Speaking of Alan Keyes, Obama recalled being nonplussed--now we know why

By Alan Keyes

A CNSNews article by Terence Jeffrey entitled "Obama: Sex Ed for Kindergartners 'Is the Right Thing to Do'" reports Obama's response to a question about sex-education for kindergartners:

Obama first noted that he had worked with Planned Parenthood to push a sex education bill when he served in the Illinois state legislature.

Then he said: "I remember Alan Keyes – I ran against Alan Keyes – but I remember him using this in his campaign against me, saying, 'Barack Obama supports teaching sex education to kindergartners.

"And you know," said Obama, "I didn't know what to tell him. But it is the right thing to do, to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in the schools."

Obama's response is typical of people like him who are out to destroy the nation's moral strength. They get away with spouting deceitful nonsense simply because many Americans are no longer prepared to pay careful attention to the meaning of words. Sometimes this deficiency merely reprieves the ignorance and folly of both the deceivers and those they deceive. But at other times it has fatal implications for policy decisions that are critical to the nation's welfare. How can we avert these deadly implications? We can start by trying to be precise about the essential meaning of words.

Obama's use and abuse of the word "sex" is a case in point. He bases it on misuse of the primordial definition of "sex," as given in one online dictionary:

1: either of two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures.

Obviously, at its root, this primordial understanding of the word "sex" depends on understanding the words "reproductive organs and structures." Obviously, these words refer to the organic or structural differences that distinguish the individuals in question, differences essentially connected to the reproductive activity of their species (hence the use of the term "especially"). So every time we use the word sex, we are referring to such reproductive activity.

This dictionary definition also reports a coordinate usage of the word (#3 in the definition) that refers to "sexual intercourse." But what is intercourse? Typically, the root definition of that word is given as "connection or dealings between persons or groups." When it is modified by the term "sexual" (i.e., of or relating to sex), the modification logically entails connections or dealings with reference specifically (i.e., according to the species in view), to reproductive activities.

When used with scientific precision, therefore, the term "sexual intercourse" always involves this specific reference to reproductive activities. Of course, common usage may have little to do with scientific precision. These days, the dictionary account of the term reflects this. It includes the following subordinate usage of the term sexual intercourse: "intercourse...that does not involve penetration of the vagina by the penis." (Note: the Webster-Merriam online dictionary we are using for reference purports to provide a definition for "kids" distinguished by its failure to mention such alternative modes of intercourse.)

In the usual fashion of verbal tricksters, Obama takes advantage of the imprecision of common usage to give the appearance that the policy he advocates will respect the decent sensibilities of his audience, when in fact it cannot do so. Thus he speaks of "age appropriate...science-based" sex education. Prior to our day this meant that, when dealing with young children, decent people spoke in general terms about marriage, family, and the bond of affection between a man and a woman that leads to the birth of a child. They omitted graphic or explicit descriptions of sexual intercourse.

By way of slyly ridiculing this approach, people like Obama deprecate mythic explanations (like the one about the stork, for example). This implies that there's something silly about using parables to explain things that children are not yet equipped physically and emotionally to comprehend. Yet these same people pretend to have no problem shielding children from graphic and explicit depictions of violence, or frank portrayals of emotional and psychological depravity. They pretend to know and understand that children are not yet physically and emotionally equipped to explore the meaning of some aspects of human life. Hence Obama's use of the term "age-appropriate."

But in this regard, let's consider the above-noted definition of sex formulated "for kids" in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. It uses terms that require children to visualize human reproductive activity in anatomically explicit terms. Is it "age appropriate" to be so explicit in a definition intended for young children? When such explicit visualization occurs in photos or videos, we still say that it is not "age appropriate" for children because it may be pornographic. Even Obama and his ilk pretend to oppose exposing children to pornographic material. Why then are they willing to countenance making explicit descriptions of sexual intercourse available "for kids" in dictionaries on the internet?

Is this inconsistency a token of deceit? Is the stance of decent concern conveyed by Obama's use of the term "age-appropriate" just an act, meant to deceive his audience as to the true consequences of the policy he advocates, because he knows many of them are not prepared to accept those consequences? No doubt he doesn't want to "upset the voters." But another explanation also makes sense, given the ongoing elitist faction's longstanding campaign to force people to affirm homosexuality, a campaign that includes indoctrinating school children in the earliest grades.

Is it possible to explain what homosexuality involves without describing homosexual activity in explicit terms? General reference to family and procreation (making babies) won't do, because what homosexuals do has no intrinsic connection with human reproduction. Some advocates of homosexual indoctrination will no doubt contend that anatomically accurate description is necessarily a part of "scientifically based" sex education, as Obama calls it. But our logically careful consideration of the precise scientific meaning of the word "sex" shows this to be nonsense. The scientific definition of sex makes specific reference to an organic distinction related to reproductive activity. Where there is no such distinction, there is no sexual activity in the scientific sense of the term (hence the term "asexual" as applied to reproductive activities that do not involve the distinction).

In this respect, homosexuality is not a scientific term. It is more akin to an ideological construct. Moreover, absent the intrinsic reference to reproduction, the activity it involves cannot be described except with explicit reference to the physical pleasure derived from exciting the bodily organs involved in various ways. Given this fact, nothing about homosexuality can be conveyed to children in a scientific way (i.e., in a way that is based on an accurate empirical definition of the activity involved) except in terms of physical arousal and the bodily pleasure it entails. But this is pornographic in the literal sense of the term. At its root, pornography has to do with depictions of the activity of a courtesan or prostitute, i.e., someone skilled in the art of using the organs otherwise intended for procreation to procure personal gratification.

It turns out, then, that "age appropriate...science-based sex education" is a contradiction in terms when it comes to underage children. In other words, it's nonsense. How can it be right to make such nonsense the basis for any aspect of the education of our young offspring? So when I criticized Obama for advocating sex education for kindergarten and other underage children, he was at a loss for words. At the time, if he had explained what we now know to be his true position, he would have offended the decent conscience of many voters. He was still pretending to support "traditional marriage."

He couldn't risk public consideration of the real motive for the policy he now openly favors. That policy requires enforcement of the so-called "right" of homosexuals to marry. This in turn requires "education" that licenses homosexual indoctrinators to prey upon the minds and emotions of our young children at the stage of life when they are most susceptible to the deformation of their taste, character, and natural conscience. This isn't right. It's offensively unconscionable. If decent Americans fail to stop it, our nation will inevitably find itself devoted to its own destruction.

© Alan Keyes