Sibby Online

Abstinence is the Truth

Abstinence is one of God’s Laws. And true freedom means following that Law. Rebecca Hagelin has a column that includes a quote form Leslee Unruh as the godless left tries to attack God’s Truth in congressional hearings regarding sex education indoctrination:

Who could argue with the idea that, when it comes to sex education, our teenagers should be taught to say "no"? Considering what's at stake (their health, their future, their dignity as human beings, their morality) – and because we love them and want what's best for them, nothing short of a clear-cut abstinence message will do.

At least, that's how it appears out here in the Real World. In the rarified air of a congressional hearing room, it's another matter. According to several witnesses (including John Santelli of the Guttmacher Institute and Max Siegel of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families) who spoke recently before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, abstinence education is not only impractical, it's dangerous.

Many critics of the abstinence-only programs that have been federally funded over the past 11 years resort to the old kids-will-be-kids argument. They'll "do it anyway," we're told, so we're wasting time and money on an idealistic charade. Worse, we're depriving our rutting youth of the "protection" they need to make their unions non-fruitful and disease-free.

Lawmakers didn't hear from actual teenagers, though. "The greatest failure of this committee was not allowing those that were being talked about – the teens themselves – the opportunity to share how and why abstinence programs have worked for them," said Leslee Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "I saw abstinent young adults in the audience appearing frustrated, saying they wish they could share their opinion on this matter."

A quick review of the resulting coverage finds that the witnesses' agenda has a receptive audience among the media. Typical headlines include "Abstinence-only sex ed discredited" (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Indiana), "A real-world solution to teenage pregnancy" (Houston Chronicle) and "Abstinence-only education not enough" (Rapid City Journal, South Dakota).

I hate to interrupt their collective dream with something as inconvenient as the facts. Actual research, however, shows that the abstinence message works.

In a major new paper, Christine Kim and Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation sifted carefully through numerous studies on the effectiveness of abstinence programs and found clear evidence that they work. "In addition to teaching the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage, abstinence programs focus on developing character traits that prepare youths for future-oriented goals," the researchers write.

Pat Powers and sex education

Pat Powers has been making a false accusation that I have attacked his wife. I am reposting my exact words:

It should make conservatives wonder why Pat Powers is so sensitive about one who helps the conservative cause understand its enemy…the secular humanist movement. Perhaps it is because his livelihood includes his wife’s public education participation in the secular humanist movement.

First off, I don’t see where that can be considered a personal attack in regard to his wife. And before I get into the post where Pat Powers himself mentions his wife’s participation in public education, let me provide some background on an issue that I believe to be the biggest threat to conservatives, South Dakota, America, and the future of freedom.

The issue is the attack on America’s moral foundation through the secular humanist’s sex education agenda that is promoted by the government’s public education system. Bob Ellis did some excellent coverage on the controversy this agenda created in the Sioux Falls community in 2005. Here is his introduction:

Sioux Falls middle schools have been the setting for intense debate since early October when a group of concerned parents asked whether the new health curriculum was appropriate for their young children.

Health Smart, published in 2004 by ETR Associates (www.etr.org) in California, was chosen by the school district before the current school year began, and when some parents got a look at the material, they became concerned. When they discussed it with education officials and got a look at the teacher reference material, they became even more apprehensive.

For many, it was not only the explicit nature of some of the material which was unsettling, but the fact that the curriculum seemed to be lacking in hard facts, and appeared to feature more open-ended discussion than following a set lesson plan with specific information, goals and objectives.

The controversy made it to the 2006 South Dakota Legislature with Roger Hunt pushing the conservative abstinence education bill (HB1217) and Stan Adelstein countering with a bill (SB196) that was aimed to protect the secular humanist’s comprehensive sex education agenda.

HB1217 passed the House chamber 46 to 24. But then it headed to the liberal Senate Education committee where these people spoke in opposition:

Senator Stanford Adelstein
Kate Looby, Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls

Jim Hutmacher, SD Coalition of Schools
Donna DeKraai, SDEA

The Senate Education Committee killed the bill, but this report mentioned the testimony I offered in support of the bill:

Steve Sibson of Mitchell, who has a well-known politically conservative Internet site, said he believes the bill would provide more local control to parents. The current system allows the state Board of Education and other officials to set standards that are imposed on local districts, he said.

In addition, state education officials provide local teachers with workshops on how to deal with parents who are upset about sex education, Sibson said.

