Extry, Extry, Just About Everybody Has Sex Before Marriage
This just supports what other surveys have shown, but it's making the papers this time around, so let's post it.
Look, don't blame us. We're not endorsing this sort of thing, we're just saying ... you need to prepare students for reality.
I don't have much to add to that. Why do we support wishful-thinking programs with our tax dollars? Just another sign of the nutty times we live in, I guess.
We have people running around saying how the schools are "normalizing" this and that, as if people wouldn't have sex if the school didn't tell them about it. That's just ... so wrong ... Students need complete and accurate information.
NEW YORK - More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.
"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."
Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.
The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage. Most Americans have had premarital sex
Look, don't blame us. We're not endorsing this sort of thing, we're just saying ... you need to prepare students for reality.
Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.
Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.
The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.
"The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.
Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
"It would be more effective," Finer said, "to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active — which nearly everyone eventually will."
I don't have much to add to that. Why do we support wishful-thinking programs with our tax dollars? Just another sign of the nutty times we live in, I guess.
We have people running around saying how the schools are "normalizing" this and that, as if people wouldn't have sex if the school didn't tell them about it. That's just ... so wrong ... Students need complete and accurate information.
posted by JimK at 9:01 AM
42 Comments:
I like your line about how kids wouldn't have sex if the schools didn't teach about it. Well, we had no real sex ed when I went to school(there was that movie in which a guy tries to steal penicillin but we were never told what he had or exactly how he got it- we figured it out though)- and people had sex - at least I am pretty sure that is how some girls in my high school got pregnant.
And yet the teen pregnancy rate was so much higher in 1979 than in 1950. And that was after the pill came out. And with the same amount of premarital sex.
I guess it's just one more of those magical, unexplainable phenomena about sexual behavior.
Anonymous, you haven't actually proven the researcher who conducted the study said one should not draw "overarching" conclusions from it, or that it was absent a control group and not peer reviewed,
And where do you get your teen pregnancy data, Anon?
I would love to know what the teen pregnancy rate is, by year and by state.
That would seem to a great piece of information to have.
Jim, it may surprise you, but I don't believe my 16 year old daughter will wait until she is married to engage in intercourse. I am hoping to convince her to wait until she is a college graduate and capable of providing for herself.
My method has been - look, birth control is not fool proof, guys are mostly jerks at your age and after one thing only - watch out, your reputation will suffer, you will get hurt, they won't buy the cow if they can get the milk for free, you are too young - you don't want to get pregnant, look at the stress so and so is under all the time because of her behavior, look what happened to her reputation..you should wait until you are married.
So I keep saying "wait until you are married" hoping that for goodness sake she will wait until she is at least 20. You don't lower the bar ... It's like saying - well you can start driving when you are about 15 or so, depends on when you think you are ready. You don't say that, you say you have to have a drivers license. Period. Because you don't want kids to think it is okay to start earlier.
Even the sex ed program at NCC at AGE 10 DIDN'T USE THE WORDS WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE MARRIED. How stupid is that ? They were saying "wait until you are in a committed relationship to 10 year olds !" Dumb, dumb dumb.
You don't take "wait until marriage" out of the curriculum and replace it with "committed relationship" because you don't want to offend the 3% of the population that is gay. A committed relationship is a sharing an ice cream cone for a teenager, for goodness sake. Good, let's hurt 97% of the population so we don't offend the 3%. Pretty darn stupid, if you ask me.
correction, I don't think they used "committed relationship" at NCC - I think they just said "older".
Yeah, like 11 !
Anon, if they ever overhaul the fifth grade sex-ed curriculum, I'll remind them of your advice. But these kids aren't ten, they're in tenth grade. Fifteen and sixteen years old. You tell them to wait till marriage and see how funny they think that is. About as funny as the D.A.R.E. cop.
JimK
Jim writes,
Why do we support wishful-thinking programs with our tax dollars? Just another sign of the nutty times we live in, I guess.
Because school children becoming sexually active is still (imagine that)...still widely considered a social ill.
Hey, you asked the question...
We have people running around saying how the schools are "normalizing" this and that, as if people wouldn't have sex if the school didn't tell them about it.
