Baylor exec defends Planned Parenthood's sex-ed program

Florida Baptist Witness ^ | 5/19/05 | Florida Baptist Witness

[wagglebee]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Baylor University’s new interim president, William (Bill) Underwood, stated reasons May 2 why he has been a financial supporter of a Planned Parenthood sexuality program for youth entering the fifth through ninth grade.

In an interview requested by Baptist Press, Underwood stated that he and his wife have enrolled their daughter and son in the half-day program in recent years.

Planned Parenthood in Waco, Texas, where Baylor is located, and in numerous cities across the country, provides abortion and other sexual-related services and is known as the nation’s largest provider of elective abortions.

Controversy over Nobody’s Fool, a summertime session launched by Planned Parenthood of Waco/Central Texas in 1990, spiked last year with a brief boycott of, oddly, Girl Scout cookies. The regional Girl Scouts organization, in addition to having been a Nobody’s Fool sponsor, had named Planned Parenthood’s local executive director as a “Woman of Distinction” in mid-2003. In February 2004, during the Girl Scouts’ cookie-selling season, leaders of a local pro-life group, Pro-Life Waco, called for the boycott. In late February, the 14-county Bluebonnet Girl Scout Council’s board of directors voted to end its ties with Planned Parenthood.

Controversy continued as the Nobody’s Fool session July 15 approached, with numerous articles and opinion pieces appearing in the local paper. In one article, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Austin called Nobody’s Fool “devoid of Christian morality regarding sexuality.” In one opinion piece, a woman recounted how a minister at a session in the mid-’90s had taught the 12-year-old boys at Nobody’s Fool how to give and receive oral sex.

Underwood, a professor of law at Baylor who was named the university’s interim president April 29, stated to Baptist Press that his 16-year-old daughter had attended Nobody’s Fool two or three times and his son attended last year for the first time as an 11-year-old.

Problematic instruction on sexuality, he said, “has not been my children’s experience nor the experience of any of the people who I talked with before my wife and I made the decision to have our children attend.”

Underwood and his wife, Lesli, were among about 100 individuals listed as “underwriters” on a Planned Parenthood promotional flyer for last summer’s Nobody’s Fool program.

Seventh & James Baptist Church where the Underwoods are members was one of 10 co-sponsoring churches. The others included Metropolitan Community Church, which is part of a predominantly homosexual denomination; Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Waco; Temple Rodef Sholom, a Reform Jewish congregation; Lake Shore Baptist Church; First Presbyterian Waco; and First Lutheran Church. Sponsoring churches do not provide money for Nobody’s Fool but volunteers and promotional assistance.

“Each year that I have sent a child I have made a financial contribution to the program,” Underwood told Baptist Press.

Underwood said he doesn’t hold the same opinion as those who believe they should disassociate themselves from other Planned Parenthood programs because of its abortion services.

“My children are the most important thing in the world to me,” said Underwood, the son of a Baptist minister. “And like every parent, you worry about the influences of our culture on the kids and you do everything you can at home to teach them the kinds of moral values that you want to instill in them. And my wife and I do that. And the same thing occurs at church....

“But I want as much reinforcement of the themes that I’m trying to communicate to my children as possible. And sometimes it’s helpful to have people who aren’t parents and who aren’t friends from church saying the same things that we’re telling them. And that’s why I’ve sent them to Nobody’s Fool,” Underwood said.

Underwood acknowledged that “some of my closest friends are opposed to the Nobody’s Fool program. I understand where they’re coming from and I understand their concerns. But in looking at what was right for my children and then talking with people who had sent their children to the program, I thought it would be beneficial for my children, because I thought the themes that they would be exposed to at the program would be consistent with the themes that I was trying to communicate to them in my home.”

The Waco-area Planned Parenthood’s website describes Nobody’s Fool as providing “factual information about growing up, puberty, dating, relationships, sexual issues and sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS,” with instruction done in gender and age groups. Interested parents cannot attend Nobody’s Fool but an informational session is held for them the night before the event to foster “better communication between teens and their parents,” according to the Web site.

One point of contention with the local Planned Parenthood has been its distribution of a book, It’s Perfectly Normal, to the youth and their families in conjunction with the Nobody’s Fool program. The 2004 promotional flyer for Nobody’s Fool stated that the seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders would receive the book, while the fifth- and sixth-graders would receive a companion book, It’s So Amazing.

Underwood said he is aware of the book but hadn’t examined it or used it with his children.