What the report does not mention is that later in the day, the Department of Education removed from their web site the workshop that was planned in Sioux Falls that was to deal with special Ed children whose parents resisted sex education. Here is where Pat Powers used his wife to provide the secular humanist’s angle on this controversy:

As a parent, I too am concerned about making sure that what is taught is age appropriate, and within the boundaries of my values.

But the topic of special needs students threw a bit of a wrinkle into the whole thing. That’s my wife’s bailiwick, not mine. She’s been involved in special ed at the local, state, and national level, so I did what any smart person would do, I asked her.

And here is what Pat Powers learned:

What I’m told is that this is to help show instructors how to convey some basic information to young adults who are still in the educational system (and as special needs students, they remain so until age 21 - *I think*). Basic as in; these are the parts, this is what they are for, this is appropriate, this is inappropriate, etc.

In some cases, there is parental involvement. But in many other cases, I’m told the parents might not be around. If not the teachers, who teaches them? And what are the consequences if nobody does?

It is only about "young adults"? But this is the truth about sex Ed in special Ed:

It is critical that children and teens with disabilities learn appropriate sexual behaviors. They must be taught when to say no and learn to advocate for themselves and report abuse. Children and teens with disabilities have a right to be taught to protect themselves, and often times as parents that job falls on us. There are numerous resources available in the form of books,workbooks, and videos. The particular workbook linked above has activities, pictures, worksheets, and text for children from kindergarten to grade 12.

So the 21 year old statement by Pat Powers reflects just a tip of what happens. The left uses things like this to spin by painting the point with a broad brush in an inappropriate use of logic. The truth is that "children" (and that is the word the SD DOE workshop used) are being told things about sex starting at kindergarten. And if parents don't agree, the teachers are being urged to have an attitude that the parents are wrong. This is anti-parent and adversely impacts family life in America. Just because your child is deemed to have "special needs" by the government, should not mean that you lose parental rights. That does not fit the concept of "local control". And that was the point made during my testimony before the Senate Education committee.

So we should be suspesious of the worldview that Pat Poweer's wife is promoting. Let me point you back to my previous post where Joseph Farah has huge concersn about the NEA. And note that the opposition to HB1217 included the South Dakota teachers union, Stan Adelstein, and Kate Looby of Planned Parenthood. And if Pat Powers or anybody else don’t believe that the secualr humanists are behind this, here is a link that includes this:

Because both Religious and Secular Humanism are identified so closely with cultural humanism, they readily embrace modern science, democratic principles, human rights, and free inquiry. Humanism's rejection of the notions of sin and guilt, especially in relation to sexual ethics, puts it in harmony with contemporary sexology and sex education as well as aspects of humanistic psychology. And Humanism's historic advocacy of the secular state makes it another voice in the defense of church/state separation.

All these features have led to the current charge of teaching "the religion of secular humanism" in the public schools.

So when I mention Pat Power’s "wife’s public education participation in the secular humanist movement", it is not an attack, but a fact. Pat Powers and Todd Epp are very sensitive about the issue of secular humanism. And for good reason. If conservatives are successful in educating the masses about this movement and how it is subtly being implemented through the public education system, the liberal cause will be viewed as being extreme. Liberal Republicans will no longer be called "moderates", but instead "mistaken". Conservatives will no longer be viewed as "extremists", but instead "moderates" who have protected America from those who want to destroy the very foundation upon which our freedoms can stand. Conservatism will be synonymous with mainstream.

For me, the SDCAC’s education reform plank is the key for conservatism to prevail as the movement that restores traditional American principles that includes freedoms for parents to raise and educate their children based on their wishes. Not by the wishes of the education establishment that has monopolized America’s public education system that is establishing a state sanctioned religion of secular humanism. The church/state separation has been turned on its head by these propagandists.

May God Bless our efforts as we are about to again celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

MSM bias on sex education

The study that shows Virginia’s abstinence program was effective has yet to get their due credit in the MSM or respect from Virginia's Governor Tim Kaine:

Shortly after the publication of Douglas Kirby's Emerging Answers 2007, a study which found that abstinence programs were not effective, and after Virginia Governor Tim Kaine rejected federal funding for abstinence until marriage programs, a new study to be published in 2008 shows that a Virginia based program has been effective in delaying sexual activity.

Of course, you know which study made the headlines...

