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The Deception of Abstinence Ed
Abstinence education programs are the compromise sex ed programs that have won a lot of unwarranted support. However, after over twenty years of abstinence education, there is plenty of rhetoric, but no scientific proof, that these programs have honestly benefited youth.
Following the introduction of sex education in the 1960’s, sexual activity of youth dramatically increased. The Bishops, who should have spoken out, were silenced by the jingle of government money in their pockets. The Bishops not only abandoned their positions as moral and spiritual leaders, but sold the souls of countless children.
One cannot ignore the sex education problem calling it a public school issue. It is an issue for all schools who receive any type of federal support. The Bishops welcomed classroom sex ed into Catholic schools at the same time it came into public schools when government money became available. The money is not give to the school, per se, but given as "child benefits." 1
Incredibly, instead of the Catholic pro-life forces uniting to ward off this compromise evil, they too came under the spell of government money when in the 1980's "abstinence" programs made their debut. While there is some evidence of postponement regarding the age of sexual activity, there is no lasting improvement to justify its existence or the millions of dollars it costs.
Like water being constantly poured into a leaking boat, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into sex/abstinence programs over the years. Big government is only part to blame for this scandalous sex squandramania. The lure of government money, and the myth that money can be a solution to almost any problem creates a superficial sense of security that is very dangerous.
The very fact that government is proposing to up the ante of federal money to 270 million dollars a year, doubling last years’ allocation, is indeed troubling. Although the intention, encouraging abstinence, gives an outward appearance of being good, it is not a solution. It is a vain effort to balance the bucks between abstinence education, which is perceived as “good,” and the Planned Parenthood sex programs that are, no doubt, morally “bad.”
However, the reality is that the abstinence funds are small potatoes compared to the billions of dollars Planned Parenthood is receiving and has been getting for comprehensive K-12 “safe sex” programs, adolescent sex services, contraception and prevention which all continue to remain safely in place. As a result, just adding more abstinence ed to an already polluted curriculum, is like putting a bouquet of fragrant flowers down a garbage disposal to clean up the rivers. Pollution, like sex education, has to be stopped at its source. The money needs to be stopped and all sex programs stopped. It cannot be cleaned up any other way.
Government funding of abstinence education, also known as teen pregnancy prevention, has been provided through many different channels including: Title V Maternal and Child Health Services of the Social Security Act, Title IX Welfare Reform Bill to Combat Out-of Wedlock Birth Rates, Title X Family Planning of the Public Health Service Act, Title XX Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Projects and Medicaid.
However, no federal "pregnancy prevention" program is de-funded to make abstinence education funds available. For example, regarding the Title V money, one learns that “Congressional intent in funding this program was not to disrupt any ongoing programs, including those that feature birth control instruction or distribution.” The National Coalition for Abstinence Education (NCAE) states that the "safe sex message remain intact. It is doubtful that a single student will lose access to the contraceptive message directly due to Title V abstinence funding." 3 Therefore, all the other programs that teach perverted sex acts to young children, and promote homosexual lifestyles and teach how-to's for sexual gratification continue.
Furthermore, allowing the thoroughly entrenched Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive “safe sex” education to remain in place is not the only problem. Planned Parenthood affiliates, who also grab a share of the “abstinence” money, have disgustingly changed the definition of abstinence (see further in this article).
The government’s new abstinence requirements are very ambiguous in that “sexual activity” is not clearly defined. For example, the requirement reads: “abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the expected standard for all school-age children.” To any parent with a Christian mindset the immediate question here should be, “How is sexual activity defined?” One must keep in mind that these programs are affecting the child’s way of thinking and that this abstinence “requirement,” is secularist, and secularism has always been the rule when it comes to the subject of sex. Classroom sex education is a Planned Parenthood invention and secularist in nature regardless of whose program it is.
Guttmacher--Abortion to Abstinence
Alan Guttmacher, an advocate of classroom sex education since the 1960’s, was instrumental in lobbying Congress for money for such endeavors. Guttmacher was also instrumental in the creation of the government’s Office of Population Affairs, a funding vehicle for Planned Parenthood sex education programs, as well as “clinics.” (Informing Social Change, 1980) In the early 1980’s, in a clever move to keep classroom sex education “safe and legal,” Guttmacher’s same Office of Population Affairs began funding “abstinence” programs.
