What’s wrong with Abstinence Only/Plus/Until Marriage education (Or, the victims of the Bush Administration’s Sex Ed Policy)

This post was inspired by an online petition on comprehensive sexual education I was asked to sign by Planned Parenthood of Western PA on behalf of some Pittsburgh Parents who are fighting the Abstinence Only/Plus/Until Marriage curriculum in their children’s schools. It bothers me that there is many times a lack of accurate information given to people my age in public schools. Censorship in all its slippery-slope forms bothers me. In this case information is censored because of the misconception that without information on how to safely have sex, adults (for that is what most teens become) will simply not have sex.

• It is my understanding that Abstinence only/plus/until marriage textbooks tell students the right thing to do before having sex is to get married.
  • The right thing to do is to marry someone of the opposite gender, since there is no mention of single sex relationships (this data I get from the Planned Parenthood review of the Pittsburgh Public School textbook, Awesome Health).
  • That the right thing to do, if you can’t get married now, or never want to get married, is to never have sex.
  • Since when was it the job of a Sex-Ed textbook to tell students what the right thing to do is?

Here are some other ways to reduce teen pregnancies and unintended pregnancies in general:

• Telling the truth about condoms, the pill, how a woman gets pregnant, how STIs can be contracted, etc (see below for statistics on the effect of comprehensive sex ed for teens).
• Not hiding safer ways of having sex.

And never, never, never through guilt.

The textbook used by the Pittsburgh Public Schools (Totally Awesome Health) tells teens:

“being sexually active can affect [your] mental health. Stress can result from guilt that is associated with being sexually active,”

And it never defines what “sexually active means”.

Now there are a lot of issues mixed into the “abstinence only/plus/until marriage” message:

• There is sexism, because the ability to choose when, if ever, to become pregnant is one of the biggest empowering changes of the past century for women. Access to accurate sexual education, family planning, contraception, and abortion allow women and men to treat each other as partners, equals. To my eyes, we do not yet live in a society where men and women are equally effected by unintended pregnancies. I hope they are someday–that would be another great way to lower the number of teen pregnancies.
• And homophobia is mixed into this: only heterosexual couples are even mentioned it leaves millions of teens ignored; their parents defined as other; their orientations termed abnormal.
• And a weird bias towards anglo-saxon nuclear families is mixed into this, because there is no room for single parent families; no room for being raise in a non-traditional family; no room for children raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles, friend parents. No room for anyone other than couples whose bedroom and family lives are pre-approved by the textbook writers.

Americans have had a president who pushes hard for abstinence only/plus/until marriage for 8 years. And what’s our track record? Here’s some quotes on the effect of the abstinence only/plus/until marriage policy pushed by the Bush Administration:

• A study from the University of Washington showing: “Students who receive comprehensive sex education are half as likely to become teen parents as those who get none or abstinence-only sex education,” (University of Washington)
• A study from the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing that one in four teen girls has a sexually transmitted infection (STI),” (Editorials Across the Country Echo Planned Parenthood’s Call for Comprehensive Sex Ed)
• “[I]n Pennsylvania the rate of unintended pregnancies has increased for teens for the first time in more than a decade” (Planned Parenthood email on this petition)
• “[T]eens who had comprehensive education, which typically discusses condoms and birth-control methods as well as abstinence, were no more likely to engage in intercourse than peers who were taught just to say no to sex before marriage,” (University of Washington)

There have been casualties of the pro-abstinence anti-education group. Every teen mother and teen father, every parent who suddenly find themselves a grandparent, every child who grows up with parents who know why their lives were limited are victims of Abstinence Only/Plus/Until Marriage miseducation. They suffer the of censorship in the classroom.

PS: Here is my followup post with a good Sex Ed resource called Scarleteen.

Inspirational Quote:

• Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”
• McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”
• Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”
• McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

(Reporter and John McCain talking about Sex Ed in the US)

Why I can’t vote for John McCain

I was looking around Senator McCain’s website when I found this under his “Issues: Human Dignity” section. It seemed an odd title given his position on women’s ability to control their bodies.

