required by the policies of car manufacturers, meat-packing plants, and toothpaste makers?

* Require all municipalities that want to restrict commercial sexual expression (strip clubs, adult bookstores, swing clubs, etc.) to actually demonstrate a need to do so, rather than simply claim "effects like crime, disease, and blight are well-established." Because they're not.

* Require all federal judges to take a Continuing Education course about sexuality. Healthy sexuality, not "sex addiction" or child molestation. Make this education mandatory for anyone aspiring to be a judge.

* Get the FCC out of the censorship business. Let Americans use the "off" and "change channel" buttons on their TV remotes whenever they want; it's good practice for voting.

* Remove the blocking software from every federally-funded computer in America -- libraries, universities, airports. Start with the computers in the White House and Congress.

I've said in dozens of lectures this year that you won't make a difference in America's War On Sex.

Please, prove me wrong.

Tagged as: election, obama, sexuality