Interestingly enough, Dr. Stan Weed, the author of this new study, is on the Effective Programs And Research Task Force, which reviewed Emerging Answers in early 2007.

Being on this task force should give Dr. Weed an equal standing and equal credibility in the media. After all, if he wasn't a credible researcher, he wouldn't be on the task force along with Dr. John Santelli, who is the Department Chair of the Population and Family Health department at Columbia University, would he?

When Douglas Kirby or Dr. John Santelli publish studies supporting comprehensive sexuality education programs, headlines across the nation echo, and quite often misrepresent, the conclusions of their work.

For example, the Associated Press' recent headline describing Emerging Answers reads "Report: Abstinence not curbing teen sex" - yet this headline is misleading.

This AP headline, as well as others, has caused me to suspect that reporters don't actually read the studies, and if they did, they don't actually understand the issue well enough. Consider that in Emerging Answers, Kirby acknowledges that abstinence increased from 1995 to 2005. (Page 28, paragraph 3) Had the reporter read this paragraph, they wouldn't have been able to honestly pen such a misleading headline.

Interestingly enough, I wasn't able to find an AP story about Dr. Weed's study. And this isn't the first time the media has ignored studies supporting abstinence until marriage programs.

It seems that a double standard exists - if a study supports contraception and comprehensive sexuality education, it is considered newsworthy, but if a study supports abstinence, it is not.

Dr. Weed's study, An Abstinence Program's Impact on Cognitive Mediators and Sexual Initiation, will be published in the Jan/Feb issue of American Journal of Health Behavior. You can read more about it here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88807.php

In closing, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine rejected Title V funding since he wanted to fund programs that are evidence based. Now that there is evidence that Virginia's program is effective, Gov. Kaine should accept the funding.

Kids just wanna have sex

That is why the far-left want to remove abstinence funding according to Jane Chastain. Here is the introduction to her column:

It appears the federal grant program that made abstinence education available to public schools will be allowed to expire at the end of this month, despite the fact these programs have helped cut the rate of teen sexual activity, teen pregnancy and abortion.

Title V, as the $50 million mandatory appropriation for abstinence education is called, was part of the welfare reform bill passed in 1996 by the Republican-led Congress. However, the money the federal government spends on explicit anything-goes-as-long-as-it-goes-with-a-condom brand of sex education is at least 12 times that amount.

Nevertheless, groups on the receiving end of the big bucks – Planned Parenthood, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States and Advocates for Youth – were threatened by the success of these abstinence programs, so they pulled out all the stops to get liberal governors to refuse them and the Democrat-controlled Congress to eliminate the funds for abstinence education.

And the far-left is using their typical lies and the Drive-by media to get this done:

You might say abstinence education is a victim of its own success. Recently, it has received a lot of bad press as a result of lazy journalists who recycle information fed to them by the nation's pregnancy profiteers.

Would a journalist blindly accept a report from a tobacco company that shows smoking promotes good health without thoroughly checking out the facts contained in the report? Of course not! But they accept information handed to them by the condom pushers and print it as gospel.

The nuclear weapon now in the hands of the so-called "safe sex" crowd was a gift from the Clinton administration. Eight years ago the Department of Health and Human Services gave a cool $6 million to Mathematica, a policy research organization widely used by the left, to do a study on abstinence education. In 1999, Mathematica began a limited evaluation of four early abstinence programs with 1,209 students and a control group in the same schools with 848 students. A follow-up was done five years later. Those little interviews cost us about $3,000 per student. Talk about government waste! The report is titled "Impact on Four Title V, Section 510, Abstinence Education Programs Final Report," and it contains serious flaws:

• The researchers ignored the established programs most recommended for the study and focused on four (out of more than 900 currently in use).
• The four that were chosen were not representative and have since been improved.
• There was no high school component.
• The study was on children who were in abstinence programs as early as third grade (not the average age for abstinence education or sexual activity).
• These students had no follow-up to the original abstinence message.

Nevertheless, this study has been widely reported as the definitive study on abstinence education.

There have been at least 15 scientific evaluations that show abstinence education programs to be highly effective in changing teen behavior and attitude toward sexual activity that have been published in the Journal of American Medical Association, the American Journal of Sociology and other respected sources. A complete review of these studies by Robert Rector and Christine Kim soon will be available from the Heritage Foundation.

