Volokh Conspiracy – April 22, 2006:
According to online reports, the Bush administration in January issued regulations redefining “abstinence” in federal educational programs to mean avoidance of sex at any age whatsoever except within the framework of conventional heterosexual marriage. Loads of tax dollars will now be spent in American classrooms to enforce the message that gays and unmarried heterosexuals, no matter how ripe in age, should never have sex at all, no matter how monogamous.
It seems to me that a classic bait-and-switch has gone on here. The federal government has devoted more than a billion dollars to “abstinence-only” education programs in schools. These programs have commanded fairly broad public support or at least tolerance, I think, because people who disagree on many other things will often agree that youngsters are better off postponing sexual experience until they are old enough to handle the consequences. Now it turns out that the message wasn’t “teens are better off if they wait” but “let’s reverse the sexual revolution”.
Sex is always bad unless God has blessed it first. Therefore, it is well advised to pray before engaging in relations. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, but it should be long enough to kill the mood. That way, if your arousal returns, you’ll know that it’s approved by God. One more tip… as the Biblical head of the household, the man should always be the one to lead his wife in prayer, although a sensitive man will be careful to pray that his wife will experience God’s joy as well.
If you’re not going to approach sex with the right attitude, you really should be practicing abstinence. Let us pray now for an earth-shattering orgasm and a good night’s sleep, that we may awaken refreshed and energized to do God’s will tomorrow. Amen.
Is it 2008 yet?
Ugh. See this is the sort of issue that I love to see addressed in a technical column.
Incidentally, this would not be an issue at all, today, if we were still pursuing the Reagan doctrine of eliminating the Federal Department of Education. These are issues that should be decided on local levels; when elevated to national levels do they become debateable. On the various local levels, an easy concensus is reached.
Seriously?
Far-Right Republicans are all perverts, all they ever think and talk about is sex, pornography, and homosexuality. it’s really creepy listening to them. What do they do? Surf porn all day?
i wouldn’t leave most of them alone with my kids. freakin’ sick-o’s.
This is another push to keep the fundamentalist right backing and promoting the GOP, even though statistics show that abstinence programs are not effective.
From a report by the Sexuality Information and Education Council (siecus.org): To date, six studies of abstinence-only programs have been published … the weight of evidence indicates that these abstinence-only programs do not delay the onset of intercourse … A study of 7,326 seventh and eighth graders in California who participated in an abstinence-only program found that the program did not have a measurable impact upon either sexual or contraceptive behaviors.
Now, perhaps within a strict religious framework this might have an effect, but thye US is not a Christian nation, as it is being called these days. It is a nation of many different belief systems, including non-diety philosophies, and they as well as the many Christians in this country who do not align with the hard line fundamentalist Chrisitan doctrine and being discriminated against.
To have a policy set for a single group is IMHO unconstitutional. But these days, as our President is proving, the Constitutiondon’t mea much anymore to a lot of Americans.
Yeah, rizzn — wouldn’t the whole world be a tidier place if everyone kept their lives, thoughts and opinions in those cute little bins preferred by conformist cardboard minds.
What’s all the fuss about? To abstane at any age is abstanence, right? Why is the left all over this issue? Is it really that big of deal how we define the term? Is it a redefinition anyway? Are all the real issues that should be debated decided?
#7 Max, the crux of this seems to be that the original message was abstinence for unmarried teens — hey, who can argue with that? Now the message is being changed to “abstinence for unmarried people of any age.” With God’s help in our legislatures, gays will never be able to legally marry, so the message taught in the schools will be lifelong abstinence for homosexuals. I just think it’s a shame that Satan targets a relatively small percentage of the population with this temptation, but seems to leave everyone else alone.
Max – you’re missing the part about homosexuals and marriage – it used to be “don’t have sex until you are older” now they are saying “don’t have sex unless you are married, and never do if you are gay”
There is a very big difference.
Abstinence is advocated for alcoholics to stop them from getting drunk, for smokers to stop them from getting cancer, abstinence is even advocated for drug addicts when they clean up thier lives.