To understand the concern over government money and sex education, a little enlightenment in the history of such funds is needed. By mid 1980’s the tragedies being wrought by over ten years of implementation of sex education were already evident in young people’s lives. Parents across the country were angry and becoming more vocal in their concerns. Sex ed was in danger of going the way of the dinosaur!
The pro-sex cartel needed a means to get parents to accept classroom sex education and quiet the controversy. Federal money, the great incentive, offered the "perfect" compromise. Those lukewarm pro-life "conservatives" quickly latched onto the new abstinence idea and held out their hand for their share of the pie, and abstinence programs gave all classroom sex ed the boost it needed.
Thus, sex ed was expanded to include abstinence. Battle worn parents let down their guardd as this Trojan Horse was welcomed into the classroom. Money enticed a variety of new experimental abstinance programs with success of the program to be determined by each of the program's own producers.
Incredibly, the anti-lifers and pro-lifers were drawing financial aid from the same cunning population control proponents responsible for the inception of all classroom sex instruction and birth control "clinics." Pro-lifers should have known this, but dollar signs and easy sounding answers got in the way. Allowing a little sex ed in classrooms, by any name, cemented the entire package then, and is still doing so now.
Long forgotten by the pro-lifers was Planned Parenthood’s own Alan Guttmacher’s exclamation who, when hailing the victory of Roe v. Wade in 1973 said: “The answer to winning the battle for elective abortion once and for all is sex education.” With the new abstinence initiative all classroom sex education was now secured. The voices of opposition against classroom sex education faded as the pro-lifers began promoting the new compromise abstinence programs.
Among those early Catholic recipients of funds were Coleen Kelly Mast--Sex Respect, Kathleen Sullivan--Project Reality, Mercedes Wilson--Families of the Americas, Rose Fuller--Northwest Natural Family Planning Service, Margaret Whitehead--Educational Guidance Institute, Inc, Delores Galloway--Boys Town and Fr. John Forliti--Values and Choices. While Molly Kelly did not use government money for her program, she sat on the board that helped divvy out the grants.
All of these people were quickly immersed in the lucrative abstinence industry and heavily invested through time and effort. As a result, very few among the pro-lifers ever fight against classroom sex education. Pro-lifers have found an easier route. They just back abstinence education. Another Alan Guttmacher victory for classroom sex ed and abortion.
With the aid of government money “abstinence” has also become synonymous with “chastity.” While all such programs and speakers are not government funded, the idea that abstinence/chastity as profitable subject matter has taken hold and the list of “chastity” gurus continues to grow. With the backing of pro-life organizations, Molly Kelly popularized so-called “chastity” talks that entertain by talking and joking about sex. Now there is a new stream of such speakers including Mary Beth Bonnaci, Jason Everett and Pam Stencel who travel the chastity circuit and sell videos and other products.
Planned Parenthood Redefines Abstinence
Of course, the Planned Parenthood / Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) cartel has always gotten the lion’s share of abstinence funds since such funds became available. They brought a new ‘anything goes’ definition of “abstinence” encompassing all filthy sexual activity that does not include vaginal penetration.
In discussing the contents of abstinence education in workshops, Lynn Peterson wrote in the SIECUS Report (Sept/Oct 1988) that educators, "are not using abstinence as much to prevent immoral behavior, or because of the health risks, as they are to help youth develop positive sexual maturity....Rather than focusing on the negative message, 'Don't have sex." they are talking with teens about how and when to say 'yes' to sexual behaviors but 'no' to intercourse." Peterson calls this an "appropriate exploration of physical intimacy between couples." (emphasis ours)
Planned Parenthood coined the term "outercourse" which is any perverted sexual activity that does not include vaginal intercourse. "Outercourse" is now widely known as acceptable abstinent behavior. Past President Clinton certainly reinforced the new definition of sexual abstinence with his now infamous statements, claiming: "I did not have sex with that woman!" meaning that anything other than sexual intercourse does not constitute sexual relations. Clinton further claimed that most Americans would agree with that definition.
