I smell the smelly smell of something smelly....

In local news, a high school sophomore teacher not to far from St. Louis is returning to his classroom after being put on paid leave for giving an optional homework assignment for students to read an article on homosexuality in animals which, he claimed (at least according to the article), "challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection". The reason he was put on leave was because someone complained it wasn't "age appropriate".

*blink*

What age is sex ed taught in Illinois? I know here in St. Louis, I first encountered it in fifth grade, but only so far as the whole, "Your body will start undergoing changes." Freshman year in high school, we covered more complete sex ed involving contraceptives, which is generally when sexual orientation is taught (although I can't recall it being in the curriculum I went through).

So.... Freshman comes before sophomore....

Explain to me again how this isn't "age appropriate"?

Something's not adding up here. I suspect there's another reason.

And who is it that wouldn't want students to know that homosexual behavior has been observed in at least 1,500 species including exclusive homosexual parings?

Oh yes. People that want to bury their kids heads in the sand and pretend that homosexuality doesn't occur outside of sinful humans. I have a sneaky suspicion that this is the real reason for complaints and that the "age appropriateness" is just a shield for the typical bigotry.

But what the hell is the teacher trying to do with the claim that it "challenged Darwin's theory of sexual selection." It may very well do so, but so what?

It's bizarre how so many people seem to think that Darwin was the first, last, and only theorist on evolution and selection.

Well, I guess it's not bizarre. It's the same phenomenon as trying to deny homosexuality in animals: They can cite what "Darwin didn't know" and feign ignorance to the last 150 years just as they can claim "Homosexuality is an abhorrent human phenomenon" and then feign ignorance to all the obvious claims to the contrary.

*Sigh*

This willful ignorance is depressing.