inkbluesky

shenandoah national park wallpaper 

Abstinence students still having sex - Study tracked 2,057 young people in government-funded programs

WASHINGTON - Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education.

We should probably be teaching a class in why it is a good idea to use better judgment in when to start having sex and to be particular about who. We’ll never have that class because it would acknowledge that little Buffy or Jose is going to actually do the deed some day. There is nothing wrong with abstinence, it is not uncool its just that it flys in the face of what we know about thousands of years of human history. In the class room abstinence is a way to cut corners, its smacks of laziness on the part of some educators and some parents who don’t seem willing or able to teach their kids about how to make good decisions. Now that we know that this abstinence based education doesn’t work will be be wise enough to change course.

For God’s Sake 

The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda - which is very different from simply being people of faith - is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.

But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.

Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections.

For example, The Boston Globe reports on one Regent law school graduate who was interviewed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Asked what Supreme Court decision of the past 20 years he most disagreed with, he named the decision to strike down a Texas anti-sodomy law. When he was hired, it was his only job offer.

Or consider George Deutsch, the presidential appointee at NASA who told a Web site designer to add the word “theory” after every mention of the Big Bang, to leave open the possibility of “intelligent design by a creator.” He turned out not to have, as he claimed, a degree from Texas A&M.

Many of these folks see themselves as being on a mission if you will. To fulfill some ideal that was supposedly held by the founding fathers. Only their idea of what the founding fathers wanted has no basis in fact - BACKGROUNDER ON THE VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

For some Virginians, however, imposing religion on people smacked of tyranny. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both of whom would later be president of the United States, argued that religious beliefs should be solely matters of individual conscience and completely immune from any interference by the state. Moreover, religious activity of any sort should be wholly voluntary. Not only did they oppose taxing people to support an established church, but they also objected to forcing people to pay taxes even for their own church. To Jefferson, a high wall of separation should always keep church and state apart.

The Virginia Constitution, which Jefferson wrote was a kind of template for the U.S. Constitution. So scholars and judges have referred back to it for clarification.   VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.