Here is John McCain’s abortion stance:

Overturning Roe v. Wade

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, “At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level.”

Then his site goes on to talk about how he is seeking “ways to promote adoption as a first option for women struggling with a crisis pregnancy.” Because John McCain knows what is right for every woman in America with a crisis pregnancy.

Here is the NPR spot on the misconception that John McCain is pro-choice.

He also knows what information should be availible to patrons of our nation’s libraries and children in our schools. See his sponsorship of CIPA, Children’s Internet Protection Act, which required filters such as Bess (in fact, most commonly Bess) to be used in all libraries and schools which wanted internet in 2000. Bess is famous for blocking on demand and without review–from breast cancer websites to political websites, to tor’s instruction site (which I found blocked at my high school).

Censorship is the name of that game.

I don’t know whether abortion should be a litmus test for a Presidential Candidate. I think McCain’s record of supporting the Global Gag rule and abstinence only Sex Ed makes him an enemy of the free flow of information.

And that is enough for me.

Inspirational Quote:

“chaining sax handlers, Jed Parsons“

Makes me feel bad (Hacking John McCain)

Ok, so I went to sign up for John McCain’s mailing list and it asked me to “become a member” with a password and stuff. As I ogled at the bizarre security requirements required to get on a mailing list, I found I could make a webpage on John McCain’s site. I sent the first paragraph of my last post, expecting it to be rejected. But no, go here to see my new website:

http://feelingelephants.johnmccain.com/

Now I would feel bad for taking advantage of the filtering challenged, but darnit, he’s running a national campaign. He should know how to protect himself. Sigh.

Inspirational Quote:

It is always in the public interest to prevent the violation of a party’s constitutional rights.
See G & V Lounge, Inc. v. Michigan Liquor Control Comm’n, 23 F.3d 1071, 1079 (6th Cir. 1994). (Brown v Pittsburgh)

Why I support Hilary (more details in responce to comments)

This post is a response to two very different comments on my post “Misogyny lives (and why I support Hilary Clinton)“.

I support Hilary because I feel she is the single best mainstream candidate (there I go, capitulating to CNN’s valuation of a viable candidate) not because she is a woman. That would be absurd. To Eric, I wish there was a viable cyber-libertarian candidate who was neither isolationist nor so rampantly anti-government that s/he could see no use for it at all, but until that time comes I sort of have to make do.

My problem with Barak is that, though I get shivers listening to him speak, I can also get that reaction listening to a tenor sing a high C. I’ve looked at his voting record:

Planned Parenthood Senate Scorecard

ACLU Senate Scorecard

and compared it to Hilary’s:

Planned Parenthood Senate Scorecard

ACLU Senate Scorecard

My biggest problem is with Senator Obama is that he did not vote on some of the greatest human rights issues of our decade (see the Planned Parenthood Senate Scorecard for the “Abortion Ban” (’03), “Fetal Rights” (’04) and “The Right to Choose” (’03)).

I’m not saying Senator Obama is anti-choice or pro-life, but because he wasn’t there he has had no voice on these major issues.

Obama 12? Maybe! Obama 16? Even better. I like his style and if he could backup his message of “si se puede” with some “lo he hecho” I would be comfortable voting for him. But until he shows the kind of comfort on Capital Hill that Senator Clinton does, I do not consider him a good choice for president.

Because we have seen what idealism without insider support does in a divided country (see President Carter, best ex-president we have but as a President he was incredibly in effective). To use a bumber-sticker phrase: the President of the United States of America is not an entry level job. Senator Obama has so much potential but I am unswayed by his outsider posture: I think you have to know a system to be effective within it, and I think he needs to learn to live inside the belt-way a little before he makes much of how broken it is.

Here is my best evidence:

Barak on Petraeus:

Hilary on Petraeus:

Here Clinton impressed the hell out of me; Obama did not. Rambling about the date of the inquiry and posturing about his voting record is not his job: his job is to get answers from a very important and influential General on a disastrous war and try to help the USA and Iraq and Afghanistan come to a successful outcome for as many people as possible. Clinton was on topic, clear and got the General to clarify a worrying discrepancy in his testimony (she got him to say he would be adverse to staying the course if the situation in Iraq was exactly the same as it is now).

