Sex Ed and the Senator

It was the sign. That’s what did it. That, plus this one kid I know…

Everything else was pretty innocuous. Like he intended. Without the sign, Senator Ron Muzzall’s Legislative Review might have earned no more than a quick once-over on its way to the recycle bin.

But there was the sign. And then there was the email.

Ron Muzzall is a Republican serving Washington State’s District 10, appointed in 2019 when his elected predecessor had to step down. Seems like a decent guy. A Whidbey Island farmer and businessman, and a stand-up community member.

And Senator Muzzall thinks sex education grooms our children like a predator.

Two months ago Washington’s legislature passed a law requiring age-appropriate and science-based comprehensive sexual health education in all public schools across the state. The youngest kids will learn real names for body parts, they’ll learn about boundaries and consent and inappropriate touching, and they’ll learn that it’s OK to tell a trusted adult if someone breaks those boundaries. It’s empowering, it teaches the truth, and it keeps kids safer.

Of course, people are pissed.

And when Senator Muzzall’s mailer featured that picture, that sign, from an anti-sex-ed rally, I asked an expert: a former County Prosecutor who spent an entire career advocating for victims of sexual abuse. He explained that, on the contrary, the last thing an abuser wants is an educated victim. Sex ed rips away at the abuser’s manipulation, lies, threats, and secrecy. The truth, in essence, sets the child free.

On the surface, that sign spurred the email to the Senator. But there’s way more beneath the surface.

When you spend nearly seven years writing a novel, because you’re no damn 2-a-year Stephen King, you get pretty wrapped up in the characters. You know their back stories, you know their future stories, you know their families and turmoils and demons. And I know one thing for sure.

Diamonds and Dirt would never get written, would never need to be written, in a world where young kids were empowered with truth.

The ten-year-old ballplayer might not have agreed to that ride to his coach’s house. He might have said words that never got written into the book.

“Coach Van, sir, please take me home. No, really, sir, I’m not going to your house.”

And at home he would have told his parents what happened at the ball field, what the coach did, what the coach said. And there would be no more coach. No ruined lives, no dead friends, no families destroyed.

And no damn novel.

And that would be OK. I’d rather write about golden butterflies and pink sunrises anyway.

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Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 2:39 PM
To: ron.muzzall@leg.wa.gov
Subject: SB5395 Comprehensive Sex Education

Senator Muzzall,

Thank you for your recent Legislative Review. I have deep concern about your take on SB5395, comprehensive sex education.

Sex education is science, sex ed is truth, and sex ed is absolutely necessary to protect the children we hold dear. Sex ed is uncomfortable and awkward sometimes, for teachers and students, but that does not detract from the vital need to provide it.

Are you aware the new legislation changes nothing in Island County? Through the amazing people at CADA, Whidbey’s own Citizens Against Domestic and Sexual Abuse, all of our county’s 7,000-plus public school students in K-12 grades already receive age-appropriate education every year. The curriculum begins with basic and gentle discussions of physical boundaries, moves on to bullying prevention, and – in high school grades – covers sexual consent, sexual abuse, and avoidance of risky sexual behaviors.

The new law’s requirements are in line with existing curriculum already provided to our Island County students by CADA.

It’s well known that comprehensive sex education leads to reduced sexual violence and reduced teen pregnancy. Why would you want to fight these numbers? All you have to do is google them.

Your bulletin implies that you were open-minded on this issue, but “I voted ‘no’ because parents, educators, and students in the district were clear that they opposed the bill.” Please be honest. You voted the way you did because some constituents were against the bill. Which is their right, of course. But don’t try to fool us. Making their choices at the local level, school boards of all four public school districts in Island County have already enacted these programs. In fact, a majority of citizens around the state support the ideas codified in SB5395.

There were likely thousands of pictures from the rally on the capitol steps. You chose one that featured a sign equating SB5395 with predatory sexual grooming. This says all that needs to be said. You were against this bill from the beginning, and no amount of truth was going to change your mind. Not the truth of its long-term benefits for our community, not the truth of the lives it will save, not the truth of reduced trauma and turmoil among our young neighbors and friends.

Why would none of these things matter enough for you to vote yes?

Put yourself inside the brain of a pedophile for a moment. Does he want his 8-year-old victim to understand the truths that are taught in basic sex ed? Of course not. He wants secrets kept, he wants his power unquestioned, he wants a compliant and naïve child in his hands.

Did you seriously want to cast a vote to keep abusers hidden away among us?

Now go into the head of an adult survivor. She might have avoided her own childhood trauma, had she been armed with the tools and facts presented in comprehensive sex ed, but she opens your political flyer today to see you equate those tools, those facts, that science, with the very terror she experienced as a child.

How is that OK?

As to the freedom you favor, for parents and districts to make their own choices, it’s already in the legislation. You should already be aware that districts can choose their own curriculum; it just has to be medically and scientifically sound. And as always, parents still have the freedom to opt their children out.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I can’t imagine that anything I wrote here is new to you, and based on that I’m doubtful you would change your mind on the issue. But it needed to be said.

Regards,

William Walker

Oak Harbor