Chastain ends with how the far-left encourages kids to have sex with their sex education programs:

Despite more than 40 years of failure, the "anything goes" crowd wants us to believe they are responsible for the recent drop in teen sexual activity, pregnancies and abortions and that the answer is simply to give teens more condoms and even more explicit sexual information.

This flies in the face of common sense.

These sex educators give out condoms and have children practice putting them on bananas and models. They also give out dental dams with instruction on how to perform oral sex. Teens are encouraged to experiment, read erotic books, play sex games, shower with a friend and masturbate in front of a partner.

These programs put additional pressure on teens who wish to remain abstinence, and the condom in the hand is left as a visual reminder – a kind of permission slip from an authority figure – that teens are expected to have sex.

When abstinence education goes away, this is all we will have left.

Perhaps the solution should be no funding for both abstinence and go ahead and have sex programs. I promote the elimination of all federal education funding and elimination the federal Department of education. The secularists would no longer be able to claim that the federal government is establishing a religion. That way we can go back to allowing schools to use the Bible as a textbook.

Parents want abstinence

Yesterday I put up a post that previews a Planned Parenthood report that shows that both contraception and abortions have increased. Today LifeNews is reporting on a Zogby poll that shows parents prefer their children be encouraged to be abstinent and not be taught to have sex:

An overwhelming number of parents want their kids to practice abstinence until marriage and support abstinence education programs that drive that point home. Though six states have announced their intent to refuse federal funding for abstinence-only education, a new Zogby poll shows they are out of touch with Americans.

The poll found that 83% of parents want their children to save sex until marriage and a majority of families believe that programs should reinforce the abstinence message when broaching sex ed in the classroom.

"Despite left-wing pressure to abandon abstinence-only education, a survey of over 1,000 parents found overwhelming support for the programs," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told LifeNews.com on Monday.

"When the differences between comprehensive and abstinence education were explained, moms and dads supported abstinence by a two-to-one margin," he added.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, also commented on the poll.

"There’s so much misinformation out there about what abstinence education is," she told CitizenLink. "We were convinced that once parents understood the real content of abstinence education, they would overwhelmingly support abstinence."

Perkins said he wasn't surprised to see the poll found that two-thirds of parents thing the abstinence message is wrongly compromised when presented alongside a safe sex theme.

Once they understand what abstinence education actually teaches, 6 out of 10 parents would rather their child receive abstinence education vs. comprehensive sex education. Only 3 out of 10 prefer comprehensive, Zogby showed.

Iowa to expand promotion of immorality

From LifeNews:

Lawmakers in the Iowa and Washington state legislatures are pushing bills that would force schools to teach sexual education courses with curriculum prepared by the nation's largest abortion business. The Washington Senate passed a bill by a 30-19 vote and the Iowa House approved a bill 55 to 40.

In Iowa, the state House approved HF 611 despite opposition from pro-life groups, including Iowa Right to Life.

The bill is headed to the Senate where there is little chance in defeating it, the group told LifeNews.com in an email.

HF 611 is a coordinated effort by Planned Parenthood, the Emma Goldman Clinic abortion center and the Representative Mary Mascher--who also led the fight for human cloning in Iowa.

"It is no secret what they are trying to do" IRLC director Kim Lehman told LifeNews.com, referring to their opposition to abstinence education.

"The reality is, if the bill passes, Iowa will be required to revise curriculum to a 'new and politically correct abstinence only,'" Lehman explained.

"Indeed, schools will be able to teach an abstinence only program, as long as it's politically correct. They will no longer be able to teach that life begins at conception or that condoms fail," she added. "No longer will these worthy curriculums teach that having sex only within marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity."

Meanwhile, in Washington, state Sen. Val Stevens said the Planned Parenthood sexual education bill is "probably the worst piece of legislation we’ve passed in the 15 years I’ve been in the legislature."

"The bill will eliminate the opportunity for the schools to teach abstinence education, unless they also present the ‘medically correct’ -- as it is being called -- curriculum that will be developed by the state superintendent of public instruction," he said.

LeAnna Benn, director of Spokane-based Teen-Aid, said the curriculum requires that students be taught about access to abortion as well.

