Coalition for Responsible Sex Ed

We are a coalition of educational, religious, health, social service, and advocacy organizations, as well as concerned individuals that promotes lifelong healthy sexuality by advocating for policies on responsible sexuality education and access to confidential health care services.

Read our key values.
General information in PDF format.

Update on the Coalition for Responsible Sex Ed

For the past 11 years, MOAPPP was a partner in leading the Coalition for Responsible Sex Ed. Formed in 1999 with the Minnesota AIDS Project, the Coalition advocates at the Minnesota state legislature for science-based sex education, while also defending Minnesota's minors' consent statute. Today, the Coalition has an active membership of more than 1200 individuals and 55 organizations. MOAPPP's role has been to keep the field informed and mobilize grassroots efforts in support of these issues. However, due to funding changes, MOAPPP can no longer serve this role and we are in conversation with our partners to determine next steps. These issues remain at the core of MOAPPP's vision and mission, and our dedication to the health of the young people of Minnesota is unchanged. We will provide further updates when available.

We will keep the Coalition website open so you can find information about previous years?work, but will not update it further at this time.

Press Coverage of Governor’s Decision to Turn Back Federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention Funds

Several media outlets covered Governor Pawlenty’s decision to turn back federal funds for evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention funds, but accept federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. This story got more complicated when the Governor issued an Executive Order directing state agencies to decline all discretionary funding associated with federal health care reform legislation. The ramifications of this action for the state are staggering.

The Coalition for Responsible Sex Ed urges you to contact the Governor’s office to express your opinion about his decision to refuse funding for evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention funds:

Telephone: 651-296-3391
Toll Free: 800-657-3717
E-mail: tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

Federal Update

Health Care Reform
Funding for states is found in both the House and Senate Health Care Reform bills. But in the Senate, conflicting amendments passed in the final moments in Finance Committee. There are still opportunities to remedy the conflicting amendments as the bill continues to move through the process. To read more visit www.siecus.org.

REAL Act Introduced

The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, authored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ), was introduced March 17th, 2009. The REAL Act would establish the first ever grant program for responsible sex ed. Under the bill, sex education programs would be age-appropriate, medically accurate and provide information about both contraception and abstinence. For more information, visit www.siecus.org.

Minnesota Parents Support Responsible Sex Education

Results from a survey of parents from across the state indicates overwhelming support for medically accurate and comprehensive sex education - which includes reproductive health and pregnancy prevention topics - in school. The survey was conducted by the Healthy Youth Development-Prevention Research Center in collaboration with the Center for Adolescent Nursing, University of Minnesota. See KARE-11's news coverage about the report here.