Posted on 07/19/2007 8:58:44 PM PDT by JRochelle
Former Gov. Mitt Romney attacked Sen. Barack Obama yesterday for purportedly wanting sex education in kindergarten.
It turns out, Romney himself once indicated support for the same sort of sex-ed approach -- "age-appropriate" -- that Obama backs.
In a Planned Parenthood questionnaire he filled out during his 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney checked 'yes' to a question asking, "Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?"
The answer, pointed out by a rival campaign, was resurrected in 2005 when Romney was criticized by Massachusetts pro-choice groups when he began to push an abstinence-heavy focus on sex education. Still, his spokesman said then that he still backed a "comprehensive" approach on teaching public school kids about sex.
But last night, sensing an opportunity to burnish his cultural conservative credentials, Romney used a speech before a Colorado GOP group to light into his potential rival on the issue.
"I heard a quote today from Barack Obama which puzzled me," Romney said. "He said that, 'we should have sex education in kindergarten' -- I'm not kidding you."
Except that Obama didn't exactly say that.
Rather he told Planned Parenthood at their conference yesterday that "it’s the right thing to do to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools."
Noting this, Romney continued in his speech, "[Obama] went on to say, of course, it should be 'age appropriate.'"
"How much sex education is age appropriate for a 5-year-old?" Romney asked rhetorically. "In my view, zero is the right amount."
To which he got good applause that spurred his campaign to post the clip on YouTube. They also put out a release last night contrasting their record on the issue with Obama. But nowhere in the Romney record was a word about his past support for "age-appropriate" sex ed.
Asked how they can attack Obama on the issue given their own candidate's past statement, a Romney spokesman claimed there was a difference.
"Obama specifically advocated sex-ed for small children in kindergarten," said Kevin Madden.
When ABC News asked Obama's campaign to clarify what kind of sex ed is appropriate for a kindergartner, they pointed to an October 2004 story in the Daily Herald (IL) newspaper in which the Senate candidate was asked about his views on the topic during a campaign visit to a Catholic university.
"Nobody's suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it," Obama said at the time. "If they ask a teacher 'where do babies come from,' that providing information that the fact is that it's not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that's going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards."
We need to clean up our Ocean. LOL
Bull.
I’m no Romney fan, but I’m getting tired of all the Republican bashing around here.
I’ll amend that.
As of 2002, they were all in agreement.
It's quite a stretch IMO to say that Romney's answer indicated support for kindergarten sex ed.
Liberals want to run every aspect of our lives, regardless of party. If all I have is a choice between Romney and Guiliani, I vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE.
“age appropriate” sex ed for 5 yr olds is learning that boys and girls use different bathrooms in school.
Romney is a Republican?
Hey Obama,,,,,the word SEX should not even be KNOWN to a child of that age.
And they post articles by liberal sites to do it, thus revealing their true colors.
Any honest person knows that Romney attacked Obama for wanting to teach sex ed to 5 year olds. This story is a complete distortion meant only to smear him.
Either you are failed to read the story or are lying. The two couldn’t be further apart. There is a huge difference between offering responsible abstinence-based sex education that is age-appropriate (in other words in Junior High or High School). Some children walk through life without responsible parents to help them through this. There is a huge difference between giving teachers tools to help students understand what is happening to their bodies and providing information about sex to kindergarten aged children.
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This all makes me wonder what all this sex ed has accomplished. Maybe it is responsible for the fact that many kids can’t read.
I read the article.
I posted the article, just as it was written.
That, and what is it with our guys and these damned questionnaires by these “parenthood” groups..
Sounds like a setup planned over the years to me, and I ain’t no conspiracy freak,,, New rule for republicans, no more questionnaires...
Anyone who answers “yes” to a Planned Parenthood question pretty much knows what that means. Romney didn’t just fall of the turnip truck in the 2002.
They do not all have the same views. Planned parenthood is not a supporter of abstinence-based education, as far as I know. I just believe that it is clearly misleading to state that Romney and Obama share the same views and I’d like you to admit as much.
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