Abstinence-Only programs have never really been based on facts, instead it’s mostly absurd and patently false information in an attempt to indoctrinate young people with Medieval ideas about sex, the reproductive system, pregnancy, homosexuality, STDs/VDs, and reproductive rights. These programs have also been saturated with religious dogma though they are taught in public schools, which of course, subverts and replaces medical science with superstition. This program is also very hostile and even viciously bigoted against LGBT people and their sexuality, and teach nothing but lies about them–even going as far to say that LGBT people can be “re-programmed” to be heterosexual via therapy. Recently the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the federal government claiming that they were using taxpayer dollars to fund overtly religious abstinence-only programs taught and used in public schools. One of these programs funded by the federal government–a website–responded by removing many parts of its very religious message on its website.
In Light of ACLU Lawsuit Charging the Federal Government with Funding Religious Activities, the Silver Ring Thing Removes Religious Content from Website
NEW YORK – In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Jenner & Block LLP against the federal government for funding religious activities in an abstinence-only program, the Silver Ring Thing today substantially altered and removed religious content from its website.
“The Silver Ring Thing is clearly worried about the content of its website,” said Julie Sternberg, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “They are going to great lengths to paint a picture of an organization that does not use taxpayer dollars to promote religion. Unfortunately, altering their website will not be enough to hide the overtly religious message that they have been promoting for years on the public’s dime.”
In the last 24 hours, www.silverringthing.com has undergone a facelift, the ACLU said. Among the removed items are the organization’s newsletters, which contained a clear statement of the Silver Ring Thing’s religious purpose: “The mission is to saturate the United States with a generation of young people who have taken a vow of sexual abstinence until marriage and put on the silver ring. This mission can only be achieved by offering a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the best way to live a sexually pure life.”
Additionally, the Silver Ring Thing’s original “12 Step Follow-Up Program” has been modified. Prior to the lawsuit, the website contained only one version of a follow-up program. Now, the site offers a “10 Step Secular Follow-Up Program” and has renamed its 12-step version to include the words “faith-centered” in the title. The new program removes step two, which encourages using the Abstinence Study Bible and step four, which asks students to understand that “God has a plan for his or her life, and a plan for his or her sexuality.” And “Deb’s Diary,” a section of the website that encouraged students to pursue faith and to find completion in Christ, has also been removed.
“A sanitized version of the website does not change the fact that the Silver Ring Thing in its core programming is nothing more than a vehicle for converting young people to Christianity,” said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Taxpayer dollars should play no part in such a program.”
“The Silver Ring Thing has long been quite open about the religious content in its abstinence-only sex education program,” said Daniel Mach, a partner at Jenner & Block LLP. “The federal government had ample time to look into the program and see whether or not taxpayer dollars were being funneled into religious activities. It should not have taken a lawsuit for the Silver Ring Thing to scramble in an attempt to clean up its act.”
The case at issue, ACLU of Massachusetts v. Leavitt, was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Monday. Lawyers on the case include Sternberg and Caroline Mala Corbin of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, Mach, Victoria Jueds, Thomas Pulham, and Jessica Tillipman of Jenner & Block LLP, and Sarah Wunsch of the ACLU of Massachusetts.
A classic case of a violation of the Establishment Clause which prohibits the government from promoting any religion, and certainly not by using taxpayer dollars. Just more of the Religious Right getting in bed with the Federal Government. Do they know they can get herpes and pregnant that way?
Where did the blockquotes come to my post (or did I make that mistake myself, damn I have to get coffee)? I wasn’t quoting (but it looks nice like that anyway)… And on Roberts behalf, I have to say HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) are different things (in the unlikely event you misread that as spelling mistake, Amp?)
Nice links, BTW.
[My fault, I thought it was a quote, so I added blockquotes while I was making the change that you had actually requested. The blockquotes have now been removed.
Also, we-crossposted, so my post wasn’t a response to you. –Amp]
Democracy, first choice; our bastard at the head of a puppet government, second choice.
