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Click here to sign the petition requesting Congress to continue funding abstinence education.  Read below to see why this matters so much.  Family Leader representatives will deliver it to Congress so your voice is heard.

Without adequate pressure from citizens, we are about to see a sea change in the way our children in school are taught about sex.

A Zogby poll was recently conducted among parents of children ages 10 to 16, and the results shouldn’t surprise anyone.  The overwhelming majority of parents — 9 out of 10 — agree that being sexually abstinent is best for their children’s future, and 8 out of 10 think it’s important for their child to wait until they are married to have sex. 

Apparently Congress is so out of touch with the people that they didn’t get the message, because while all of the public’s attention is focused on immigration and the war in Iraq, a silent revolution is happening under the radar that will have an equally profound effect on our children.

Both the Democratic-controlled House and Senate are letting the funding for abstinence education die, while at the same time seeking to create large grants for every state for the teaching of “comprehensive sex education.”

It is the culture war coming straight into the classroom and the stakes are extremely high.  Will children continue to be taught abstinence-based sex education, or will they instead be exposed to “comprehensive sex education” or “abstinence +” education?

These terms don’t sound so bad.  After all “abstinence +” sounds like abstinence plus a little bit more.  Comprehensive sounds like you are giving the thorough and whole story.  In reality, these terms are a masquerade for the philosophy that sex — even with multiple partners, even with someone of the same gender — is healthy and natural even for the youngest teens as long as they use condoms.

It comes from the underlying philosophy that there are no moral standards, that the sexual drive is for free expression, and that humans are animals whose highest aim is to act upon our instincts.

This curricula condone sexual activity for teens and see abstinence as only marginally safer than safe sex.  Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation noted, “In reality [these programs] have very little abstinence content.  On average, less than 5 percent of comprehensive sex-ed curricula address abstinence, with zero reference to healthy relationship and marriage.  A review of nine comprehensive sex-ed curricula found not one line in 942 pages of content that urged youth to abstain from sexual activity in high school.  Instead, these programs devoted, on average, more than a quarter of their page content to promoting contraceptive use.”

If a child learns this in school, with all the authority of the education system behind it, many of them will believe it, and we shouldn’t be surprised as we watch family stability continue to dive in our country. Our children are already living in a sex-saturated culture with endless media messages to that end, without adding the voice of the public schools to aid in promoting promiscuity.

Richard Urban, executive director of ULTRA Teen Choice wrote, “We expect young people to remain drug, alcohol, and tobacco free. Cigarette filters, legalized marijuana, and limited drinking under the age of 21 are not encouraged as appropriate risk-reduction strategies. Is promoting condom use, while hiding the safety risks, any more appropriate?”

A Graphic Curriculum Sample

Here is a sample of the kind of comprehensive sex ed courses that are being pushed by Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and NARAL-Pro-Choice America and may possibly be funded by Congress.  This is from the curriculum “Our Whole Lives” and is geared for children in grades 7-9 (ages 12-15). 

The teacher is to set up a condom obstacle course with three stations.  At each station there is an obstacle to overcome, namely, you can’t feel anything if you use a condom, a condom is too small to fit, and condoms are too hard to use.  Children are to overcome these obstacles by putting a condom on their fist and seeing what they can still feel, blowing condoms up and seeing how large they get, and using a model such as a cucumber or a banana and applying the condom.

Remember, in seventh grade, children are still as young as 12 years old!

Another comprehensive sex-ed curriculum called “Be Proud! Be Responsible!” instructs teachers to:

If this is more than you want to hear, you can be certain that it is more than parents want their children to hear.

Teenwire

Planned Parenthood displays its attitude toward teen sexuality on their Teenwire website. Colorful, chatty, it’s a place where teens ask the most explicit questions.  On the site, one girl wrote in asking a question about her sexual fantasies.  The “expert: answered, “Sexual orientation — being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight — is about sexual attraction. All these sexual orientations are perfectly normal.” 

Another teen wrote in asking when it was normal to have sex.  The “expert” gave a series of questions to consider including:  “Do we both believe that sex should only be shared in marriage or other committed relationships?”  The “expert” said, “There are no right or wrong answers to these questions.”Montgomery County

Montgomery County, Maryland, it was under the guise of comprehensive sex education that a curriculum was unanimously passed by the school board last January called “Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality.” This curriculum teaches that homosexuality, lesbianism, cross-dressing and transgenderism are moral, natural and equivalent to married heterosexual love.   

The lessons demand universal affirmation by students and teachers of the gay lifestyle, even if it is contrary to their religious beliefs. Parents fear that their child will be labeled “homophobic” for expressing a contrary point of view.

Bolder in Boulder

Just recently in Boulder, Colorado, a guest speaker at the high school encouraged students as young as 14 to have sex and use drugs.

Joel Becker, an associate clinical professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles said as part of a larger conference there in Boulder, "I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately.  Why I am going to take that position is because you are going to do it anyway.  I think as a psychologist and health educator, it is more important to educate you in a direction that you might actually stick to.  So, I am going to stay mostly on with the sex side because that is the area I know more about.  I want to encourage you all to have healthy, sexual behavior.”

