I am a very easy-going person who gets along with others well but I am not afraid to stand up for my beliefs. In high school, I was the Editor-In-Chief of my high school’s newspaper for two years. During this time I wrote many politically charged editorials. I wrote an editorial on the need for comprehensive sex education but I was not allowed to publish it because of my school district’s abstinence only policy.

I am the brother of Shelby Knox, who starred in the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox. The film was about my sister’s fight to try to convince the school board of the Lubbock Independent School District to change their abstinence only policy. I grew up not only watching and admiring my sister’s efforts but also learning from her. She taught me a lot about sex education but she taught me even more about being an advocate for what I believe.

Being from Lubbock, I know how important comprehensive sex education is because we did not have comprehensive sex education. As a result of that, Lubbock has one of the highest STI rates in the nation. I understand that this is a critical problem across the United States and we must change the ignorant abstinence-only policies of the school boards of this country. We must not live in the past and dwell upon scripture to give us all the answers to our problems.

We must get our heads out of the Book and see the problems that face us. Abstinence-only sex education does not work. Many teens are going to have sex, and I believe that we must teach them how to do it safely. My hope is that, through education, the young people of my generation and future generations can learn to protect themselves. Young people, like myself, must advocate for sex education because it is our friends and peers who we are protecting.