Where’s the hypocrisy in that? There’s none, of course. Under a very particular notion of hypocrisy, or ethics, or democracy.
Mr Straw Man Robert here seems to think that the alternative to abstinence-only programmes is… sex-all-the-time-for-everyone-starting-at-12-only programmes.
As in, one extreme ideological position that actually exists, vs. one extreme ideological position that would border on paedophiliac and does NOT actually exist.
Mr Straw Man is fond of arguing against hypotheticals, you see.
He can’t possibly think that the alternative to the extreme ideological position that does exist might be one that is actually neutral. No, his definition of ‘neutrality’ clearly does not include ‘facts that I do not want to take into consideration’ or ‘information that would help young people think and choose with their own head’.
The comprehensive sex education programmes that are in place in other countries than the US do not “push” some Everybody Have Sex Now agenda in terms of attitudes and choices about having sex, if and when, in fact, they specifically assume it’s better even for teenagers who are sexually active to delay the first sexual experiences and that’s why the higher average age of first sexual intercourse is considered, and even counted in statistics, as a benefit of those programmes, together with the far, far lower rate of STD’s and teen pregnancies.
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/Councils/scrutiny/hscosc/tpsreport.htm#Appendix%201
‘… the latest figures for the USA show 95.5 conceptions per thousand women (64% higher than Cornwall). This figure places the teenage conception rate in the United States twice as high as that for either the UK or Canada and approximately four times that of France.’
Please continue to argue hypotheticals, head deeply buried under sand.
Very few things are 100% effective. But we shouldn’t discredit the use of condoms or contraceptives just because they sometimes fail.
Three recent studies (DeVincenzi et al., Saracco et al., and Deschamps et al.) followed 245, 305, and 177 discordant couples (respectively). Among those who did not use condoms every time (inconsistent users), there were 4.8, 7.2, and 6.8 seroconversions per 100-person years. In contrast, among those who used condoms consistently, there were 0, 1.1, and 1.0 seroconversion per 100-person years. These studies show latex condoms are highly protective, and point to the need to promote consistent and correct use.
Do you have any evidence that the programs, as they are taught, do keep kids safer?
THE CONTENT OF FEDERALLY FUNDED ABSTINENCE ONLY EDUCATION PROGRAMS
completed to date do not show any overall effect on sexual behavior or
contraceptive use.”?
14
One recent study of abstinence-only programs found that they may actually
increase participants’ risk. Columbia University researchers found that while virginity “pledge”? programs helped some participants to delay sex, 88% still had premarital sex, and their rates of sexually transmitted diseases showed no statistically significant difference from those of nonpledgers.
15
Virginity pledgers were also less likely to use contraception when they did have sex and were less likely to seek STD testing despite comparable infection rates.
16
Sex is normal. Young people should wait to have sex. But if they don’t, they should have the facts they need to make informed decisions in order to protect themselves. Keeping them ignorant seems like foolish choice.
No, it is just a bad analogy. Wanting to keep kids safe by teaching them the facts about sex and disease is not analogous to teaching people methods of getting away with murder.
That sounds lovely. By acknowledging that some young people will have sex and wanting them to be informed and safe, I am morally degenerate.
Sadly though, not every young person has parents who “trains them in moral behavior”. Not every child is “raised with an eye to turning out healthy adults”. Proper sex education can help these young people be safe. And it couldn’t hurt those young people who are taught lies and half truths about sex in the name of religion either.
Please stop me if my flooding you with government links is becoming annoying :-)
From recent UK Teenage Pregnancy report, here’s a morally degenerate concept:
(That’s the notoriously far-leftist Tony Blair)
One of the causes identified by the report for the UK’s higher rates as compared to other European countries:
I don’t know why I should believe that there’s anything intrinsically more virtuous and trustworthy about a program that has God and Christ attached to it– as opposed to one that does not. From my own POV, God and Christ have been invoked a number of times throughout history to excuse some incredibly stupid and atrocious acts. They have been invoked to give AMORAL people just the excuse they needed to do awful, self-indulgent things which they had long wanted to do anyway.