Becker continued, "We all experiment. It's very natural for young people to experiment with same sex relationships. When you are 11, 12, 13, 14 certainly probably one of the most appropriate sexual behaviors would be masturbation. Even today, there are psychiatrists who will do sessions under the influence of ecstasy. If I had some maybe I'd do it with someone.”

When Priscilla White, a parent, complained and attempted to read a transcript of the conference to the Boulder Valley school board meeting, she was told to stop because of the graphic nature of the content.  Yet this explicit material was given to the school children!  

Schools across the nation have experienced other outrages in the last few months in the name of sex education.

Administrators at North Newton High School in Newton, Mass., held a seminar for students that explained how to know they are homosexual, but banned parents from attend ing.

High School officials in Deerfield, Illinois, ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.

The Power of Abstinence

In contrast, where the message of abstinence is delivered, many teens are surprisingly relieved.  Julie Laipply, a national speaker on successful choices, arrived at a high school to speak about abstinence.  The principal said, “Have you talked to our students?  Everybody has sex.  They won’t like your presentation.  You might want to cut down your talk from 60 minutes to 15.”

She didn’t take him up on that request, but she did invite him to stay and watch.  She took her 60 minutes and she told the students, “I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I want to share some information and remind you that you do have a choice.”  She spoke of the physical and emotional consequences of teens having sex, and at the end of her presentation, the students spontaneously applauded.  They sensed that her message was about their long-term health and well-being and they did not have to succumb to peer pressure. 

Taylor Moore, a 17-year-old youth abstinence advocate, from Chicago, Illinois, said that she has chosen to be abstinent until marriage because she was raised by a single mother.  “Single mothers are all over my family tree,” she said, and “I am taking the opportunity to choose abstinence to break the cycle.”

Teen Sexual Activity:  A Major Problem in the Country

Teen sexuality is a major problem in our country right now.  Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have reached epidemic proportions.  According to Robert Rector, annually 3 million teenagers contract STDs; STDs afflict roughly one in four teens who are sexually active.   Research shows that early sexual activity has multiple other negative consequences for youth including emotional and psychological injuries, subsequent marital difficulties, and involvement in other high-risk behaviors.

So why would this be the time that abstinence education would be trashed, the only, sure-proof way to avoid these afflictions?  Remember the organizations behind this push for federal funding state by state for comprehensive sex education are powerful, well-funded and stand to gain more funding for their philosophy.

Here is the mantra they chant, which is picked up by the media.  It is that abstinence education is not effective or as Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which authorizes spending for Abstinence Education, also called Title V, said, abstinence education is a “colossal failure.”

This assessment is based on a new study of four abstinence-based programs by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. funded by the federal department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The study concluded that students who had taken the abstinence course were no less likely to engage in sexual intercourse than students who had not taken the class.  It also found that among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and began having sex at the same mean age.

Widely touted in the press, the study has several problems.  First, the study only examined four out of more than 900 abstinence programs currently in use.  Beyond that, of the four, one was strictly voluntary and took place after school.  The students in the abstinence programs were ages 9-11, there was no follow-up and they were not evaluated until four to six years later. 

Meanwhile, at a recent conference in Baltimore, evidence was presented from 20 studies on abstinence-based education that demonstrated positive outcomes.  The Heritage Foundation has examined 15 abstinence ed curriculums that show positive outcomes. 

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said, “The truth is, programs that are more intensive, that are genuinely comprehensive (that is address the need for risk elimination across a range of behavior, including alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence prevention) are showing real benefit. Moreover, it is crucial for risk elimination programs that they not ‘give up’ on kids and discount them as forever prone to high-risk behaviors.”

Your Help Needed

So what lies ahead?  Immediately, as citizens we need to let Congress know that we don’t want to lose funding for abstinence programs — and that “comprehensive sex education” is not acceptable for our children.  We don’t want to send them to school with one set of values and have them come home with another. 

Rep. John Dingell, who chairs the committee that must authorize abstinence education funding or Title V, has indicated he will not bring it for a vote, and therefore it will die June 30.  The REAL Act, instead, is being considered by Congress which will give state-by-state big money grants for funding comprehensive sex education.

With the loss of Title V, the two other funding streams for abstinence education will probably also dry up.

First action:  Sign the petition that will be taken to Congress to let you voice be heard.  This is so important and it only takes five minutes.  You simply click on the link in the next paragraph and follow instructions.

Family Leader representatives will take this petition with your signatures to Congress, asking them not to cut off funding for abstinence education. Sign the petition by clicking here.

Second and third actions:

If you would like to be of further help in maintaining family values in America, here are two ways:

1.Sign up to receive Family Leader’s regular email informing you of what’s happening in policy and culture that impacts family and religious freedom.  Click here to sign up.

2. Volunteer to be a school board monitor, and help stand for family values in the schools in your area.  If you are interested please contact Martha Schaerr at mschaerr@yahoo.com

Thanks for stepping forward to stand for families in the public square.  It is time.