Free Republic

WAYNESBORO, Pa. — Seven people — including one clutching a Bible — passionately objected on Tuesday to a proposal that would form a Gay-Straight Alliance club at Waynesboro Area Senior High School. Just as many people were on the other side of the argument, with several of them highlighting strides in unity demonstrated just eight hours earlier on a national scale. “It just seems really important to acknowledge today of all days that we have our first African-American president and how much we’re growing as a country,” said Stephanie Kober, a resident of Clayton Avenue.

One thing we seem to breed in Oregon are big political scandals, and the latest one is hitting Portland Mayor Sam Adams with gale force. Adams admitted to The Oregonian and Willamette Week Monday that he lied back in September of 2007 when he denied rumors that he had had a sexual relationship with a teenager who had been a legislative intern. Adams, who is openly gay, said that while he first met the intern, Beau Breedlove, when he was 17, the two did not have sex until after Breedlove turned 18. When rumors about the two first surfaced in...

Police in Pennsylvania said six high school students are facing pornography charges after three girls sent photos of themselves via cell phones. Greensburg police said the three female Greensburg-Salem High School students, ages 14 and 15, have been charged in Westmoreland County with manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography after they allegedly took pictures of themselves -- two of the girls nude, the other semi-nude -- with their cell phones and sent them to other students, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Tuesday.

Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in. "Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes. In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the...

Why chastity pledges by U.S. teenagers don't always ring true Teenagers who vow to remain virgins until they marry are just as likely to have pre-marital sex as other young people, a study has found. But they are less likely to use birth control when they do sleep with a partner. The idea of abstaining from sex until marriage has gained wider popularity in the U.S. in the last decade. The Jonas Brothers, a three-piece boy band, are among those vowing to wait until they are married.

Dec. 29, 2008 -- Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study. But the results, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggest that virginity pledgers are less likely to protect themselves against pregnancy or disease when they do have sex. Researchers say the findings suggest that virginity pledges may not significantly affect teenagers' sexual behavior. Instead, they may decrease the likelihood of teenagers taking precautions, such as using a condom or using birth control, when they do have sex. Virginity Pledge May Lead to Risky Sex Researchers say the federal government...

The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay. ... To help me understand this phenomenon, I called Kathleen Bogle, a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia who has studied hooking up among college students and is the author of the 2008 book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.” It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and,...

Chicago Public SchoolsWashington (CNSNews.com) – A proposed homosexual-friendly Chicago public high school is “necessary” for the well-being of students, a Chicago Public Schools administrator told CNSNews.com Wednesday. Joyce Brown, who is in charge of the public school district’s high school counselors, said the “Social Justice High School – Pride Campus” is necessary because “the issue (of homosexuality) is out there.” “Whatever is bubbling up,” she said, “needs to be addressed because the issue is there.” The proposed school would offer taxpayer-funded support for homosexual and lesbian students. The school proposal was to be voted on by the Chicago Board of...

The high school in Salem, N.H., was abuzz last month as a photograph of a topless 15-year-old girl was sent from cellphone to cellphone. School staff intervened, and by the time they met with students in assemblies the next day they had discovered another compromising cellphone photo, this one of an eighth-grade girl. They soon found two more photos of naked or nearly naked girls on students' phones. Two weeks later, a similar incident occurred at nearby Sanborn Regional High School. The photograph in question was of a teenage boy. A report being released today shows that these were not...

When it comes to sex, tech and teens don't make the best bedfellows. As tech-savvy teens become increasingly fluent with new technology, from social networking sites to tricked-out new cell phones, research finds the negative consequences stacking up. According to the results of a survey released today by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com, 22 percent of all teen girls — and 11 percent of teen girls ages 13-16 years old — say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves. And these racy images are also getting passed around:...

Bloomington, IN -- The Planned Parenthood staff member in Indiana who appears in a recent undercover video covering up an alleged case of statutory rape has been fired. The video sent shockwaves throughout the nation as "Diana" didn't want more information on the abuse and told a girl how to get a secret abortion.