Obviously, there are as many reasons for a person to want to have sex as there are people. Still, it’s easy to see that groups like Silver Ring might –even without meaning to– give kids PERMISSION to have sex. After all, you might do “bad,” “amoral” things, but later you can square it all away with God by asking Jesus to forgive you, right ?
Of course, I didn’t even have a “real” kiss with anyone until I’d reached the grand old age of 19. This despite my evil Jewish-Secular-Humanist upbringing. So what do I know about it ? :/
You know, I was 20 when I first had sex*, and my mother gave me the condom talk at the age of about 13.
But then again, she also never, ever pressured me to “look pretty for the boys”, to have a boyfriend or in any other way to see myself as incomplete without a male. Hmmm, imagine that.
*protected, of course! though we hadn’t heard about AIDS yet
That is why any “safe”? sex programme must still make it clear that having sex randomly and irresponsibly isn’t a good idea, even with condoms and contraceptives.
Is there any safer-sex program that tells people it’s OK to have sex irresponsibly, or “randomly” (whatever that means–key parties?).
What’s the problem with telling them the truth about the technology, instead of spinning some crap about “safe sex”??
“Telling them the truth” would be a fine thing. Lying and scare tactics, not so much.
As long as we’re being analogy-huggers, let’s apply the same logic to driver’s ed: teach kids that they should never, ever get behind the wheel of a car until they’re married adults and then only for trips where there isn’t public transportation. Because driving is very dangerous–here are photos of car-accident victims!–and seatbelts will not protect you from everything; here are the statistics on how often seatbelts fail.
Just as pundits frequently confuse 195o’s Betty Crocker ads with what actually went on in the 1950s, so do Right-wingers and Fundies confuse what the “liberal entertainment media” says about sex with what secular sex-ed classes say about sex. So, if Boy rolls around with Girl on some FOX nighttime soap, that’s the equivalent of the average secular sex-ed class. Got it ?
Okay, I’m sure I’m about to get flamed here, but here’s one question:
Why, exactly, is it so bad for teenagers to be having sex? Yes, sex is a high risk activity, and I’m not talking about indescrimanately screwing everything with two legs, but what exactly is wrong with kids having sex? If you are aware of what could happen wrong, sex is great. If anything, I feel like it was DETRIMENTAL for me to go through high school with the mindset “Sex is bad, sexuality is bad, why the hell am I having these urges if I’m a good girl” that frequently went through my head during my highly (sexually) frustrating teen years.
The problem with these “scare tactics” is it demonizes sex. It talks about all the stuff that’s wrong with it, without ever mentioning what is good about it. It makes it seem that people who choose to have sex outside of marriage are less worthy than those who wait. That’s stupid, that’s detrimental, and quite frankly, WRONG. Sex is great, and I think I am in fact a better person for having it, not a worse one (it’s always a good idea to get new skills :). It is good for no one to be willfully ignorant about a subject that effects us all.
If you want to live your life like there’s a giant sky-fairy dictating your life, and determine what is good for your life, that’s just peachy keen. You’re believing so does not effect me in the slightest. But when you start making me believe, or trying to make my life miserable for not pretending to believe (abstience-only education, pharmacist-deny contraception, school prayer, creationism, 10 commandments in the court house, et cetera) IT IS MY BUSINESS. You do not have the right to force harmful beliefs on me. Just like I don’t have the right to tell you MUST have sex, you don’t have the right telling me I can’t.
Mythago wrote:
“Is there any safer-sex program that tells people it’s OK to have sex irresponsibly, or “randomly”? (whatever that means”“key parties?).”
No, I don’t really think there are any safe-sex programs like that. I was merely using Robert’s analogy about safe sex education as “mindless condom-throwing” as a way to illustrate a point. I didn’t use the best choice of words, though, since I really meant to point out that safe sex programs MUST tell the risks in truthful manner (not exaggerating or minimazing facts), and safe-sex programs that don’t do that aren’t, by definition, safe-sex programs anyway.
