Recently, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary was pulled off the shelves of southern California schools.

“Odd” was the first word to come to my mind, but the district obviously had a good reason. The dictionary contained an entry describing oral sex, so the dictionary was pulled.

Merriam-Webster has age-specific dictionaries, which means the books are censored to what the publisher deems
appropriate for different age groups.

The college-level dictionaries are intended for use by advanced-reading fourth- and fifth-graders.

The dictionaries were presumably pulled after some fourth- or fifth-graders mentioned to their parents that they read about oral sex in the dictionary at school.

The reason I’m writing about this is I see a sad kind of irony in it. You see, public schools allow sex education — whether it’s abstinence-only (which is hardly education) or not — so I fail to see the problem in a dictionary containing an entry on oral sex.

The parents in the southern California school district seem divided on this issue: Some are happy the dictionaries have been pulled, while some see this as a violation of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment, as I am sure we all know, guarantees freedom of speech and the press. However, I don’t feel this is a First Amendment issue because Merriam-Webster is free to print whatever they like, and whether the southern California school district in question uses that printed material in their fourth- or fifth-graders’ classes is up to the school district, not the press that prints the dictionaries.

Now, my problem is not with the First Amendment or with Merriam-Webster, so what is my issue? Stupid parents, more or less.

I could care less whether a student in elementary school knows what oral sex is; what I do care about is whether the youth of our nation is free to expose itself to whatever they choose. Now, I’m not a parent, so I don’t know the pain or discomfort of my fifth-grader asking me about oral sex. But I am an uncle, and I have sheltered nephews because their father is a trained missionary. And I know I want my nephews to be able to ask me or my brother about whatever they learn.

Knowledge is a good thing, and I don’t want anyone to miss out on knowledge because of archaic virtues.

With all said and done, removing the dictionaries was the wrong decision — but we’ve recently seen how good California is at making poor decisions, so how surprised should we be?