Obama’s worrying tendency to complain about the ills of government may be popular, but there is much that is right and good in our government. Most of our highways work; most of our schools teach; most of citizens can get passports to travel. Though CNN and other buzz-word news sources make it sound different, most of the time our country works. It is never good enough–yes. But too often outsiders see only what is going wrong and don’t notice that budgets get passed; cybercrime is fought effectively; college students get grants. And I am tired of hearing complaints from someone who prides himself on his ignorance of the system.

One of the sourest complaints against Senator Clinton is that she is too comfortable with how Washington works. But do you know what? I’m ok with that. I’d rather have a President who is comfortable enough to get something done than one who will make pretty speeches and give us four years of recession and unfulfilled promises. Because let’s be clear: to get something done in the US political capital, the President will have to know politics.

I am of course open to discussion and comments and linked posts are welcome. Thank you,

Inspirational Quote:

“The first duty of love - is to listen.” Paul Tillich

Misogyny lives (and why I support Hilary Clinton)

Stuff like this makes me sad. Over and over again I see and hear and find that demeaning, underestimating and abusing women is more acceptable than doing the same to men. Whether it is this hilarious article rebutting an flawed article on women’s inherant inferiority (apparently we can’t manipulate 3-D objects very well). Or this illuminating essay on demeaning language and tactics in the current presidential race called “Goodbye to all that.2″ by Robin Morgan. Here are some of her best points:

“Goodbye to the double standard . . .

“Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.”

“When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor”

Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .

“Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, ‘Citizens United Not Timid‘ (check the capital letters).”

“John McCain answering ‘How do we beat the bitch?’ with ‘Excellent question!’ Would he have dared reply similarly to ‘How do we beat the black bastard?’ For shame.”

“Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.“

Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .

“Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages — not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and — hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given birth to it.”

Goodbye, goodbye to . . .

“blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys–though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant.”

“an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s ‘cooler’ to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.”

“the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job,”

“goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.”

Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .

“Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said ‘made me feel like a dork.’”

And finally, a statement very close to my own heart:

“Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.”

Inspirational Quote:

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate. - Henry J. Tillman

A sunny day in DC

Here are some pictures I took in DC this weekend. The weather was so much better from Pittsburgh’s!

A quick note: I keep on hearing various candidates characterize DC in all of these ugly ways. Accusations of corruption and bad behavior abound. But having been an occasional visitor (who is albeit rubbing shoulders with more staffers than senators, or maybe more teachers, lawyers, maids and clerks to be more accurate) I have found a city which is full of passionate people. Normal people too, but DC is run on and by people who give a damn about how their government functions–functioning has more to do with showing up every day to do work than with pretty buzz-phrases and violent rhetoric. I am continuously impressed (and envious) of how casually close many of the people in DC are to their–our–government.

I find impressive people and interesting ideas in DC–and it would take more than a nasty pundit to make me think otherwise of our nation’s capital.

Inspirational Quote:

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player. -Albert Einstein

Politics of humor. Sort of (Mike Huckabee is endorsed by Chuck Norris)

Well here’s something that could have been funny and smart. But isn’t. I’m sure everyone has hear a Chuck Norris joke. For those at the Lair of the Bear last year (summer 2007) they became Mike White jokes. A few examples are today’s Inspirational Quote. But they are generally jokes which are best told by rackously laughing teenage boys who have probably never watched Walker Texas Ranger and have a hilariously satirical look of their faces. Definitely not Mike Huckabee. And even the theorhetically god-like Chuck Norris came off as flat. Watch the Mike Huckabee Chuck Norris Ad.

If looking for more humor on his YouTube clips, watch his FAQ for the Mortgage Industry. The part where he deadpans “I’m not unsympathetic” but is passionate about the evils of helping your neighbor are fantastic. Anyhoo, have a great day!

Inspirational Quote:

Chuck Norris Quotes (About not By Chuck Norris)

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.