Secular humanism and sex education

First I would like to provide this explanation of what exactly is secular humanism:

In summary, the Humanist Manifesto I dealt with 15 major themes, or convictions, of secular humanism. It asserted that the universe was self-existing and not created; that man is a result of a continuous natural process; that mind is a projection of body and nothing more; that man is molded mostly by his culture; that there is no supernatural; that man has outgrown religion and any idea of God; that man’s goal is the development of his own personality, which ceases to exist at death; that man will continue to develop to the point where he will look within himself and to the natural world for the solution to all of his problems; that all institutions and/or religions that in some way impede this "human development" must be changed; that socialism is the ideal form of economics; and that all of mankind deserves to share in the fruits from following the above tenets.

Then came the need for an updated Manifesto:

It is forty years since Humanist Manifesto 1 (1933) appeared. Events since then make that earlier statement seem far too optimistic. Nazism has shown the depths of brutality of which humanity is capable. Other totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights without ending poverty. Science has sometimes brought evil as well as good. Recent decades have shown that inhuman wars can be made in the name of peace. The beginnings of police states, even in democratic societies, widespread government espionage, and other abuses of power by military, political, and industrial elites, and the continuance of unyielding racism, all present a different and difficult social outlook. In various societies, the demands of women and minority groups for equal rights effectively challenge our generation.

So came the greed of Humanist Manifesto II:

Humanity, to survive, requires bold and daring measures. We need to extend the uses of scientific method, not renounce them, to fuse reason with compassion in order to build constructive social and moral values. Confronted by many possible futures, we must decide which to pursue. The ultimate goal should be the fulfillment of the potential for growth in each human personality -not for the favored few, but for all of humankind. Only a shared world and global measures will suffice.

A humanist outlook will tap the creativity of each human being and provide the vision and courage for us to work together. This outlook emphasizes the role human beings can play in their own spheres of action. The decades ahead call for dedicated, clear-minded men and women able to marshal the will, intelligence, and cooperative skills for shaping a desirable future. Humanism can provide the purpose and inspiration that so many seek; it can give personal meaning and significance to human life (ibid., pp. 14, 15).

Humanism is the new religion, the new God who gives meaning to life as the old one never could. This is the interloper into divinity which the Christian must challenge and answer.

I would like to focus on two assumption from Humanist Manifesto II:

Fifth: The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires. We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility. Although science can account for the causes of behavior, the possibilities of individual freedom of choice exist in human life and should be increased.

Sixth: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered "evil." Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express the sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects, and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged. Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.

The Humanist Manifesto II also promotes a one-world government. Clearly giving up our sovereignty is an anti-American position. Here is a tie in to the abortion issue:

The use of abortion appears to be allowed by both articles fourteen and fifteen of Manifesto H. Article fourteen states that "excessive population growth must be checked" and article fifteen calls birth control techniques a "human right." Taken with the previous Manifesto II statement in arti-cle six regarding abortion as a human right, we can see that it is very likely that the secular humanists, if given the chance, would solve popula-tion booms with, among other things, abortions. We repeat what we said earlier: does it contribute to the dignity and value of the individual human life to murder it if it is inconvenient, if it doesn't fit into the world plan for conservation of resources and if it just happens not to have been born yet? Christians cannot agree to taking innocent human life in the name of any world plan.

So now that we have some understanding of secular humanism, we should next concern ourselves with how it is being promoted:

Another organization is The Sex Information and Education Council (see The Siecus Circle: A Humanist Revolution, Claire Chambers, Belmont, MA: Western Islands Publishing Company, 1977). The Sex Information and Education Council is humanistic in its outlook and policy.

SIECUS is the force behind public education’s comprehensive sex education. Here is what they say they are about:

SIECUS-the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States-has served as the national voice for sexuality education, sexual health, and sexual rights for over 40 years.

SIECUS affirms that sexuality is a fundamental part of being human, one that is worthy of dignity and respect. We advocate for the right of all people to accurate information, comprehensive education about sexuality, and sexual health services. SIECUS works to create a world that ensures social justice and sexual rights.

In 2003 Fox News reports on this controversy:

Taxpayer funds are being used for school sexuality education programs that subvert the idea of abstinence for teens and target children as young as 9 years old with lessons on masturbation, condom use and homosexuality, say opponents of the courses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (search) came under heavy fire last year for its "Programs That Work" (search) initiative, which offers a number of lessons targeting different age groups from elementary schools through high school.

But Robert Rector, a public health researcher at the Heritage Foundation (search), said he has learned that the lessons continue to be taught in schools around the country despite the fact the Bush administration pulled the plug on the program.

