Attacks on the Shelby Knox Documentary

Congressional religious right moves to punish public broadcasting for award-winning documentary on sex education.

Background. In the House of Representatives, the 80-member Republican Study Committee is attacking the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and harassing the Public Broadcast System for their involvement with The Education of Shelby Knox, a documentary about sex-education in Lubbock, Texas, which aired on the PBS Point of View series.

About the film The Education of Shelby Knox

Shelby Knox, fifteen when the film begins, is a devout Christian who has pledged abstinence until marriage. Nevertheless, as a youth commissioner, she becomes an advocate for comprehensive sex education - rather than the "abstinence only" which is taught in Lubbock schools. Knox's conservative parents support her activism, which eventually expands to encompass support of a gay-straight alliance. Click here for more about the film, which was an official selection of the 2005 Sundance Festival and has garnered a host of festival prizes and favorable reviews.

Congressional group attacks before film airs

Last June, shortly before PBS aired The Education of Shelby Knox, the Republican Study Committee issued a hit piece, entitled "PBS Teaching Teens with Playboy Dollars," an allusion to a small post-production grant the Playboy Foundation made to the filmmakers. It characterized PBS film funding sources as "American Taxpayer Dollars, The Playboy Foundation, [and] Grants from abortion, sex-education and anti-abstinence groups. The flier also took a few advance quotes from the film to defend Texas' teaching of abstinence as sex education. Click here to see the flier (a PDF file).

House Republican group uses Shelby Knox grant to boost public broadcast defunding bid

The Republican Study Committee is featuring the small post-production grant the filmmakers got from the Playboy Foundation in its current "Operation Offset" proposal to totally defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public television and radio. In its RSC Budget Options 2005, the committee recommends:

Eliminate Federal Funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
CPB, which receives $400 million annually from Congress, funds the Public Broadcasting Service at 15% of its annual budget. The other 85% of PBS' budget comes from viewer donations, local government, and universities. CPB and PBS continue to use federal funding to pay for questionable programming, such as a documentary on sex education funded by the Playboy Foundation. Additionally, much of the programming on PBS, such as Sesame Street, could bring in enough annual revenues to cover the loss of federal funding. Savings: $5.6 billion over ten years ($2.2 billion over five years)

Click here to read the full document on the Congressional site.

Republican committee harassing CPB over "Shelby Knox"

RSC hectors over film, then hits Corporation for Public Broadcasting with huge information request

In July 2005, 28 House Republicans wrote to the CPB, demanding an enormous assortment of records on its dealings with the Playboy foundation. The members of Congress began their letter with a swipe at The Education of Shelby Knox:

According to the PBS website, a film entitled "The Education of Shelby Knox" was funded in part by the taxpayers and in part by the Playboy Foundation. It is obvious to us why the Playboy Foundation would have a financial interest in funding what amounts to promiscuity propaganda, given that its founder has not made his millions promoting abstinence until marriage. What is less obvious is why PBS, an organization that associates itself with "Big Bird" and "Sesame Street" and as recently as last month represented itself to Congress as promoting family programming, would team up with the Playboy Foundation.

It is unfortunate that the Playboy Foundation-funded documentary not only advocates contraception-based sex education for teenagers, but also seeks to portray abstinence-until-marriage education in a negative light. Abstinence programs not only provide our nation's youth the facts about human sexuality, but they also teach them how to recognize and reject inappropriate sexual advances and pressures. These extraordinary programs help teenagers stay healthy, develop strong self-esteem, and improve their future, a contribution to society that Congress has affirmed year after year through our budget and appropriations process.

Click here to see the full text of the letter and the signers' names.

About Playboy Foundation funding

The Playboy Foundation has funded a small number of film companies, including Cine Qua Non, which produced The Education of Shelby Knox. And, contrary to the Congress members' hyperbolic expressions, the foundation says its media grants are between $5,000 and $10,000 and limited to post production! Its own description of its purpose is similarly at odds with its congressional antagonists.

The Playboy Foundation was established in 1965 "to pursue, perpetuate and protect the principles of freedom and democracy." The Playboy Foundation seeks to foster social change by confining its grants and other support to projects of national impact and scope involved in fostering open communication about, and research into, human sexuality, reproductive health and rights; protecting and fostering civil rights and civil liberties in the United States for all people, including women, people affected and impacted by HIV/AIDS, gays and lesbians, racial minorities, the poor and the disadvantaged; and eliminating censorship and protecting freedom of expression.

Click here to visit the Playboy Foundation site.