You know that rule about how teenagers aren't supposed to date until they're 16? Does anyone remember how old that rule is? I'm 57. That rule was already in place when I got to dating age in 1967. It never affected me much. It's not like girls were clinging to their phones, hoping I'd call. Plus, I didn't get a driver's license till I was 23. That really crimps a guy's style. In our ward in Greensboro, N.C., that rule seems to be universally respected. Including the often-ignored stipulations that even at 16, they should be group dates, so that...

SAN FRANCISCO - A girl in pigtails bounds into the kitchen after school and asks her mother to guess what she learned that day. "I learned how a prince married a prince, and I can marry a princess," she exclaims to her mortified mom. This television advertisement for a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in California urges voters to "protect children" by approving the measure. There's not a word about education in Proposition 8, but what public schools will be required to teach about same-sex marriage has emerged as the central issue in the campaign. The measure's supporters...

The youngest children will get basic lessons in PSHE - personal, social and health education - as they start primary school. They will learn about body parts, babies, differences between boys and girls, friendships and emotions, ministers said. They will also be taught to avoid medicines and dangerous substances in the home. Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, insisted five to seven-year-olds would not be "taught sex", but teachers would address it if asked, adding they would be better trained to discuss sensitive issues when they arise. "It is important teachers don't duck issues children are raising, particularly if they...

Lessons in diversity Melanie Pang has participated in educational events and political theater as a leader in a University of Houston campus group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Next spring, she'll move that interest into the academic arena. Pang plans to be among the first students enrolled when the university begins offering a minor concentration in GLBT studies, the only college in Texas to do so. "We thought it was necessary to recognize the scholarly importance of GLBT people and their contributions," said Guillermo De Los Reyes, assistant professor of Latin American studies and director of the new...

Public school officials in Chicago, Illinois, are recommending approval of a "gay-friendly" high school because harassment and violence are causing gay students to skip class and drop out at alarming rates. The School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials say will not be exclusive to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, is aimed at being safe and welcoming for any student looking for another school option, said Josh Edelman, executive officer in the Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools. "It is not going to be a 'gay high school,' but yes, in a way, it is meant to...

The statistics on teen sexuality in the United States are troubling. About 7 percent of high school stu­dents report having had sex before the age of 13. By ninth grade, one-third of high school students have engaged in sexual activity, and by 12th grade, two-thirds.[1]  Yet the majority of these teens, 60 percent overall and 67 percent among younger adolescents, regret their first experience and wish they had waited longer.[2] Teen Sexual Activity and OutcomesEarly sexual activity is associated with a host of negative outcomes that can have lasting physical, emotional, social, and economic impacts on the lives of young...

The Pride Campus of Social Justice High School would be open to all students in the city, and would probably end up being "majority straight", said Arne Duncan, the head of Chicago Public Schools. But it would provide a supportive atmosphere for gay pupils, using prominent gays and lesbians - including James Baldwin and Gertrude Stein - in its curriculum. Bill Greaves, the city's liason officer on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, said the school would "make sure these people are not invisible in history". He said it was important that gay and lesbian historical figures were highlighted to...

ARLINGTON, VA, October 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Students for Life of America (SFLA) has released a video exposing two Planned Parenthood clinics in Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina covering up statutory rape of young girls. To view the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkakpcWSyWY In June of 2008, two college women volunteering for Students for Life of America entered two clinics in North Carolina posing as underage girls, 15 and 14, who just had unprotected sex with their mother's live-in boyfriend who was in his 30s. Each girl told the clinic workers that he suggested she come get the morning the Morning...

TEACHERS should NOT be prosecuted for having sex with pupils over 16, claim union bosses. The NASUWT says it is UNFAIR to treat teachers who have affairs with students who are over 16 as sex offenders, insisting all they are guilty of is an “error of professional judgement”. In 2001 it became illegal for teachers to have any intimate or sexual affair with any pupil in their school under 18. If found guilty of doing so, the teacher would face instant dismissal, be made to sign the sex offenders register and possibly face jail. But NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates...

