Tie a Knot in It - Advice from the Sex Police Meddling in other people's lives: it's no longer just a nutty duty, it's also a chance to do well by doing good. Peddling abstinence is a right-wing growth industry.

• Purity Ball promotes abstinence in girls  November 22, 2003 - At the first annual event of its kind in Erie, PA, fathers and daughters pledge to keep the daughters on the straight-and-narrow.

• When sex education goes too far  August 30, 2003 - A senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation doesn't like "Abstinence-Plus" sex education programs.

• Abstinence 'til Marriage: The Smart Choice  Website of the Montana Abstinence Project, funded with Federal money.

• Waiting for marriage: Silver Ring Thing promotes abstinence  April 22, 2003 - Participants who make the pledge "will be given a silver ring inscribed with a biblical reference warning against sexual sin."

• New Study Points to the Success of Abstinence  April 14, 2003 - Antiabortion group Focus on the Family reports that "A new study says abstinence is the most significant factor in declining teen pregnancy rates."

• Abstinence education gains record funding  March 24, 2003 - "The federal government's investment in abstinence education should reach a record high of about $120 million this year."

• Big Brother Doctors Health Info  December 18, 2002 - Federal Health and Human Services have changed data sheets they issue on condoms. Now they de-emphasize the effectiveness of condoms in preventing disease and as a contraception strategy. For their part, the right-wingers claim the changes line up with emerging facts.

• Philly Schools Continue 'Cold Shoulder' Treatment of Abstinence Education  December 12, 2002 - Agape Press claims that the Philadelphia public schools are not pursuing the abstinence-only curriculum said to be required by state law.

• Sex ed furor erupts at middle school  December 1, 2002 - "Sex education material was removed from an eighth - grade health class at Kohala Middle School last month after parents objected to content they called 'lewd,' 'licentious' and 'pornographic.'"

• The Father of the Sexual Revolution  Pure Life Ministries identifies Alfred Kinsey's major influences: Satan and Charles Darwin.

• Miss America's stealth virginity campaign  October 28, 2002 - The newly crowned Miss America has shifted the emphasis of her speaking tours from violence prevention to promoting sexual abstinence. Liberals are outraged, conservatives all a-twitter.

• New Jersey Abstinence Law Flouted  October 21, 2002 - Family News in Focus complains that the New Jersey Education Association (the teachers' union) somehow violated state law by uninviting speakers to their convention, once they found the speakers were oriented toward abstinence only sex education.

• Bush OKs Medicaid money for condoms  October 3, 2002 - The President has ok'd funds for family planning, no doubt surprising the abstinence partisans.

• Parents lobby for less sex in sex ed  September 16, 2002 - In Michigan a conservative parents' group has succeeded in dropping from the public school curriculum the video "What Kids Want to Know About Sex."

• 'Safe Sex' Supporter to Head CDC  July 2, 2002 - The abstinence-only camp gets tens of millions of dollars from the Bush administration. Yet they don't hesitate to whine when Bush appoints as new head for the Center for Disease Control an advocate of "Safe Sex."

• HHS Awards Grants Nationwide to Support abstinence education, services to teens  July 2, 2002 - "HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced 95 new grants totaling $27.7 million to help communities develop and implement abstinence-only education and related programs for young people ages 12 to 18."

• Abstinence Inc.  June 8, 2002 - "While abstinence has been the new sexual revolution for two decades, today it has gone corporate."

• President pushing abstinence programs aimed at teen-agers  November 26, 2001 - Responding to pressure from the right, President Bush proposes funding abstinence-only programs on an equal basis with other sex education programs.
  
• Purity Links    More than 100 links to titles like "Abstinence: Safer than Sex," "Chastity Call," "Christian Men's Sexual Purity Group," "Unwrapped Too Soon," "The Shadow of Sodom," "Keep Your Fire in the Fireplace", and many more. According to P. Coelestin Muff, "Man's worst enemy is evil concupiscence, the lust of the flesh, which aims at destroying that celestial flower, the lily of purity." So be sure you can answer virtuously when asked "How's your lily hangin'?"

• FreeTeens.org  "Safe sex is tricky, used wrong, sex can be a lethal weapon."

• Plan targets state's role on sex-ed material  December 25, 2001 - In Utah, conservative forces in the legislature want remove from the state any right to review sex education materials of local schools.

