Let’s ignore, for the moment, the question about whether abstinence-only sex-ed is actually effective, or whether just it produces teenagers who have unsafe pre-marital sex anyway. How the hell is lying to teenagers at all conscionable? How can anyone justify presenting kids will false statistics (“half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus”) and highly questionable statements of “fact” (“HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears”)?
And why the hell is the federal government spending money on this? Did no one consider vetting these programs before tossing money at them?
They’ve been doing it with the War On Drugs (“Pot will make you kill your family!”), and the War On Terror (“Saddam Hussein bought 19 plane tickets on Sept 10th!”. Are you really surprised that they’d do the same in the War On Sex?
My favorite part of the article is the last paragraph.
Women can never ever show up the man. Scientific fact you know. Gotta admire that man, even if he can’t get the job done and you can do it better. Way to set back women a hundred years.
That’s what’s being taught in some of the schools.
Didn’t you know that mentioning the word “SEX” to kids just makes them want to have sex? Worked for me. :smack:
Abstinence-only programs are anti-sex propaganda designed by and for fundies. They have no scruples with using lies and deception to scare the pants off students if they’re doing it for Jesus. Joe S. McIlhaney, the head of the organization that produces much of the abstinence-only curricular materials that were surveyed by Waxman’s team, is a Texas fundie nutcase. FRom alternet.org:
And yet some folks wonder why skeptics question fundies’ commitment to truth and fair dealing.
Oh for the love of Og, are they done yet? Sending the USA back to the 1950s sexually wasn’t enough; they’re not going to rest until it’s back to the 1800s.
Good intentions are no excuse for incompetence, distortion, and lies. So Mr. McIlhaney is “saddened” that Waxman called bullshit on dishonest programs soaking up our tax dollars? Well cry me a fucking river, asshole. I’m “saddened” that groups like yours have wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on this garbage over the last five years.
As far as I’m concerned, the federal government would be better off spending $0 on sex education programs. And even if they’re going to fund abstinence only programs, how about only funding the ones that don’t lie?
And in re-reading my original post, I ought to have written, “They have no scruples with using lies and deception to scare the pants on students if they’re doing it for Jesus.”
If I may borrow from Orwell,
This just serves as more proof that the government shouldn’t be in the education business. We’ve got kids graduating from high school who can’t point out Washington DC on a map. Is it any surprise that public schools can’t get sex right either?
What hildea said. The information is these programs isn’t produced by public schools (which in the United States answer to state governments), it’s produced by third-party organizations like the Medical Institute for Sexual Health (now receiving tax dollars from the federal government), who are probably just as capable of peddling their wares to private schools.
Interestingly today I read in the economist that the federal government provides only 8% of the budget of public schools.
If I am not mistaken most of the curricular and budget decisions are made by local school boards. They certainly were the ones who decided to discredit evolution here in GA.
Perhaps you should be pointing fingers at the folks on school boards who decide these things and not “the government.”
Sigh. Is it hopeless? Are we really going down this path? At this rate there is no way I’d let my child be educated in this country. This is so damn depressing!
I’m gonna go watch Oprah and eat ice cream now…I gotta get some prozac or zoloft or valium or something… wanders off in a daze
This is just wrong! While it’s probably OK for a regular guy to marry the nice girl, the character in the story is a Prince, and by taking the easier path, he’s left a conniving princess free to corrupt the nation! Had the prince been man enough to do his duty to the kingdom, he would have married the bitchly princess, and corrected her with a firm hand. What sort of message are we sending our kids when we present them with role models who ditch their duty to God and country merely for the sake of a pleasant home-life?
The AIDS epidemic is aiding the abstinence movement, especially when 47 percent of new infections are happening to women. I wouldn’t be surprised if women on both sides of the feminist aisle are fueling the movement, behind the scenes.