These programs, I can say with confidence, are still being promoted through the CDC — even though they are trying to hide it," Rector said.

A CDC spokeswoman denied that the agency has continued officially promoting the controversial programs, but stands behind their efficacy for high-risk youth populations. Kathy Harben also did not deny that the programs might still be employed by public health organizations and schools.

"We are backers of teens being abstinent," Harben said, adding that "Programs That Work" has nonetheless been "proven to be scientifically effective" for certain populations. She also that that the CDC continues to fund other safe-sex programs that might be considered controversial by some.

"Our bottom line is our communities are the best judges about what are the best programs for their schools," she added.

Pro-safe sex organizations say the Bush administration is doing a disservice to schools and students by emphasizing abstinence-only programs over what they call "comprehensive sexuality education."

"It’s more than just about the plumbing, about how the body functions," said Adrienne Verrilli, spokeswoman for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (search) (SIECUS), which has so far received over $500,000 from the CDC as part of a five-year cooperative agreement for school health projects.

"We also stress the importance of the relationship, and communicating," Verrilli said. "It’s not as if we don’t want people to delay sexual activity, that’s what we all can agree on, but we want to talk to kids in a comprehensive way."

Here is more on the controversy:

SIECUS, comprised of a public health and education network as well as a lobbying arm that works with the leading gay and lesbian organizations, feminists, HIV/AIDS and pro-choice groups, has developed its own "Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education."

The guidelines, published in 1991, cover 13 very broad subject areas "from communications skills to proper medical information to assisting parents with talking to their kids," Verrilli said.

"They’re not a curriculum, they are really a pick-and-choose for communities," she said.

Among the choices in the guidelines are recommendations to teach children as early as 5 years old about masturbation and homosexuality. As early as age 12, children might be learning about having fantasies about other kids of their own gender, mutual masturbation to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, and that legal abortion "is very safe."

Verrilli said with 20,000 copies in circulation, the guidelines "have become the most widely recognized and implemented framework for comprehensive sexuality education across the country."

The SIECUS Web site also recommends several other links for teens, including Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire (search), and Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice (search). All offer graphic descriptions of sex acts, how-tos for so-called safe "sex play" and other hints and suggestions for achieving sexual pleasure.

Opponents of safe-sex education point out that many organizations that provide resources like these get some form of state and federal assistance to pursue their agendas, and say that taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going.

"All these things in schools are funded with government money, it’s their bread and butter," said Brian Camenker, president of the Parents’ Rights Coalition (search) in Massachusetts, which has gone head-to-head with Planned Parenthood (search) and other groups in front of the state legislature.

"[They] stand to lose money if parents stop these programs. They never want parents to have a choice," Camenker said.

It is disturbing to know that we have anti-American, anti-God, and anti-family secular humanist ideology in our public education systems as those of religious faith are turned away due to the so-called separation of church and state. But during the Referred Law 6 campaign, the pro-abortion advocates used religion to garner support for their cause. Here is the admission by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights:

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is honored to have worked alongside South Dakota Pastors for Moral Choices in reaching out to the faithful with a positive, moral basis to keep abortion legal. The vote shows that we have the power and the ability to stand up for what is right. We are grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support from our partners in religious communities and organizations and our supporters throughout the nation.

RCRC was on the ground in South Dakota and talked to hundreds of people. We learned that some voters rejected the instructions of their own churches— often from the pulpit—to vote for the ban. Our message was more in touch with what most people believe—that abortion is a personal decision for a woman, guided by her faith. Again and again, people told us, "Women deserve trust and respect."

Not only is the RCRC position on abortion in line with that of the secular humanists, so is their position on sex education. Here is what the have a one of the "Healthy Family" (remember that was what the South Dakota pro-abortion advocates called themselves)initiatives:

Comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education

Yes, the same program created by the secular humanist SIECUS. So why in the world would we have a religious coalition that is promoting the ideology of secular humanism? They say that they, "reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality." And that, "the possibilities of individual freedom of choice exist in human life and should be increased." Why would Christian religion agree with those secular humanist that believe:

We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural ....

But we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.

I find this alliance very strange. If you take a look at the RCRC memberships, not only will you find the United Methodist, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and the United Church of Christ, but also "Humanistic Judaism". Think about a religious coalition adopting the ideology of a worldview that puts people above God.