• Abstinence: Film tries new tack with teens  February 6, 2002 - "Choosing the Best" is a film for high school students, based on abstinence-only.

• Message in a Bottle  April 26, 2002 - From the online edition of the Jacksonville Business Journal an account of an engaged couple who teach and practice abstinence. Here's a hint: "Only kiss standing up or sitting down. Never lie down and kiss."

Criticism of "Abstinence Only" Sex Education

Is the Pope Crazy?  October 16, 2003 - "It's bad enough to argue that condoms are against God's will while millions die. But to maintain, falsely, that they are ineffective in order to discourage their use is truly immoral. If not insane."

Condom Programs Do Not Promote School Sex  May 27, 2003 - "Making condoms available to high school students does not make them more likely to have sex, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health."

CLASS backs safe sex: Organization, businesses team up to distribute free condoms  May 19, 2003 - "CLASS" is Central Louisiana AIDS Support Services, who distribute clear glass jars full of condoms for free distribution at local businesses.

Reality Check: Abstinence-only programs function as an information blackout  February 13, 2003 - In San Antonio, Texas there's no sign that withholding information about sex can prevent teens from getting pregnant or contacting sexually transmitted diseases.

Vows of Abstinence Weaker Than Condoms, Former Gov't Official Says  December 11, 2002 - Former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders says "I agree condoms will break, but vows of abstinence break far more easily."

Suit settled; no religion in program  November 14, 2002 - Judge orders the Governor of Louisiana to make sure that no funds from his "Governor's Fund on Abstinence" are used to "to advocate or promote, through prayer or otherwise, religion or religious messages."

Just Say "Not Until We're Married": Legislating Morality And Undermining HIV/AIDS Prevention   October 14, 2002 - Complying with the demands of the extreme right, the Bush administration allows no discussion of condoms in the abstinence only programs, other than to say that condoms are not reliable.

Groups seek abstinence-only curbs  September 2, 2002 - Leaders of 20 groups claim that the "abstinence only" programs are "unproven and harmful."

Federal Judge Rules Louisiana Must Stop Giving Abstinence Education Funds to Groups That Promote Religion  July 26, 2002 - Teaching material had references to "Christ," "virgin birth," "sexual purity."

Abstinence-Only-Until Marriage Programs  "There is no scientific evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs - those that censor information about contraception - are effective."

Should We Teach Only Abstinence in Sexuality Education?  They dispute a basic assumption of the abstinence-only camp: "The abstinence-only sex education movement has been propelled by the persistent but mistaken belief that comprehensive sexuality education itself somehow seduces teenagers into sexual activity."

Abstinence: A Sound Choice, but It Won't Stop Youth Sex  June 1, 2002 - Having learned their lesson the hard way in World War I, the US military "shows no sign of adopting abstinence-only for its unmarried youth."

Risky business  May 27, 2002 - "Teens are having more sex–and getting more diseases. But is telling them to wait the answer?"

Abstinence Or Obstinacy?  May 16, 2002 - "The program persists despite no evidence that it works and in the face of some evidence that it does not. It is a muddled aspiration, coupled with such sanctimonious nonsense about chastity until marriage that it simply cannot be taken seriously."

ACLU Sues La. Over Abstinence Teaching  May 9, 2002 - The suit alleges that grant recipients have used funds for youth revivals and biblical instruction on purity. One group used funds to organize prayer sessions outside abortion clinics.

Bringing back the cold shower  "There's no middle ground. No wedding, no sex, no kidding!"

When Abstinence-Only Really Hurts  "Some abstinence-only programs use false information and fear tactics to scare students into chastity."

Congress Studies Whether Abstinence Education Works  March 10, 2002 - Supporters and opponents cite studies, but no compelling evidence has yet been developed.

Mixed Reviews for Abstinence-Only Programs  August 10, 2001 - "Though abstinence proponents like to take credit for the recent decline in teen pregnancy rates, there's nothing to say that chastity — rather than broader use of condoms — is responsible."

Cut to the Chaste  "State-funded sex abstinence classes for adults face financial turn-off." Alcohol and drug dependent clients of a Salvation Army rehab class, most of them men, are taught to "just say no" to sex outside of marriage. Funding to the program may soon be cut, as there is no evidence it is effective.

The oxymoron of just-say-no sex ed  Stephanie Salter of the San Francisco Chronicle recounts government spending of $250 million on a right-wing "education" project.

Just say no to just-say-no sex education  The second article of the two part series.

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