Warner Independent Pictures has picked up the rights to the Tom Perrotta novel, The Abstinence Teacher.
Due in stores next year, the book is about a divorced sex ed teacher forced by religious conservatives to teach abstinence, reports Variety. While fighting for the freedom to keep touting the joys of sex, she falls for a born-again soccer coach.
This sounds like a take on “Inherit the Wind” dealing with the contraversy of church in our schools.
In Inherit the Wind, a teacher dares to teach Evolution in the Bible Belt and is fired and ends up in court with him fighting for his freedom of speech. Not to turn this into a religious debate, but I can’t help but draw some paralells here. In the end of the movie he is still fired, but the charges of “corrupting the youth” are dropped.
So now we have a SexEd teacher fighting for the rights of sexual freedom while once again the conservative religious leaders are depicted as the “bad guys” forcing him to teach something he doesnt agree with.
Only time will tell how this story will unfold, the book isnt even out yet. Perhaps the lead character will see a good reason to teach abstinence, or perhaps he will fight for the freedom to teach about sex without teaching lifestyle. Who knows?
Interesting that the book is not even published, but Warner Independent Pictures has already jumped on the claim.