Of course one shouldn’t feel compelled to reason with straw-men arguments like “safe sex is about random sex!” but instead call bullshit, because many conservatives do indeed know the that, and arguing on terms set by the opponent does create the need for a sort of false compromise.
and safe-sex programs that don’t do that aren’t, by definition, safe-sex programs anyway
Exactly. (Which is why ‘safER sex’ is a more accurate term, anyway–no such thing as safe sex, even and perhaps especially within marriage.)
but what exactly is wrong with kids having sex?
What is wrong with *children* having sex? I hope that question doesn’t really need an answer.
Antigone, I agree.
As I said before, even in the relatively progressive models of sex education, it’s still “sex is bad, and you shouldn’t do it, but if you do it anyway, here’s how to use contraceptives.”
Then, a few years later in college (if you go to college), you may, if lucky, get, “Okay, here’s how to deal with the emotional and physical trauma you suffered from having sex with no clue what it would actually be like.”
It seems to me there’s a tremendous amout of pain and suffering caused by ignorance, and we need to find some way to address that, and until we acknowledge that at some point people have sex for the first time, and would be better off knowing what it will be like. And to do that, I think we need to stop treating sex as something shameful.
Brian Vaughan:
“As I said before, even in the relatively progressive models of sex education, it’s still “sex is bad, and you shouldn’t do it, but if you do it anyway, here’s how to use contraceptives.”?”
That must be true because you say so.
There is a big difference in telling the risks about sex, and telling “sex is bad” a la abstinence education.
” And to do that, I think we need to stop treating sex as something shameful.”
True. advocating for masturbation would be cool, because you learn a lot about yourself and do no harm unto others. No risk of STDs or pregnancy.
“Kids” as a general rule of someone in high school. Sorry, I’m still called “kid” even though I’m in my 20s…that’s somewhat of a misleading term.
Why is it so bad for teenagers having sex?
Tuomas said
I’m not sure what you mean. Is that sarcasm?
I was overstating things a bit, but what I meant is that even in the model texts I’ve seen, there’s still a basic position of discouraging teens from having sex at all. That doesn’t seem quite right to me. It’s not that I think teens need more pressure on them to have sex, either. But what I’m thinking we need to do is start from a position that teens will have sex, and that’s fine. As things stand now, teen sexuality is almost always described from the point of view of damage control.
I suppose, strictly speaking, there’s no direct connection between that and the problem I was really worried about, which is that teens don’t really hear much accurate information about what sexuality is actually like until after they’ve already started having sex — if then.
Honestly, I’m at a loss how best to handle it. Leaving it to parents doesn’t seem like an effective approach, but maybe some approach that does involve parents talking to kids in a structured setting would work. I’m afraid it might take another generation or so of overcoming the weird oversexed repression we’ve lived with before we can have that sort of thing be effective, though.
Brian Vaughan:
Yes, I was sarcastic (though looking back, it isn’t very evident) about the that must be true part, but other parts of my post were dead serious. I kind of disagree with the discouraging part existing, but of course I don’t know many sex education programs, so we may well be both right in some way. In fact, I think “teens will have sex” position isn’t without problems, as it may create a sort of equation being teen=having sex, and being teen=”not getting any” -> unnatural, pathetic etc. There is even now quite a pressure for young people to get “rid of virginity” in non-religious surroundings, especially for boys/men (contradictory messages like don’t have sex/ have sex, sex is cool/sex is bad, very confusing indeed). And the thing is pregnancies and STDs do happen (and are epidemic in parts of the world), and must be addressed in education. Of course you haven’t claimed otherwise.
Your main point (in earlier posts and now), and the problem you are worrying about… I thought about that, and you have a point there. Also, thank you for admitting to not have a clear solution (except cultural change, which isn’t going to happen overnight. But this cultural change would be welcome).
Antigone, I have to say that I pretty much agree with you…with some reservations, though.