In the same SIECUS Report (above) Debra Haffner, another Planned Parenthood educator who conducted workshops, says "We should teach teens about oral sex and mutual masturbation in order to help them delay the onset of sexual intercourse and its resulting consequences." Haffner talks about a "National 'petting' project'....to help them learn courting behaviors." She then lists safe sex practices as "talking, flirting, dancing, hugging, kissing, necking, massaging, caressing, undressing each other, masturbation alone, masturbation in front of a partner and mutual masturbation."4 Such choices bring to mind pro-lifers' darling, Coleen Mast, whose sliding scale "continuum" activity in her Sex Respect program has students choosing "how fare they will go" on a date, choosing "somewhere between a good night kiss and sexual intercourse"--all well within the new abstinence definition.
Teens are not being taught truth. They learn that oral sex is abstinence because it is an activity that does not violate their virginal state. The New York Times article by T. Lewin (4/5/1997) stated that, "high school students who had come of age with AIDS education considered oral sex to be a far less dangerous alternative." L. S. Stepp reported in the Washington Post (7/8/99) that an estimated half of middle school students were engaging in oral sex by the time they reached high school.5 (This is not to be dismissed as a public school phenomenon when oral sex is introduced in third grad in the bishop-blessed Growing in Love program.)
Also enlightening on the subject of abstinence is that "In 1994-95, data from 1,101 college freshman and sophomores in the South, 61 per cent considered mutual masturbation (to orgasm) to be abstinent behavior, 37 per cent described oral intercourse as abstinence and 24 per cent thought the same about anal intercourse." Furthermore, "Health educators themselves might be unclear about precisely what the term 'abstinence' means. In a 1999 e-mail survey of 72 health educators...nearly one-third (30 per cent) responded that oral sex was abstinent behavior.6
The NBC news station reported that on a study conducted by Columbia and Yale Universities on 12,000 teens over a period of six years. The study concluded “teens who pledged to remain virgins until marriage have the same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as those who don’t pledge abstinence.” Somewhere along the line the definition of both “virgin” and “abstinence” has certainly taken on an entire new meaning.
This wasn't just some sick pervasive cloud that crept in overnight and infected the youth. For decades, the bishops required sex programs have cast away the spiritual convincing children that they were "sexual beings."8 Systematically children were being convinced that one's sexuality was to be a means of pleasure. This was combined with the undercurrent tantalizing youth to act on feelings until they were so titillated and sexualized that all sense of modesty or purity was destroyed.
Bishop-blessed programs use the term "sexual beings," for every person at every age. Doing so opehns the door to a wide range of perversions accepted as normal. Homosexuality and bisexuality are simply other forms of "sexual being." So sexualized are youth that a pornographic film, Not a Love Story, was being shown in a prestigious Catholic girls high school for ten years and no student told her parents. The present acceptance of the smutty lesbian play, Vagina Monologues, which for several years has been making the circuit of Catholic colleges (and working its way to high schools) proves to what degree Catholic Bishops have corrupted the Catholic youth. Sex is entertainment for "sexual beings." Sex is recreational for "sexual beings."
Planned Parenthood people instruct educators from both public and Catholic schools at conferences and lure teachers by offering CEU's or Continuing Education Units. Tables at such conferences are filled with "sex is for fun" items including colored condoms, and fancy garters for girls that have little pockets for condoms, and dental dams for use during oral sex. Kids do not need MTV or the Internet to learn about gross sexual activity, they can learn all about it in the classroom.
Short-lived Abstinence Messages
Youth is a time of great curiosities and experimentation where the excitement of the moment has a way of canceling out any thoughts of consequences. Therefore, by the time chilren reach adolescence, they have been so sexually saturated in the classroom that engaging in sexual experimentation is little more than a rite of passage.
Many youth hardened by lessons with crude sex descriptions have been rendered incapable of tender love so important to wholesome marriage and family life. They learn only to lust and to express lust in rough and violent acts. Such expressions are not unlike those of homosexual sodomists and rapists. Violent and vile sexual activity on television, movies and Internet are no longer shocking, just an exhitition of what "sexual beings" do. Sexual gyrations and screaming rebellious epithets are part and parcel of the hard rock and rappers repertoire. What a sick excuse for entertainment!
