Take Swaggart's idea that sex education encourages incest. If the schools didn't do it, the devil will take the blame. Witness Bev Russell, a powerful member of the Christian Coalition, who began molesting his stepdaughter Susan Smith when she was 14 or 15. According to news reports, he would come home from putting up campaign posters for Pat Robertson to fondle her. Her stepfather continued to have sex with her just months prior to the murders.
Incest is a powerful, corrupt form of sex education.
Images offer an easy way out. A sex expert discussing the birds and bees was not what drove Jim Bakker to climb on top of a young secretary in a hotel room at a religious conference. They do not explain the thousands of children who are molested by priests and pastors. The religious right sees sexuality as an external force, a threat to rationality, authority, religion and marital fidelity. A devilishly clever energy, sex continually manifests itself in new ways.