So if they want to say they have a religion of abortion, and a religion of sex, then they should not have their cake and eat it too. If they want to remove religions based on God from public education, then the religion of the RCRC should also be removed from public education, let alone funded by the federal government through the Center for Disease Control.

Perhaps someone should put together some legislation at both the state and federal level to remove the religion of the secular humanist from public education. Most don’t know that Planed Parenthood has a Clergy Advisory Board, meaning that they too have a religion…a religion that is allowed in public education curriculum, but not God and prayer. Is that fair? Is that what we should consider equal protection? Would our Founding Fathers allow God to be removed from the public sphere in order to make room for Planned Parenthood?

Abstinence and parents’ rights

From The American Spectator:

Though Planned Parenthood would no doubt deny it, teenage sex has declined as abstinence programs have increased. The American Enterprise Institute, which has been tracking data on this for over a decade, recently reported a University of Chicago study showing that the percentage of high school students who had ever had sex dropped from 59 percent to 46 percent between 1989 and 2001.

Not surprisingly, the teenage birthrate has dropped steadily over approximately the same period. In 1991 it was 62 per 1,000 teenage girls (ages 15-19); by 2004 it was down to 41.

Several months ago two researchers affiliated with the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas, presented their findings at a conference on sex education. They compared two groups of Georgia middle-school students. One group, of some 200 students, had taken an interactive, multi-lesson abstinence course called Choosing the Best. The other group of 140 received only four state-approved abstinence lectures in class. The Choosing the Best students scored much higher on abstinence knowledge than did the control group. More importantly, the researchers revisited the same students a year later to find if they had had sexual intercourse. The results: over the year 21 percent of the control group students had sex, but only, 11 percent of the Choosing the Best students had.

Despite this encouraging news, believers in the all-teenagers-rut-like-weasels school of sex education continue to try to impose their views on school curricula. In a landmark case in May in Montgomery County, Maryland--a blue county in a blue state, a Clinton-appointed federal judge granted a restraining order to a parents' group called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, which had sued to prevent the board of education from launching a controversial new sex education program. Among other things, the program included a seven-minute video to be shown to 10th graders featuring a young woman putting a condom on a cucumber.

Judge William Alexander ruled that the one-sided Montgomery County program represented "viewpoint discrimination" and thus violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. The success of the CRC group's effort has encouraged a number of like-minded parent groups to spring up around the country.

After the ruling, the Heritage Foundation's social welfare policy analyst, Melissa Pardue, was quoted as saying, "What this really illustrates is that parents have a particular set of values. They work hard to instill those in the home, and they don't want (them) undermined in the health class."

Will the zealots of Planned Parenthood and their allies admit the evidence of their eyes and applaud the drop in teenage sex and pregnancy? Don't hold your breath.

Bill Clinton lies about sex again

From LifeNews:

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania finds that teaching abstinence education to young teenagers in public schools reduces their sexual behavior. The study found that abstinence helped delay the starting point at which teenagers begin having sexual relations.

The Penn researchers studied 662 African-American students in 6th and 7th grade from inner-city schools in Philadelphia.

They found that those who were taught abstinence were less likely to have had sexual relations in a 24 month followup compared to those who were taught about safer sex through the use of condoms but didn't mention abstinence.

At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto yesterday, former President Bill Clinton echoed the claims made by abortion advocates that abstinence programs make teens less likely to use condoms when they do start having sex.

But the University of Pennsylvania study found the opposite to be true.

"It did not reduce intentions to use condoms, it did not reduce beliefs about the efficacy of condoms, it did not decrease consistent condom use and it did not decrease condom use at last sexual [encounter]," lead author John Jemmott, of the University of Pennsylvania, told the CanWest News Service.

"There aren't any studies that show that children are less likely to use condoms as a result of an abstinence intervention. I've looked in the literature, there are no studies that show that," Jemmott said.

More sex education

This time from Delaware:

WILMINGTON -- A former Claymont Elementary School teacher accused of having sexual relations with one of her students has been indicted on 28 counts of first-degree rape.

Rachel L. Holt, 34, of the 8500 block of Park Court in Fox Point, was arrested in April after the father of a 13-year-old boy reported overhearing telephone calls between Holt and his son.

According to court records, Holt acknowledged that between March 24 and March 31 she had sexual intercourse with her student 27 times and that she once performed oral sex on the boy.