Dear Colleague:
Some people think the federal government's efforts to promote marriage and
teach adolescents to control themselves are objectionable.
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
24 February 2006
Vol. 8 / No. 8
The Sin of Promoting Marriage
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
Just as homosexual rights activists seamlessly moved beyond the "leave us
alone" strategy to demanding wholesale alterations in the culture and laws
of America and civilization itself, sex education advocates have openly
transcended their initial goals of educating youth about reproductive
biology and contraception to favor similar radical changes. Some sex ed
promoters, like many homosexualists and feminists, now oppose teaching
young people that marriage is the ideal forum for sexuality. In fact,
they criticize the notion that people can limit their sexual impulses at
all.
At a time when those who control most channels of information devote
unfathomable amounts of effort to urging people to discipline their
appetites for food, drink, drugs, lethargy (exercise, exercise, exercise,
they say), tobacco, and the like, sexuality receives different treatment.
They classify more and more sexual impulses as normal and natural, and
seem to think that anyone who does not favor sexual activity with as many
attractive people as possible is some sort of prude.
The Bush Administration released an excellent set of grant criteria for
its Community-Based Abstinence Education Program (CBAE) on January 26.
The Health and Human Services Department's Administration for Children and
Families will distribute $24 million intended to encourage young people to
practice abstinence until marriage.
In response, on February 16, the Sexuality Information and Education
Council of the United States (SIECUS) sent out a press release criticizing
the program. Most Americans would likely be astonished at two of the
criticisms:
· The criteria "promote marriage."
· The ACF program "Teaches that sexual desires are natural and
controllable and that individuals are capable of making choices to abstain
from sexual activity."
The promotion of marriage is bad, and telling kids they can control
themselves is bad. This is how far the sex education movement has gone.
Needless to say, SIECUS is also irritated over the Bush Administration's
upholding of heterosexuality as the norm, its lack of concern about
"transgendered" youth, and the like.
ACF's abstinence-only guidelines for this program reaffirm traditional
morality, the same morality that millennia of history have shown promote
happiness and stability for the vast majority of people while ensuring the
future of society. It also contains disease, which is now spreading
exponentially among America youth, thanks in part to SIECUS and other sex
educators who tell children not to be chaste and that condoms will protect
you. Instead, ACF, headed by fatherhood advocate Dr. Wade Horn, says,
"Today's youth are bombarded by implicit and explicit messages that
promote sexual activity before and outside of marriage. Unfortunately,
teens receive less information about the physical and emotional benefits
that they may find by having one lifelong sexual partner within marriage.
Those youth who are aware of these benefits and want to delay sex until
marriage may not receive from society the support and training that they
need to achieve this goal. Government agencies often use special programs
to target specific audiences that are underserved by other systems. Youth
that are open to the message of delaying sex until marriage are such an
audience."
ACF plans to send its $24 million to programs with rational messages that
most American parents want their teenagers to hear. The successful
applicant for a CBAE grant will, says ACF, tell youth the truth about
contraceptives rather than the myth of contraception that sex educators
want communicated. A correct program, says ACF:
· "Teaches that contraception may fail to prevent teen pregnancy and that
sexually active teens using contraception may become pregnant."
· "Teaches the published failure rates associated with contraceptives
relative to pregnancy prevention, including 'real use' versus trial or
'laboratory use,' human error, product defect, teen use and possible side
effects of contraceptives. (References for information must be provided
with the curriculum.)"
· "Does not promote or encourage the use or combining of any
contraceptives in order to make sex 'safer.'"
The CBAE guidelines also want grantees to teach the psychological benefits
of abstinence, stating the time-honored truths that "sexual activity
outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological
and physical effects" and that "bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely
to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and
society." Most politically incorrectly of all, the guidelines demand a
program that "Teaches that the expected standard for sexual activity is
within the context of a mutually monogamous marriage relationship between
a man and a woman. Teaches that healthy human sexuality involves enduring
fidelity, love and commitment; human happiness and well-being are
associated with a stable, loving marriage. Teaches that non-marital sex
can undermine the capacity for healthy marriage, love and commitment."
Employing the classic propaganda technique of trying to make his opponent
look ridiculous by exaggerating his claims, William Smith, Vice President
for Public Policy at SIECUS, said, "This funding announcement is full of
wild and unfounded assertions that abstinence before marriage will cure
everything from psychological disorders to criminal behavior and ensure
financial success and a lifetime of happiness."
The types of ACF's claims for abstinence, marriage, and happiness aren't
any greater than those made by anti-smoking activists: Refraining from
this is likely to lead to greater happiness and health for you, your
family, and society. Anti-smoking activists don't claim you will be
perfectly healthy just so long as you don't smoke. Nor do they claim that
because you smoke, you are certain to develop lung cancer or emphysema,
and ACF doesn't claim that those who sleep around are certain to contract
a serious disease or become unable to form a permanent relationship later
in life. It's a matter of tendencies. There is obviously a lot more to
health and happiness than not smoking or not fornicating. That doesn't
mean that both are not highly valuable.
And, in fact, a 2001 analysis from Dr. Joe McIlhaney, head of the Medical
Institute for Sexual Health, determined that teenage sex is more harmful
to health than teenage smoking. Don't count on hearing about that from
many sources other than this one.
SIECUS' special report critiquing the ACF proposal says, "The new
guidelines consistently emphasize negative consequences of premarital
sexual activity and suggest that such consequences are inevitable. It is
clear that the goal is to scare students rather than educate them as many
of the suggested consequences, such as suicide and decreased school
completion, have no basis in sound research." SIECUS also claims that
teen virginity pledges lead to riskier sexual behavior. A coalition
letter to Congress from groups such as the ACLU, NARAL, and Planned
Parenthood made a similar claim last June, the same month studies came out
supporting virginity pledges' effectiveness. So there have been studies,
and media reports about studies, showing the opposite of the pro-teen-sex
crowd's claims. Maybe not all social scientists agree, but there is at
least a "basis in sound research" for ACF's guidelines.
HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt got a letter from one of the most liberal
members of Congress the same day that SIECUS launched its critique. Rep.
Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.) wrote, "Under the new guidelines, funding for
abstinence education will be awarded based on ideology, not the
effectiveness of programs in reducing teen sexual activity, teen
pregnancy, and teen sexually [transmitted] disease rates."
The Bush Administration notes, "The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) has reported that nearly 900,000 adolescents under the
age of 19 become pregnant every year and about 3 million become infected
with a sexually transmitted disease. Despite recent improvements in teen
pregnancy and birthrates, U.S. rates are higher than any other developed
nation." SIECUS is just another of the feminist and other groups whose
hostility to marriage has become increasingly open. Perhaps it's time
for a return to some old-fashioned restraint.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.
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