Posted on 02/22/2003 2:42:47 PM PST by GrandMoM
"Gay" Groups Join SIECUS, Planned Parenthood To Attack Abstinence Funding
by Linda P. Harvey
A campaign opposing federal funding for abstinence-only sex education programs is being organized by a coalition of pro-abortion groups joined by advocates of homosexuality.
Advocates for Youth (AFY), a radical group promoting "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender" practices for teens and children, held a December conference in Washington to kick off a campaign to undermine federal abstinence funds provided under Title V of the Welfare Reform Act. The $50 million in annual funding, first provided in 1996, is matched with three state dollars for every four federal dollars by every state participating. The law stipulates the funds are to be used for "abstinence only until marriage" education programs.
This is discrimination and censorship, claim AFY and their allies in this campaign, and they aim to fight upcoming renewal of welfare legislation on these and other grounds. For one thing, "gays" can't marry under current law, so any emphasis on marriage in this and other welfare programs excludes them, speakers at the conference proclaimed.
And "needed" health information is left out of abstinence-only programs. Such information includes contraceptive information and access, even at young ages and without parental consent or knowledge. This is a "right" young people must have, insists this coalition, which includes Planned Parenthood, PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL (the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League), and a host of AIDS organizations, the CDC, public health groups, and left-wing friends like People for the American Way and the Children's Defense Fund.
The theme of the campaign centers around three R's: "Rights, Respect and Responsibility." It would be more accurate to call it "Risk, Raunch and Regression." Speakers at the conference claimed that young people have a right to "health care." Practically speaking, this means abortion on demand, readily available contraception and counseling to affirm homosexuality. Parents are not to be involved unless that child wants it.
Their understanding of "respect" is that the adult world is to show respect for teens and children to self-determination, deciding what services they want, what information they want access to, and when they are ready to have sex. "Responsibility" means that young people need to be taught that pleasure is a part of human development, children are sexual from birth (the Kinsey Institute folks who have built an empire on this idea were there, too). So of course, "safe sex" should be a part of school lessons, as should learning about masturbation, homosexuality, bisexuality and cross-dressing. Young people will of course deal with all this information "responsibly," and this coalition believes that withholding such information can be psychologically damaging to children.
Pro-family people who attended the conference were gravely concerned about the nonsense being communicated. For example, one speaker spoke of the need to help communities "fend off" restrictive laws that promote abstinence education and parental notification. Abstinence is fine, as long as it is just given as a choice until the child is "ready" for sex. Planned Parenthood takes this approach in their educational programs for students, knowing, of course, that some twelve year olds are firmly convinced they are "ready" to have sex.
Even young children need to be exposed to these messages. At the conference, Pat Schiller, long known for her work in the sex education movement, said, "Sexuality is a pleasurable experience whether you're 2, 6 or 16." Boys should be encouraged to use condoms and masturbate at home so they will develop skills for future sex acts, said Wayne Palowski, director of training for Planned Parenthood of America. He also advocated masturbation skills be taught in schools as a part of sex education.
And throughout the conference, there was an emphasis on gaining widespread acceptance among students and communities for homosexual and other gender-compromised behaviors. Popular speakers at the conference were youth involved in these alternatives.. A recommendation was made that rather than just the options to designate oneself as "male" or "female," a student should be allowed the choices of "male, female, neither or both."
What these radicals intend to do is to shut off abstinence-only funds and funnel them to so-called comprehensive sex education. They have drafted a bill called the Family Life Education Bill, and after a briefing about the bill, conferees left the AFY program to go the Capitol Hill to lobby over 80 members of Congress for this legislation.
The bill contends that abstinence-only education doesn't "work." One wonders how these folks believe our parents and grandparents managed to achieve such relatively low numbers of STD's and unwanted pregnancies, compared to today. There was little access to contraception or abortion, far lower divorce rates, far fewer illegitimate children, and little visibility of homosexuality. I believe there's evidence of more homosexual activity today, perhaps due to its widespread promotion, especially to impressionable young people. There's no support for claiming our ancestors kept a similar volume of these practices, including unwanted children, in the closet!
The objective person can come to no other conclusion except that there were fewer of these pathologies then than now-far fewer. We have produced a culture where more of all types of sexual license is occurring, and it results more often than not in heartbreak, disease and sometimes, early death. Repression is not the problem. The greedy selfishness of "give-it-to-me-now" sex is. The nobility of tenderness, loyalty, and valuing the creation of new life-these are the ideals of authentic abstinence education.
But the misguided or misinformed groups continue to misunderstand or deliberately distort the truth, either because it keeps their groups funded, or because they get personal "pleasure" in some strange way from corrupting kids, or some of both. It is our prayer that they will begin to open their eyes to the damage that is being done to an entire generation, and get out of the business of disease and death.
Sources: Information from conference attendees and brochures,"3Rs Campaign Kit" published by Advocates for Youth, December 2001; and "Toward a Sexually Healthy America: Roadblocks Imposed by the Federal Government's Abstinence-Only- Until-Marriage Education Program," published by Advocates for Youth and SIECUS, Copyright 2001.
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( I have to leave for the day - back tomorrow )
The best choice is homeschooling. Yes, you may have to make sacrifices, but who better to make sacrifices for than your children?
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