I don’t think teenagers having sex is in and of itself “bad” or “wrong”. However, I feel that society as a whole is so massively screwed up about sex that it is next to impossible for any young person to approach sexual activity with a healthy attitude. Of course, there are likely to be exceptions to that, and I for one would be glad to hear any examples if anyone here has some.
My biggest concern is teenage girls. Because for the most part, they are trained to think that not only are they bad, evil sluts for having sexual feelings at all, they are simultaneously taught that their only worth is found in their bras and between their legs. I just don’t see how most of these girls could manage a sexual encounter in which they wouldn’t be exploited.
If we could manage to raise a generation that didn’t have these poisonous beliefs, however, I’d be hard-pressed to find any reasonable objections to sex between teenagers.
In fact, I think “teens will have sex”? position isn’t without problems, as it may create a sort of equation being teen=having sex, and being teen=”?not getting any”? -> unnatural, pathetic etc. There is even now quite a pressure for young people to get “rid of virginity”? in non-religious surroundings, especially for boys/men (contradictory messages like don’t have sex/ have sex, sex is cool/sex is bad, very confusing indeed)
Tuomas, that’s a very good point, and very true. That thing about mixed messages is precisely the problem, it all risks getting reduced to extremes and a natural balanced approach can be hard to find.
I also don’t agree with Brian’s view. I understand his point, but I think that there has to be a difference betweeen an individual approach and a social approach.
At individual level, if we could theoretically set aside all social conditioning, you’ll have all kinds of variations – people who will by character be less interested in sex; people who will be more interested; people who are perfectly happy to delay their first sex experiences; people who have them earlier, and among these, people for whom it’ll be a bad experience and others for whom it’ll be a good one, or so-and-so. We cannot predict what the “correct” behaviour can be for everyone, and we shouldn’t, because there isn’t. So, we shouldn’t use scaremongering and scare tactics and repression, but we shouldn’t even end up reinforcing pressures to be sexually active, either, or that ‘get rid of virginity’ mentality, or the image of sexy teens as put forth in the entertainment business. Those are pressures to conform to some standard that is not good for everybody, in a mentality that treats sex as the defining element of a person, or as a commodity, or as competition, or as a way to “prove” you’ve grown up and are cool etc. So, when government policies and sex ed programmes put emphasis on delaying first sexual experiences as a benefit, well I think that’s a good approach. Maybe it’s a bit of a politician thing to say “I don’t think teens under 16 should have sex but since however much we may disapprove many do anyway we should provide them with the tools to be responsible”, but I think it is a wise thing, in general terms, when it comes to social approach (and not just because 16 is the legal age of consent). It isn’t in itself repressive, it just puts the emphasis on maturity and responsibility. There’s a way of doing it without demonising sex, and that’s precisely what sex ed should do. They’re not supposed to teach what the actual decision or choice about being sexually active or not should be; they’re only supposed to teach the facts to make responsible choices, either way.
I thought 18 was the legal age of consent. Does it vary from state to state?
I’ve complained often enough about the problems of treating a certain pattern of sexuality treated as normative, so I can certainly agree that that’s a problem. That bit in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life was mentioned, which, among other things, was the classic model of lousy, unsatisfying sex. And I can certainly see the problem with piling more shame on teens for not having sex.
I don’t have a clear idea of a program — I’m just trying to brainstorm, really.
The US is so backwards that Jocelyn Elders was forced to resign from the post of Surgeon General, for saying that masturbation was healthy and should be encouraged. It’s “controversial” to oppose overt lying to kids in school. Just stopping the lying and saying that masturbation is a safe and enjoyable way to relieve sexual tension would be a huge improvement.
For the more radical things I was talking about, I think it may be necessary to start such programs outside of public schools, assuming such programs don’t already exist.
I have a few points to make.
