I am not unsympathetic to those arguments.

This controversy nevertheless leaves me conflicted. On one hand, I believe that, on the whole, parents are the least bad judge of what is in their particular child's interests, and that the ideal age to teach kids about various aspects of sex varies by community and individual, making it particularly ill-suited to state curriculum standards. In my ideal world, parents would be able to make these decisions in accordance with their informed assessment of their child's best interests.

On the other hand, there is actually no "neutral" position for educators to take here, especially when most parents seem to concede that sex ed of some kind should be taught. Some of them favor more comprehensive sex ed than others. Inevitably, the school is going to transgress against parental preferences in many instances.

As well, we live in a world where many parents abdicate their educational responsibilities. Should their children be consigned to ignorance, in order that the school doesn't transgress against the rights of more responsible parents to decide exactly when their kids should be educated? Or do the needs of kids whose parents neglect to ever talk to them about sex count for just as much as the others?

For Dreher, sex ed of some kinds is appropriate for 13-year-old public school kids, but this particular poster strikes him as obviously appalling. I'd like to better understand his reaction. Would I include that particular poster if I were making sex ed curriculum? Perhaps not. But it doesn't appall me, and in fact strikes me as a defensible approach, in part because it states true facts without any value judgments. The facts in question may not be known to all 13-year-old in Shawnee, Kansas. But how long will any of them be kept in the dark about such matters? Until they're 14-year-old high school freshmen? Or 15-year-old sophomores? This strikes me as an impractical occasion for outrage and opposition if the practical upshot is "saving" teens from knowledge they'd quickly acquire anyway.

And that raises more complicated questions.

In America, legal adulthood begins at age 18, and adults younger than 21 are prohibited from buying alcohol. Those two ages are the most widely accepted thresholds for independence and an attendant diminution of parental prerogatives. But there is no reason to believe that those arbitrary thresholds should guide us in all things. Perhaps it is the case that parents are due the most control over their kids when they are infants–but that, as they get older, the legitimate bounds of parental control diminish gradually rather than suddenly on their 18th birthday. Isn't it unfair or even unethical for the parent of a 6-year-old to prevent him from learning to read? Maybe it's also unethical to deny a pubescent teen factually accurate knowledge about sex and his or her own body. It would, I think, do more harm than good for the state to enforce such notions. But I still find some value in recognizing them culturally, uncertain as I am about their parameters.