It’s Perfectly Normal spans nearly 100 pages and contains numerous cartoon-like pencil-and-watercolor drawings, including one or more with a naked couple engaging in sexual intercourse and various depictions of male and female anatomy. It states: “It makes sense to wait to have sexual intercourse until you are old enough and responsible enough to make healthy decisions about sex.”

But the book is devoid of any counsel to wait until marriage.

On abortion, It’s Perfectly Normal lists nine reasons why abortions are sought.

On homosexuality, the book states: “Some people disapprove of gay men and lesbian women. Some even hate homosexuals only because they are homosexual. People may feel this way toward homosexuals because they think homosexuals are different from them or that gay relationships are wrong. Usually these people know little or nothing about homosexuals, and their views are often based on fears or misinformation, not on facts. People are often afraid of things they know little or nothing about.”

But nothing is stated about a Christian worldview as being a plausible reason for opposing the homosexual agenda.

It’s Perfectly Normal also asserts regarding homosexuality: “The ancient Greeks thought that love between two men was the highest form of love. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, in about 1000 B.C., it was hoped that male lovers would be in the same army regiment. People thought that if a warrior was in the same regiment as his lover, he would fight harder in order to impress him. The Spartan army was one of the most powerful and feared armies in ancient Greece.”

Greg Wills, professor of church history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., responding to a Baptist Press request to examine the historical assertion in It’s Perfectly Normal, noted: “Many in ancient Greece saw the love between men as the highest form of love, but this was a matter of true friendship, affection and respect – it was not a reference to the gratification of sexual desires.

“Homosexuality of all kinds was generally against the law and generally considered shameful, but it gained popularity and a measure of toleration among certain classes – the aristocracy, the elite. But it was not the egalitarian homosexuality that gay partisans advocate now,” Wills continued. “The homosexuality that existed among the Greeks was almost always that of a man and a boy. It was pederasty. The man was the active one … and the boy was the passive one, the female. Although contrary to law, the man generally paid the family and offered to help the boy make his way in the world, and thus prevented them from bringing the matter to the courts.”

Underwood, in the interview with Baptist Press, commented on sexual abstinence until marriage by stating, “Obviously, the message that I think any Christian would want to convey to their children is that sex outside of marriage is not appropriate.”

On homosexuality, he stated, “I think all of us would agree that it is not an appropriate Christian response to homosexuality to hate the homosexual. There are lots of other reasons to be opposed to homosexuality, including the view that it’s a sin.”

Underwood, in the interview, stated that he supports another Planned Parenthood program, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, in which participating runners raise funds for breast cancer screening for underprivileged women.

The program also has become controversial, Underwood said. “It’s the same kind of situation, where there are some people who are understandably opposed to Planned Parenthood’s activities and don’t believe that you should participate in any program that has any connection to Planned Parenthood regardless of the nature of the program.

“I consider myself to be not just pro-life,” Underwood continued, “but aggressively pro-life ... to the point where not only am I opposed to abortion but I’m opposed to the death penalty.

“To me, the Nobody’s Fool program, when I look at it, is about preventing unwanted teen pregnancy,” which accounts for nearly one in five abortions. “If there’s a program out there that will reduce the number of unwanted teen pregnancies, I’m in favor of it,” Underwood said.

[wagglebee]

“If there’s a program out there that will reduce the number of unwanted teen pregnancies, I’m in favor of it,” Underwood said.

There is you idiot, it's called ABSTINENCE.

[wagglebee]

Planned Parenthood ping.

[basil]

Underwood, a professor of law at Baylor who was named the university’s interim president April 29, stated to Baptist Press that his 16-year-old daughter had attended Nobody’s Fool two or three times

Well--there you have it! His daughter is obviously a slow learner!

This is nothing more than people who have an agenda for this country (namely, making premarital sex, abortion, and gay sex the norm) getting a foot in another door.

God must be really proud that some of His (supposedly) churches are helping with programs such as this.

[LibFreeOrDie]

...his 16-year-old daughter had attended Nobody’s Fool two or three times...

Once wasn't enough? Why doesn't he discuss these issues with his own kids instead of handing them over to PP?

[kcvl]

Underwood, a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the University of Illinois Law Review, graduated as salutatorian of his class, and was a member of the Order of the Coif. Following graduation from law school, Underwood completed a prestigious federal judicial clerkship with the Honorable Sam D. Johnson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Prior to joining the Baylor faculty in 1990, Underwood practiced civil trial law with Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, an elite litigation firm based in Dallas. He took a two-year leave of absence from the faculty between 1997-98 to serve as Baylor's general counsel.

