The Year They Burned the Books

Starting in October, condoms will be available to all students in the nurse’s office (see announcement, page 5). There’s been a lot of controversy about that. Some people say that distributing condoms encourages people to have sex and makes them irresponsible, because it makes them think nothing bad can happen to them as a result. Maybe that would be true if we didn’t have a new sex ed curriculum at the same time. But all health classes, from freshmen on up through seniors, have already learned that condoms aren’t foolproof, that they have to be used the right way, and that even if they are, they can break. Using a condom doesn’t result in completely safe sex. It just results in safer sex.

But some people say high school kids shouldn’t have sex at all, unsafe, safe, or safer. They say we aren’t ready; we aren’t mature enough; we’re too careless. That’s probably true of some people. And I hope those people know who they are. But what I don’t see is how a school administration or faculty can think they can completely prevent kids from having sex. Even if you know that it’s not a good idea, that doesn’t mean you’re always strong enough to resist. There are lots of pressures on people to have sex, and sometimes they’re hard to ignore. At least if kids use condoms, they’re protected during those times when they can’t say no.

It’s true that abstinence is the only way to guarantee that you won’t get pregnant or get a sexually transmitted disease. We’ve all learned that in health class. But it’s not true that everyone is going to practice abstinence just because adults say that’s the thing to do. Lots of adults don’t practice abstinence, so how can they expect kids to? Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry, as the saying goes?

The bottom line is that not using a condom can mean a girl’s life—and perhaps a boy’s, too—may have to be put on hold or may even be ruined because of an unplanned pregnancy. It can also mean that a girl’s life or a boy’s life could get messed up for a while because of a curable sexually transmitted disease. And it could mean that a girl’s or a boy’s life gets cut off—ended—because of AIDS. The bottom line here is that condoms save lives. Shouldn’t the school do everything it can to help save lives, too?

—Jamie Crawford, Editor in Chief

The Telegraph invites Op-Ed replies to this editorial and all others, especially replies that dissent from the views expressed here.

“Jamie, it’s good,” Mrs. Crawford said Sunday night when Jamie showed the editorial to her parents right after dinner, deciding it would be a good idea to give them a preview before the paper came out the next morning. “Really good, but …”

“But what? What, Mom?”

Jamie’s mother looked at her husband over the rim of her coffee mug, then put the mug down. “But I think you’d better be prepared for some fireworks.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Ronnie put in, grinning. “Big deal over a little piece of rubber! That’s all Fred’s brother says it is. Can I go out, Mom?”

“Where?”

“Just next door to Fred’s.”

“How about homework?” asked Mr. Crawford.

“Just math.”

“How much?”

“Five word problems.”

Mrs. Crawford raised her eyebrows. “Homework first,” she told him. “Then maybe you can call Fred.”

“The quicker, the sooner, Ron,” said Mr. Crawford, winking. “Skedaddle. That little piece of rubber, as Ronnie so indelicately put it,” he went on when Ronnie had left, grumbling, “is, I think, going to become a hot issue if Lisa Buel gets elected to the school committee. Is there any more coffee?”

When Jamie got to school Monday morning, she saw that the Telegraph’s bin by the main entrance was already half empty. With some trepidation, she made her way to her homeroom, trying to look nonchalant. But a chorus of approval greeted her.

“Cool editorial, Jamie!”

“Yeah, Jamie, way to go!”

“All right!”

“Geeze,” said Jamie, walking more confidently to her desk and seeing that virtually every paper in the room was open to the editorial page, “isn’t anyone reading anything else?”

“You know how it is,” said Terry. “Anything with sex really gets people’s attention. Congratulations, Jamie; everyone loves it.”

“Not quite everyone.” Jamie saw that Nomi was sitting quietly in her seat at the back, reading her social studies book—or, Jamie was sure, pretending to read it. “Excuse me.”

She walked over to Nomi and slipped into the empty seat beside her. “Hi,” she said.

Nomi looked up briefly, then dropped her eyes back to her book, murmuring “Hi.”

“Did you read it?”

“Did I read what?”

“The editorial, pea brain!”

“Yes, I read it.”

“Well? What do you think? I tried to give the other side.”

