The Washington Post reports that Ohio is one of several states who have rejected federal dollars for sex-ed classes that require teaching abstinence. in a piece titled, Abstinence Programs Face Rejection: More States Opt to Turn Down the Federal Money Attached to That Kind of Sex Ed. They report: 14 states have refused federal money for "abstinence-only" sex education programs in the past year as evidence mounted that the approach is ineffective.
Critics said they hope that if enough states drop out, Congress will redirect the funding to comprehensive sex education programs that include teaching about the use of condoms and other contraceptives.
A critic of the federal program said, "It's a canary in the coal mine of what's to come.
We hope that it sends a message to the politicians in Washington that this program needs to change, and states need to be able to craft a program that is the best fit for their young people and that is not a dictated by Washington ideologues."
No doubt those 'Washington idealogues' were prompted to legislate the abstinence program through pressure from fundamentalist churches as well as the Catholic Church. It seems that these two religious bodies enjoy crotch politics very much. After all, the Bible says...
Luckily there are more mature and wise folks behind this shift in sex education priorities in these 14 states, people who look at the data rather than some line in Leviticus to make a judgement on the health and safety of our youth.
Things like this happen when religious beliefs enter government. We have a grand example of this practice in the Muslim world. We ought not send representatives to Washington who have some religious agenda in their back pocket otherwise we may end up with the American Taliban operating in DC.
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