You can say one thing about the Yes on 4 TV ad: It's sure to spark some strong reactions. The campaign to pass an abortion parental notification law aired an ad last night with a young man bragging about impregnating underage girls and then taking them to get secret abortions. The ad features a scruffy looking 20-something, wearing a white t-shirt and fleece jacket, talking straight into the camera about how, "I go out with some teenage girls." "OK, so I get a couple of them pregnant. What is the big deal? I can just take her to get an...

Young girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins, according to a controversial new study. American academics found that teenage sex leaves many girls with feelings of guilt and low self-esteem. Following a study of more than 14,000 adolescents aged between 14 and 17, researchers said that these feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences, such as family difficulties. The findings, which will fuel the debate about sex education in schools, were hailed as 'groundbreaking' by British experts who promote abstinence. But critics said that...

When parents tell me their oldest child is going to be in middle school, I sense they have mixed feelings. They’re proud but worried. They’re worried about their children’s loss of innocence. No parent can put that off forever, of course, but they shouldn’t have to worry about it when their kids are only 11 years old. When it’s parents against the culture, I hate to admit it but the culture is likely to win. Parents know this at some level and fear it.   Students are more sexual these days than I ever remember. I shouldn’t be surprised...

The first step in reducing teen pregnancy and abortion is to know the facts. Actually, we know what works. Child Trends and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy published their own data and the corroborating findings of a vast body of scientific research which found that the recipe for delaying sexual activity is parental involvement, good friends, strong faith and participation in church activities. The bottom line, they said, is that parents and friends have tremendous influence on their children, regardless of socio-demographic or economic background and characteristics. Obviously, many of the nation's adolescents don't have those positive...

New York City is proof positive that the "safe sex" message is not generating positive results. The Big Apple has been at the forefront of providing free or low-cost birth control, but it has not reduced pregnancies or abortions. Chris Slattery, founder of EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers, says abortion has been higher in New York for four decades. He cites the most recent figures for abortions are "90,000 for the city limits in the last reported year – rates that approach 50 percent of all non-miscarried pregnancies ending in an abortion here." Youngsters, he laments, have little chance to hear the abstinence message because only...

Sacramento, Aug 11, 2008 / 11:04 pm (CNA).- A California judge has ruled against Planned Parenthood and its allies who challenged the content of a voter information pamphlet’s arguments in support of Proposition 4, a ballot measure requiring abortionists to notify at least one adult relative before performing an abortion on a minor. The arguments reference the story of “Sarah,” a 15-year-old who died in 1994 after suffering complications from a secretly obtained legal abortion, in addition to stories of other underage girls who obtained abortions without their parents’ knowledge.Opponents of the pamphlet’s content argued that Sarah’s story should...

Planned Parenthood took me "Down There" and exposed it all. The self-evident wrong-headedness of their thinking, that is. A new campaign waged by the abortion provider is as crass as its name suggests. But it is more than that. It is an expose -- in that most pithy and au courant of forms, the Web video -- of why we get nowhere in America when we talk about sex education. The "Take Care Down There" campaign consists of Web videos of young people talking about threesomes and sexually transmitted diseases, because that's all kids could ever chat about, right? An...

Who is Planned Parenthood’s newest spokesman? Mr. Molester stars in Planned Parenthood’s latest disgusting attempt to indoctrinate kids. Be sure to watch the latest ALL Report on what your tax dollars have made possible! copy and paste this link http://allreport.blip.tv/#1128425 your url, and please ... FORWARD THE VIDEO TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

Brazilian Grooming Trend Popular With Young Girls Last Edited: Tuesday, 22 Jul 2008, 11:41 PM EDT Created: Tuesday, 22 Jul 2008, 11:41 PM EDT Spa Waxing On the scale of uncomfortable subjects, this story is off the charts, but it's extremely important for all parents to hear. Fox 8's Suzanne Stratford has news about a Brazilian grooming trend that young girls are having done.