“Oh, come on, Jamie.” Nomi closed her book. “You gave the other side only to shoot it down. You know, I don’t understand you anymore. You say you’re for life and you talk like you’re worried about people’s futures. But you’re just worried about their bodies, physical things. I don’t know about you, but there’s more to me than a body.”

“Of course there is. To everyone. Come on, Nomi, read the editorial again. I’m saying that kids who get pregnant or sick can mess up a lot more than their bodies.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? I’m surprised at you. But you really don’t get it.”

Jamie thrust her hands out in frustration. “I do get it, I think. I agree that abstinence is the best way. But you’re assuming that people are a lot stronger than they are. You’re being idealistic, and that’s great, but …”

“And you’re being hypocritical. If you assume people are going to be weak, they’re going to be weak. If you assume they can be strong, they’ll at least try.”

“And if they fail?” Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie saw that several other kids had come closer and were now clustered around them. “Look, let’s say a kid’s trying very hard not to sleep with her boyfriend. She wants to wait till she’s married, and she’s a good person. But she and her boyfriend really love each other, and one night they’re watching TV or something and there’s no one home, and they’re making out a little …”

Someone—Brandon Tomkins—said, “Oh, wow,” sarcastically, and a girl in the back squeaked, “No, John, no, I’m saving myself for my husband.”

Jamie glared at them and continued. “And they both get excited.”

“And then they should stop making out,” Nomi said quickly, stepping on the sarcastic tongue clickings and mock-horrified indrawn breaths that followed Jamie’s remark. “They should remind themselves that if they really love each other, they want to protect each other, so …”

“So they use a condom,” Brandon said, echoed by several others—but not, Jamie noticed with surprise, by his friend Al Checkers, who looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

“But, butchie,” Brandon called to Jamie, “what does a dyke want with a condom anyway?”

“Stuff it, Brandon,” Vicky said.

“Anytime, baby, anytime,” Brandon replied promptly, leering.

There was a chorus of rough laughter.

Nomi opened her social studies book again. “You’re all hopeless.”

“Nomi,” Jamie began, “look, let’s …”

But by then Nomi had turned away, back to her book.

After homeroom, Terry came over to Jamie. “Some people can’t be convinced of some things, no matter how eloquent your prose. Going to English?”

“Yeah,” Jamie muttered around the lump in her throat, rummaging in her desk for her books. “Yeah, okay.”

Nomi stayed away from Jamie the rest of that day, sitting with Clark at lunch instead of with the newspaper editors, where she usually sat. Tessa, though, paused at the door to the cafeteria, near where that day’s teacher-monitor was deep in conversation with another teacher, and then wove her way through the crowds of noisy students to the newspaper table.

“That editorial was really good, Jamie,” she said, balancing her tray.

“Thanks.” Jamie moved her chair over. “Have a seat. You know just about everyone, I think.”

Cindy smiled. “I like your school committee photo, Tessa. Nice job.” She doffed her baseball cap, and Jack, who usually ate at that table even though the other reporters didn’t, said, “Yeah, great photo.”

“Thanks. But it wasn’t much. Just a three-person mug shot. That’s nothing compared to Jamie’s editorial.”

Jack nodded. “We were just talking about that.”

“The teachers were talking about it, too,” Terry said, arriving, his tray heaped with food. “I went past the teachers’ room on the way here and it sounded to me like someone was chewing Matt out about it. I heard bad words like ‘unbalanced’ and ‘biased.’”

Cindy groaned. “What else is an editorial supposed to be, for Pete’s sake? People are so dumb! It’s like they’ve got it backwards. They want editorials to be balanced and news stories to be biased.”

“Or they think news stories are biased whenever they report on stuff they don’t like,” said Jamie, “even when the stories are objective. Look, Matt says that if a newspaper doesn’t stir people up, it’s dead. So we’re alive, is all. That’s pretty good for the first issue of the year.”

“Only a scant hundred left to go,” said Terry.

Jack grinned. “Whoa! Can we keep it up?”

“Is that really true?” Tessa asked. “A hundred left to go?”

“Figure of speech,” said Terry. “Hyperbole, actually. It’s more like, I don’t know, sixteen.” Then he lowered his voice. “Possible enemy approaching.”

Jamie looked in the direction Terry had nodded and saw Clark Alman heading for their table. “Could be,” she said, but secretly she hoped he was coming with a conciliatory message from Nomi.

