Senate bill seeks to remove anti-gay language from state’s sex education law

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An Alabama Senate committee has approved a bill that would remove anti-gay language from the state’s sex education law.

The Senate Education Policy Committee unanimously voted in support of SB269: the Alabama Youth Health Protection Act sponsored by Auburn-Republican state Sen. Tom Whatley on Wednesday.

“If you’re teaching sex education, you’ll going to be medically accurate when you’re doing it,” Whatley told the committee.

Specifically, it would strike language that says homosexuality is a lifestyle that’s not “acceptable to the general public.”

An emphasis, in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.

The language in the state current sex education law, above, was a reference to Alabama’s anti-sodomy law, which has been ruled unconstitutional.

Whatley’s bill also maintains an emphasis on abstinence as the “only completely effective protection against unwanted unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases infections, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) when transmitted sexually.”