Early in July, OK! magazine featured a cover story about Jamie Lynn Spears and her new baby, Maddie. Newsweek reported that the magazine paid $1 million for the rights to publish photographs of the baby and mother. The young mom, now 17, is shown on the magazine's cover declaring, "Being a mom is the best feeling in the world." A good number of parents were understandably outraged.   This week, Newsweek is out with an article that questions how Hollywood is presenting teenage motherhood. The magazine reports that teen moms and their babies have become "a hot plot device lately."...

NEW YORK -- A Dutchess County special education teacher has been accused of having sex with a 15-year-old disabled student. Teacher Mandi Weeks, 27, was arrested on Monday in Queens. She admitted to having sex with her student at the Devereux Foundation NY Center for the past month, according to police. Weeks is being charged with two counts of rape with a child under the age of 21 and two acts of acting in a manner to injure a child under the age of 17. The student was in the school’s residential program and lived on campus. He had been...

-- Woman says SATC inspired her to have sex at 14 -- ABC News.com is currently highlighting a Sex and the City- inspired story about a woman who says the HBO series inspired her to start having sex when she was 14. Will the networks news shows pick up the story or will it remain an "internet only" feature, not likely to be seen by a broad audience? The question is worth asking because ABC's Good Morning America was one of the first network morning news shows to salivate over last week's London opening of Sex and the City: The...

Actor Terrence Howard has proved his credentials as the ultimate over-protective father - he threatened to kill his daughter Aubrey's teenage boyfriend. The Iron Man star didn't appreciate his 14-year-old daughter dating a classmate he disapproves of, and "intervened" by forcing her to ditch the unfavorable suitor. He says, "She's supposedly in love with some guy. I made her break up with him and I've threatened to kill him. I was like, you picked a green fruit from the tree that's far from ripe." And Howard ensures he keeps a tight-leash on his beloved kids - warning Aubrey she will...

This Clovis High School yearbook is out and is raising eyebrows with pictures and quotes from gay couples who attend the school.

It's not news to anybody these days - not if they watch any television or glance at the covers of the magazines lining the checkout counters at the grocery stores - that we live in a sex-saturated society where supposedly the majority of young people are "doing it," more often than not without "benefit of marriage." The "Playboy philosophy" is trumpeted by a thousand voices that glamorize casual sex, while most of the shrinking mainline churches present pitifully watered-down messages about morality that confuse rather than clarify. Academic institutions, particularly the women's studies programs, promote the idea that marriage is...

Diane Peterson works as a sales clerk at a Walgreens in Fenton. She was developing pictures last month when she spotted some familiar faces — teenage girls she has known since they were in kindergarten — in an X-rated spring break adventure. "I was appalled by what I saw," Peterson said. It wasn't just the drunken, sexual poses that bothered her. She knew some of their parents. And she knew they didn't have a clue. A recent poll commissioned by the cable network WE, which launched a docu-series called "High School Confidential," found a major communication gap between parents and...

DUBLIN, April 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Girls who become sexually active before age 17 are almost 70 percent more likely to experience a crisis pregnancy in later life and three times more likely to procure abortion in their lifetime than those who wait until they are older, according to a study released by the Irish Crisis Pregnancy Agency. The Irish Study of Sexual Health and Relationships, the largest nationally representative study on sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviour ever undertaken in Ireland, was published by the Department of Health and the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) today. The research found that 14.9...

Minnesota's soaring rate of sexually transmitted disease [STD] is in the news again. At the national level, a recent study found that 25 percent of 14- to 19-year-old girls have at least one of four common STDs. The solution? Enlightened folks tell us it's more sex education, counseling and treatment. They call for more tax-funded initiatives such as a $1.3 million bill for screening and public education recently considered by the Minnesota Legislature. But few are talking about the real reason for the epidemic: too many kids are having sex at too young an age. Try mentioning this at your...