So whats wrong with abstinence being advocated for stopping unwanted pregnancy, S.T.D.s, A.I.D.S., etc?
To answer #10, although this is going off track a bit from the story, I have no problem with advocating abstinence. I would have no problem with abstinence focused or abstinance centered education or whatever you want to call making abstinence the primary thrust of it. What I have a problem with is abstinence only education, meaning to the exclusion of teaching kids about contraception and safer sex.
See, there are a few problems with it. First is the reality that no matter how hard we try to push abstinence on them, some kids are still going to have sex. I think we still have a responsibility to them, the same way kids hear the don’t drink and drive message before they’re legally old enough to drink. Just because some will disobey us doesn’t mean we want them to do something even more stupid, in this case have unprotected sex. The right doesn’t like teaching them about protection because they think it encourages promiscuity. That’s like saying we shouldn’t tell kids to not drink and drive because they shouldn’t be drinking in the first place. They’re right, they shouldn’t, but the reality is that some will anyway and I think we still have a responsibility to them.
The second problem I have is that eventually these kids are going to be old enough to have sex, and they’ll need to know this stuff then. Most kids aren’t going to go out and do a bunch of research before their first time. They need to know about protection ahead of time. The right doesn’t like this because they want everyone to wait until marriage, which is fine to advocate for but again ignores reality.
Advocate your positions all you want, but just don’t use that as a reason to not teach about anything else. Some kids are going to have sex, period, and the risk of these kids not doing it safely is greater than the supposed risk of more kids having sex by knowing about safety, especially since everyone in that group would be doing it safely if that’s the thing that convinces them.
So the sex with father part (Genesis 19) is still OK, right? Oh, and throwing your virgin daughters to a horny mob? I mean if you’re going to be Ok with Biblical sex and all…
“So the sex with father part (Genesis 19) is still OK, right? “
Oh yeah, good old fashioned down and dirty “old testament” sex. Like getting rid of that outdated monogamy thing. Imagine if men could marry multiple wives! It would increase my chances of getting rejected for sex exponentially!
Since we’re discussing “old testament” theological questions here, I’ve always wondered if men need to have a wife before we can have a concubine, or can we skip marriage and go straight to the concubine. I just want to go to church once and introduce a woman as my concubine. I think that might be a Kodak moment.
Wow, another HUGE waste of tax dollars.
Basically, this abstinence education that President Bush is promoting is meant to reduce abortions and appeal to his pro-life constituency.
I was the only one in my school who WASN’T having sex!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course, I was home schooled.
Oh boy, what is Bush going to do, prosecute those for having sex in a manner not approved by God? I kid you not that teenagers will be giggling the whole time during class, and have a total kick about what they just learned in class, if they paid attention in the first place. Telling kids not to have sex for the sake of God is like telling people to stop driving for the sake of the environment, it ain’t gonna happen!
Safe sex isn’t, but being Gay isn’t a choice. So what is really the problem? It won’t matter what you teach, perverts will still go out and be perverts { it doesn’t matter which side of debate you’re on }. People will still want to have mates, all this promotes is the idea of waiting until you are mature enough to handle those decisions. This can only be a good idea for society at large, unless you’re a member of NAMBA and are looking for fresh victems/converts. This also applies to pediphilies.
#19, see #10. I have no problem with abstinence advocacy. I have a problem with the “only” part of abstinence-only education. I think it’s a disservice to our children not to teach them about contraception and safer sex and it’s based upon misguided fears (or pandering to people with misguided fears.)
#12…diane…..fathers still throw their virgin(maybe…this IS 2006) daughters to the horny mob…..each time they send one to University!!
Teaching about abstinence is good….but as so many above has said….you have to couple it with teaching about safe sex as well.
All I know is that some the best nudity on TV is embedded in these “Biblical” specials, you know, science of the bible, who did what to who way back when, the true story of the ten commandments, all that stuff.
I walways thought biblical sex was having sex in bible class…