Believe What I Believe or You're Going to Hell

The Education of Shelby Knox

Shelby Knox was from a very conservative, "good Southern Baptist" home. At 15, she got involved with a group of young people in her town of Lubbock, TX and began advocating for comprehensive sex education in her school. Since 1995, Texas public schools have had abstinence-only sex education.

I just watched this documentary on the PBS show Points of View. I tuned in just as Shelby's youth pastor, Ed Ainsworth, was leading a True Love Waits service where he had all of the kids line up in front of their parents and vow before 1) their parents, 2) God, and 3) the church (and, as he said, the whole world) that they wouldn't have sex before they were married.

Now, I'm not unfamiliar with True Love Waits. I was a member of the "Spiritual Life Council" at my university and helped plan a concert with TLW as the theme. However, although I would've thought nothing out of the ordinary of this particular service as a teenager, I'm now appalled at Mr. Ainsworth's tactics.

As the documentary progresses, Shelby begins to see a strong correlation between the Church and intolerance. She also starts to see a strong correlation between the intolerance of the Church and the power of the town's politics.

As she questions, she continues to see Ed Ainsworth for councel. Ainsworth tells her that giving out condoms is wrong and that she needed to consult her Bible. You can imagine his reaction when she decided that the gay kids at her school who weren't allowed to put up flyers on the school's campus for their gay and lesbian club deserved to be helped. At the end of the film, we see Ainsworth telling the gay kids how what they're doing is wrong. The group God Hates Fags (I linked GHF, but I wouldn't visit as the site is harrowing) came to protest because the kids brought a suit against the town. They lost their case and were not able to have their club.

What struck me most was the ignorance. Even Shelby and her parents were ignorant in the beginning, but we saw them progressively open their minds to other views. I wish I would've started opening my eyes at 15.