Nona Willis Aronowitz, posting on truthout.org, makes some good points about this interview with Texas governor and Republican presidential contender. In part, her commentary states:
There’s something that frustrates me even more than Perry’s skewed logic, though: the reporter’s missed opportunity. He fails to point out that teaching safer sex and abstinence are not mutually exclusive. He doesn’t remind Perry that while, yes, abstinence itself works, abstinence-only education does not. And he doesn’t even really explain why teen pregnancy rates would be affected by keeping information away from students; he just cites the two facts side-by-side.
Exchanges like these, where the two sides do nothing but talk past each other, spotlight a serious disconnect in the way we talk about teen sexuality.