Underwood, who holds an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma Baptist University, has published extensively in the field of civil practice and procedure, including articles that have led to significant changes in federal and state procedural law. He also is a high-profile courtroom lawyer who continues to successfully represent clients in a variety of civil and criminal cases.

Underwood is an elected member of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation, and has served as Reporter to the Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Group to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

[Unam Sanctam]

How can anybody who believes in traditional Christian morality have anything to do with Planned Parenthood? This president is either a fool or has an agenda to introduce the thin end of the wedge of contemporary sexual mores into a Christian institution.

[wagglebee]

They seem to have omitted that he is a leftist abortofascist defender of the homosexual agenda.

[wagglebee]

This president is either a fool or has an agenda to introduce the thin end of the wedge of contemporary sexual mores into a Christian institution.

Actually, I think he's both.

[Zack Nguyen]

FReepers who are not Southern Baptist may be confused as to why the President of Baylor University (a Southern Baptist college) is spouting such nonsense when his denomination is so conservative.

The answer is, the conservatives were able to throw out of power most of the liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention about 20 years ago, yet the Baptist General Convention of Texas remains uniquely moderate/leftist.

All six Southern Baptist seminaries are run by people who hold the Bible to be the absolute inerrant word of God. This happened as a result of the conservative takeover. These people turn out most of the pastors and missionaries.

However there are Baptist colleges in Texas not directly impacted by the SBC takeover, and have remained liberal. Baylor is not a conservative university. Waco is not a conservative town.

A new conservative organization has been formed called the Southern Baptists of Texas which is an alternative to the BGCT. Its confusing but Baptists are getting the hint - the SBT has been around for just seven years and has over 1600 churches either uniquely or dually aligned with it.

[wagglebee]

Thanks for the info. I had always assumed that Baylor was a conservative Southern Baptist school with a decent athletic program.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

For the umpteenth time, disapproval isn't hate. But indifference isn't love either. Accepting the premise that a child is gay is harmful to the child. When political activists want to intimidate everyone into silence by defining their legitimate objections as hate, then we had better not let them get away with it if we want any chance to do right by our children at all. Why are people such suckers? They have homophobiaphobia I guess. I wish they would stop being suckers and start really standing up for these kids who are being completely CORRUPTED by the deviant left.

[loneroofer]

For one with such high accolades you would think he would investigate at least a little before he entrusted his daughter to indoctrination from a planned parenthood program. He obviously is in agreement with their moral base as he didn't even see the book offered(Its Perfectly Normal) to get a glimpse into what is taught.This is an influence worth worrying about.

[wagglebee]

After his daughter is converted to lesbianism while sitting in the Planned Parenthood waiting room before her abortion he will probably have second thoughts.

[WoodstockCat]

very well written and 100% true.

[demkicker]

Good Lord, I'm just flat out speechless! The devil is surely chipping away and making headway in a most unlikely place, striking down hard at a premire conservative university. This man's decision will surely send shock waves throughout Texas and beyond.

[Nyboe]

good grief.

[NativeTxn]

Please don't be fooled by Baylor being Baptist! It is any thing but a christian school and I think much worse because people send their kids there thinking it is a good conservative Christian school and it is not. I remember 10 years ago a friend from St. Louis, Mo sent her daughter down here to go to Baylor and she didn't even finish the first semester because of what she found there.

[Weirdad]

I appreciate your post and understand what you mean, but would clarify two points so that Waco and Baylor are not written off as lost to the left:

(1) Waco most certainly IS a conservative town in the overall sentiments of the students and much of the faculty, but just like the United States itself, much of the media is liberal and they give excess attention to small groups of non-conservatives and try to convince everyone that everyone thinks the way they do. It does not work too well in Waco any more as a result of the new media. Liberal politicians have more say than they deserve as a result of a lot of this. It's a conservative town under attack.

(2) Baylor may not be a genuinely conservative university, but it has a distinctly conservative student population and despite the slow slide to the left it's been experiencing, it remains distinctly Christian when compared to other "Christian" schools from those long lost, like Yale and Harvard, to those more recently lost, like SMU and TCU. It's a conservative school that remains under intense attack and conservatives should run to the battle there rather than giving up.

My point in this is that those who have any influence in Waco or at Baylor should not give up: the "red" people outnumber the "blue" people vastly here and the fight is not lost.

Articles like this one posted are the tip of the spear in the fight to keep someone like Underwood from achieving permanent power.

Don't give up contested ground just because it's not as comfy to us as our obvious strongholds.

[little jeremiah]

Moral Absolutes Ping.

Baylor is a Baptist university? Sounds like they need a real Baptist for a president.

Let me know if you want on/off this pinglist.