While it is laudable that there are movie and song idols trying to send abstinence messages to youth, it is, at the same time, unfortunate that many of their messages are as superficial as the entertainment business. To often, the pro-life abstinence educators who latch on to certain "pillar of virtue" entertainers soon find out that those "pillars" had very weak foundations. Remember when Brook Shields was getting lots of acolades from the abstinence educators because she said she was going to remain chaste. Her life turned like that of many Hollywood idols.
Brittany Spears is another one. Susan Dominus wrote in the New York Times magazine about teens drawn to "Brittany Spears, a proudly self-identifying virgin who practically pole dances on prime time TV, then says she's waiting for true love....Spears saturates kids with sexuality, then like their [abstinence?] teachers, she tells them to guard their chastity." Was Spears demonstrating the new abstinence or promoting lesbianism or both when she kissed Mad-donna on the lips?
Project Reality and lovematters.com both are using messages from the entertainment industry. Youth are given a temporary "abstinence high" with certain programs and youth rallies, but they get no spiritual nouishment. Looking at the entertainment world for models will not sustain them as will looking to models of Our Holy Lord and His Blessed Virgin Mother and in recent times, St. Maria Goretti. Youth get conflicting messages from abstinence idols. When they say one thing and do another, as did Brittany Spears, what does that tell youth? When that idol falls, does that send the message that chastity is not possible? Adult Catholics should know better than embrace false idols. And God help our youth when Bishops and priests are also among the fallen!
Catholic school abstinence assignments readily include having students listen to popular music and watch modern movies in order to zero in on the type of messages that it sends to youth. Here again, like teaching sex, the curriculum immerses the child in the sex, drugs and violent lyrics of cacophonic modern music, realistic visuals of sex and violence to purportedly help children in making their own decisions of what not to do. It is like telling a child to go out and steal and report how it made you feel, and then personally decide whether todo it again.
There has been over two decades of gimmicky abstinence programs, and what have they brought to the classroom but more sex talk. If youthful innocence is to ever be restored, all sex instruction must first be removed from the classroom. Certainly youth would not be so tuned into sex if they were not so familiarized with the subject in the classroom.
Abstinence education is not keeping sex education out of the schools, it is allowing it to dangerously and disgustingly flouish. When there was no sex ed, no abstinence programs, and when youth were being taught, and adults were being reminded of the importance of guarding one's thoughts to keep them pure and keeping custody of one's eyes and ears, young people were predominately chaste. These are the plain simple basic Truths. No amount of "foolhardy" 9 immersion in discussions of sex or godless "make the right choice" sex talk can ever successfully replace that.
The best answers are often the simplest. If the homosexuals were removed from the priesthood and seminaries, the ongoing threat to little boys being sexually abused by clergy would disappear. Similarly, if all sex education were removed from the classroom (and teaching of the Catholic Faith restored), there would be absolutely no need for abstinence education.
P.S. Regarding less Abortion
Abstinence program sellers measure success by a drop in the numbers of out-of–wedlock teen pregnancies or in the lowering numbers of abortions. Taking credit also are the Planned Parenthood cartel who may claim that their programs have been effective at teaching birth control, and the more modern methods that include contraceptive implants and the “morning after” abortion pill.
However, neither Planned Parenthood nor the abstinence educators can take credit for lowering abortions. Chemical abortifacients aside, there are several reasons why the abortion numbers are going down and credit needs to go where credit is due. To begin with, the technology of ultra-sound shows quite vividly the existence of a living baby at very early stages of pregnancy, and thus dispels the "hunk of tissue" lie. Such a lie was used for years by charlatan abortionists to fool thier "clients."
Also, very succesful are the pictures "that are worth a thousand words" as they reveal the tragic truth of babies torn apart by abortion. These pictures send a chilling and a powerfully unforgettable message to everyone who sees them. Also helping to curb abortions are the women who have experienced the pain and post trauma of having killed their babies and are openly speaking out to warn others.
Last, but certainly not least, would any of the above been possible if it were not for the years of praying the Rosary outside of abortion clinics by truly dedicated and stalwart pro-lifers? The good they do and have done will never make the six o’clock news or the front page of the Washington Post, but the word spreads just the same. These dear hearts are the quiet heroes that have not only saved the lives of untold babies and a lifetime of heartache for mothers, but have been instrumental in the closing of a number of these killing mills.
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