First, I want to share what I was taught in my developmental psychology class: the normal age of marriage has changed dramatically over the last 50 years or so. It used to be the case that sexual desire would start around the age of puberty (say 12-14), and marriage would follow sometime around, say, 16-18. That’s not really a long time to wait to have sex. Now, the average age of marriage is much later; I really don’t think it makes sense to expect the majority of people to wait to have sex until they’re in their late 20s or early 30s, and not because of our highly sexualized society. It’s simply something that people by nature want to do.
Second: I’ve been through what I thought was a fairly liberal and comprehensive sex ed course relatively recently, and I think Robert and some of the other commenters here may find it useful to know what it entailed. Around about 3rd grade, we started off with basic biology: i.e. sperm and egg exist, combine together somehow in a process called fertilization, and offspring result. We didn’t talk about this in human terms, and it was pretty much completely divorced from human body parts (if I recall correctly, the illustrative animals were fish). In later years, human physical development was explained, coinciding roughly with the time we were going through puberty. Personally, I think this is pretty useful stuff to know at that time: I know when I first got my period, it was nice to know beforehand what it meant.
Later, we were explicitly told what sexual intercourse was; we were told about AIDS, herpes, gonnorhea, etc., in explicit and graphic detail, and we were told that the only sure way to prevent most of these diseases was not to have sex. (Medical transmission of HIV, by that time, was not a major issue in Canada, and so was ignored.) However, we were also told that condoms existed and could make sex safer; we were told that they could fail, but that certainly if we did have sex, we should use one. We were also told about other barrier methods, and we were taught their failure rates; we were taught about oral contraceptives, and it was always made clear that they could prevent pregnancy, but not STIs. (This was around 8th grade.)
Once I got into high school, my health ed class (part of phys ed) went into more detail about how to correctly use both condoms and oral contraceptives, but there was still always the message that it was better to wait to have sex. We spent some time talking about non-sexual intimacy as well. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to wait until they’re in their late 20s to have sex, but I do think it’s reasonable to encourage kids not to jump into a sexual relationship right away, for sure – the longer we have to develop our judgment, to decide how we feel about a particular person, etc., the better, in my opinion. (Tangentially, I’d like to add that although it squicked some people, my teacher *did* point out that masturbation is a healthy, normal practice.) Since most of us were just starting to explore relationships at the time, again, this was good information to have; it was practical, it was something most of us wouldn’t get at home, and we had a lot of time to discuss it and hash out our feelings – and get to the point where we could be fairly open about sexual topics, and therefore, I think, be less scared to insist on condoms, to be willing to go to the doctor for testing and birth control prescriptions.
This program did try to scare the bejesus out of us early on, but not about sex itself; rather, about the possible *consequences* of early or irresponsible sex. It gave us the knowledge to protect ourselves if we had sex, it gave us some confidence in talking about sex, and it made me, at least, wait to have sex until I felt fairly sure about what I wanted.
Aimed at Robert in particular: I really don’t think I would have gotten any of this from simple observation. Teenagers don’t really get to see very many adult relationships develop, and they certainly don’t get to see intimacy in person; what we might see on television is not, I think, representative of relationships in real life.
gwendoly: …what we might see on television is not, I think, representative of relationships in real life.
Word. Even though there’s more “reality” TV every day, one of the main sources of information for kids does not reflect normal relationships, for the most part. I think it’s very difficult for many young people to watch TV and understand that what’s shown is purely for dramatic effect or comic effect, that it’s not representative of what most people experience. For instance, I had this concept when I was young that married people were supposed to sleep in separate twin beds and that we must be really poor for my parents to have to share a bed!
I think American society specializes in mixed messages – everybody drinks beer, but you can’t because you’re not old enough; everybody ought to have passionate, lusty sex, but you shouldn’t until you’re older; driving a car is really really fun, but you can’t unless you have a license, which you get when you’re old enough.
Maybe parents should have mandatory sex ed classes so that they can teach their kids what they need to know. But then what happens to the kids whose parents can’t or won’t talk to them about sex? Raise your hands, all of you who know or were the kids whose parents didn’t tell you about menstruation or nighttime ejaculation. Maybe those parents would have to sign a waiver so their children could have a sex ed professional inform them.