Colleges' final frontier: mixed-gender housing Jason Carmignani hung out with his roommate, Yael Bassal, at Clark University. "We're both pretty mellow," he said. (Dominic Chavez/Globe Staff) Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Peter Schworm Globe Staff / April 2, 2008 In the Woodstock era, the advent of coed dorms caused a stir, with Life magazine proclaiming the development "an intimate revolution on campus." Coed floors came along over the next two decades, giving college students immediate proximity to each other. The next step, coed suites and bathrooms, brought the sexes even closer together. Now, some colleges are crossing the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Several dozen members of Congress, all abortion advocates, have signed a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey asking him to cut all funds for abstinence education. They don't want any money spent in the FY 2009 Health and Human Services appropriations bill spent on abstinence. Congressman Jim Moran, a pro-abortion Virginia Democrat, led the letter campaign and gathered the signatures of 76 of his Congressional colleagues. "We urge you to reconsider funding for the [abstinence programs] and to devote those dollars to other more effective programs," the letter reads. They want the money axed...

David Mech, or David Pounder as he's known in pornography circles, said that Planned Parenthood's Web site for teens, Teenwire.com, is an excellent source for young people to learn about what he considers the benefits of viewing pornography. Mech contacted Cybercast News Service after reading its report about Teenwire. "Planned Parenthood is an excellent organization that helps people by focusing on how people actually are behaving (i.e., having sex, watching porn, doing drugs, etc.), as opposed to helping people based on how they should be behaving (abstaining from sex, watching the news, eating healthy, etc.)," Mech, a pornography producer and...

Elizabeth Alderman, adolescent specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, was astounded by a federal report this week showing that two out of five teenage girls who have had sex have experienced at least one sexually transmitted infection. Lorena Granados, a junior at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County, was not the least bit surprised. "A lot of girls fall in love, and it doesn't seem they care about protection," she said yesterday. "It's 'What am I going to enjoy right now?' Or they'll say, 'I know he hasn't been with anybody. . ....

CHICAGO - Startling government research on teenage girls and sexually transmitted diseases sends a blunt message to kids who think they're immune: It's liable to happen to you or someone you know. In the first study of its kind, researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found at least 1 in 4 teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease. The most common one, HPV, is a virus that can cause cervical cancer, and the second most common, chlamydia, can cause infertility. Nearly half of the Black teens in the study had at least one sexually transmitted...

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. The study by CDC researcher Dr. Sara Forhan is an analysis of nationally representative data on 838 girls who participated in a 2003-04 government health survey. Teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18 percent of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4 percent; trichomoniasis, 2.5 percent; and herpes simplex virus, 2 percent.

At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Among girls who...

CHICAGO - At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. About...

CHICAGO (AP) ― At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found....

Shortly before the unexpected departure of Princeton’s top chief medical officer this summer, an investigation by the State of New Jersey revealed that since 2003, Princeton’s McCosh Health Center has failed to comply with state laws for reporting STDs. The state investigation, which involved a visit from a surveillance team and an official warning, was concealed from students and administrators. Vice President Janet Dickerson, who directly supervises the head of McCosh, did not learn of the state investigation until three months after it occurred. When a Tory reporter asked her to comment on the case she was caught unawares. “I’m...

"Papa loved Mama, so they got married and had babies." Thus does my earnest four-year-old summarize the mysteries of marital love. For scientific purposes that statement is terribly incomplete. For philosophical purposes, it hits the bull's eye. With those words Phil Lawler began a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March of 1996. His child's perspective stands in instructive contrast to an article in today's New York Times titled, "Talking With Children About Sex and AIDS: At What Age to Start?" The answer suggested in the lede is "How about, oh, 4?" The reporter tells us this is the subject...

NEW CITY, N.Y. - An ex-prosecutor and former PTA president who is also the wife of a suburban police chief has been charged with having sex, smoking marijuana and drinking with high-school-age children. Beth Modica, 44, a former assistant district attorney in Rockland County and Queens, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to counts including statutory rape, sex abuse and endangering children. Her hands were cuffed in front of her in court, where the indictment was unsealed. She later posted $75,000 bail. Her husband is police chief of Spring Valley. He is "not implicated whatsoever," Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said....