He did seem friendly enough. “Interesting editorial, Jamie,” he said. “I don’t agree with it, as you can imagine. I thought it was well written, though.”

Tessa patted Jamie’s hand. Terry winked; it was a joke between him and Jamie that when people didn’t like the content of something but felt they should say something good about it, they said it was well written.

“And,” Clark went on, “it’s an important subject. We’ve been kicking it around in our youth group—you know, at Lord’s Assembly—and we’d like to have a sort of debate about it.” He smiled. “Only we’ve been having trouble finding anyone from the pro-condom side. We don’t want someone like Brandon with hormones instead of brains. So I was wondering, would you come to one of our meetings and represent your point of view? That condoms are good?”

“That condoms save lives,” Jamie countered evenly. She hesitated, struck by the irony of Clark’s asking her to air her opinion at his church when he wouldn’t air his in the paper. But at least if she agreed, there’d be a debate about it. “Sure,” she said finally. “When?”

“Some Sunday night in October,” Clark replied. “Seven o’clock, at the church. We meet in the basement. I’ll let you know the exact date. Hey, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Jamie called after him.

“Geeze,” said Tessa, echoing Jamie’s thought, “if he’s so anxious to have a discussion, how come he wouldn’t do it in the paper?”

“Yeah,” Cindy said. “Didn’t he write a couple of op-eds last year?”

“Yes,” said Terry. “He did.”

Jamie picked up her sandwich. “Well, maybe he doesn’t like writing anymore. I guess we should be glad that at least he’s willing to talk. He’s really okay—I think.”

The next day was the school committee election, so Jamie stopped Nomi in the hall at dismissal. “Tell your mom good luck from me.”

“Thanks.” But Nomi turned away without smiling and walked on toward her locker.

“Nomi!” Jamie ran after her. “Can’t we disagree and still be friends?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It’s too important an issue, Jamie. Not agreeing means we’re very wide apart, morally, sort of. I mean, it’d be like not agreeing on abortion, or homosexuality, or murder, or something like that.”

Jamie felt a sudden chill. “Well, we probably don’t agree on most of those. But can’t we agree to disagree? Look, you probably know this—Clark’s invited me to debate at your youth group. It seems to me that’s a healthy way to deal with disagreements. Maybe we can all learn from each other.”

“Maybe. We can learn what the other side thinks, anyway. But I don’t see how you and I can be friends if we’re so far apart. It’s hard for me to go on being friends with someone who I think believes in immorality.”

Jamie hesitated. Then, trying not to sound angry, she said, “Did it ever occur to you that I might think what you believe is just as immoral? But that doesn’t mean I can’t like you as a person, respect you, want to be your friend.”

“That’s nice,” Nomi said coldly, twirling her combination. “But I’m not sure I can do the same.”

Jamie’s eyes filled with sudden tears. “I don’t believe this is happening.” She put her hand on Nomi’s arm. “Come on, Nom’, we’ve been friends since we were little kids. We’ve grown up together; we’ve …”

“We’re not little kids anymore. And I guess we’ve grown in different ways.”

“I …” But Jamie’s voice caught in her throat, and she realized it would probably be futile to protest further. “Okay,” she said. “But please tell your mom good luck from me. I hope you can still manage to do that.”

“Yeah,” Nomi said with a ghost of a smile. “Yeah, I can. Jamie,” she added, as Jamie turned to leave, “Jamie, I … I’m sorry.”

Much later that night, when Jamie was upstairs doing homework, the phone rang. Hoping it was Nomi, she ran to the extension in the hall, but before she got to it, she heard her mother’s voice from downstairs saying, “Thank you, Morris. I really appreciate it. I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you now … Yes, of course I’ll still come to meetings when I can. I hope Anna will also … Yes, we thought so, too. I’ll tell her … Thanks, Morris. Goodbye.”

Jamie heard her mother hang up and then come to the foot of the stairs. “Jamie?” she called.

“Yes? I’m right here.” Jamie went halfway down.

“That was Morris Just—head of the school committee? He said to congratulate you on your editorial. He said it was a brave thing to write.”

“That was nice of him.” Jamie hesitated. “Did Mrs. Pembar lose the election? What you said kind of sounded like it.”

“I’m afraid so,” her mother answered. “Lisa Buel got in by about twenty votes.”