Yup, that is the word Jim...normalizing...pre-marital sexual activity was actively stigmatized and openly shamed, and it would seem that while it did not eliminate all such sexual activity, it did seem to discourage such behavior. Not only is behavior not stigmatized or shamed, a teen mom or dad are likely to be treated with a good deal of respect.
That's just ... so wrong ... Students need complete and accurate information.
Since this information is from the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, I would tend to view their findings with the same skepticism of any group that plays an essentially apologist function. Besides, if more kids sign on to this sexual agenda then Planned Parenthood will benefit with an increase in the number of new "clients".
I could go on, but I have to get to bed as I have tonite off due to the blizzard (shutdown DIA, stranding thousands) and I am looking at clearing 2 to 3 feet of snow from my driveway tomorrow morning once the storm moves on...sigh.
It was 72 degrees here Tuesday. I'll trade our balmy weather for your snow (of course, I don't have a driveway to shovel).
rrjr
I'm with Robert on this. We'd love to have your snow, Orin. Don't be a grinch.
As for the other matter, the teen pregnancy rate among 15-19 years old kids was 106.7 per 1000 in 1986 and 83.6 in 2000. During this time, abstinence programs spread across the country. Even the advocates of valueless sex ed had to acknowledge this and began to pay grudging mention to abstinence in their programs.
Of course, there are the predictable studies from liberal think tanks showing that it's all just a coincidence and that abstinence programs had nothing to do with the decline.
Imagine that!
"I'm with Robert on this."
See, everyone can find common ground somewhere. The Mall is beautiful when it snows.
rrjr
Report Says Clinton Aide Hid Secret Papers
By LARRY MARGASAK
AP
WASHINGTON (Dec. 21) - President Clinton's national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency's internal watchdog said Wednesday.
The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.
Berger took the documents in the fall of 2003 while working to prepare himself and Clinton administration witnesses for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. Berger was authorized as the Clinton administration's representative to make sure the commission got the correct classified materials.
Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement that the contents of all the documents exist today and were made available to the commission.
But Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said he's not convinced that the Archives can account for all the documents taken by Berger. Davis said working papers of National Security Council staff members are not inventoried by the Archives.
"There is absolutely no way to determine if Berger swiped any of these original documents. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials," Davis said.
Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. He was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.
Officials told The Associated Press at the time of the thefts that the documents were highly classified and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports and seaports.
I find it interesting that somebody thinks a news story saying that a Republican congressman "is not convinced" that a Democrat didn't steal some papers is related to a survey about premarital sex. I was going to delete it, but decided to leave it up.
JimK
Anonymous said "As for the other matter, the teen pregnancy rate among 15-19 years old kids was 106.7 per 1000 in 1986 and 83.6 in 2000. During this time, abstinence programs spread across the country. Even the advocates of valueless sex ed had to acknowledge this and began to pay grudging mention to abstinence in their programs.".
Anonymous, I never heard anyone advocate valueless sex education. You neglect to mention that during this time comprehensive sex education programs also spread across the country. The American Journal of Public Health, hardly a liberal think tank, studied this and found.
"The overall pregnancy risk index declined 38%, with 86% of the decline attributable to improved contraceptive use. Among adolescents aged 15 to 17 years, 77% of the decline in pregnancy risk was attributable to improved contraceptive use."
"In communities where more than 20% of young adults had taken virginity pledges, STD rates were 8.9%compared to 5.5% in communities with few pledgers."
Peter Bearman and Hanah Brückner, “After the promise: The STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges,” Journal of Adolescent Health 36.4 (2005): 271-278.
The Abstinence Clearinghouses' misleading attempt to compare YRBS numbers to the Texas study in no way explains that prior to participating in an abstinence-only-until-marriage program, 23% of ninth grade girls had engaged in sexual intercourse. Following the program, 29% of the same age group reported having engaged in sexual intercourse. In addition, tenth grade boys reporting sexual intercourse increased from 24% to 39% following abstinence-only-until-marriage instruction.
The Abstinence Clearinghous organization you quoted is right wing religiously based (it even sells "what would Jesus do" purity rings in its online store) and has a significant conflict of interest because it earned fees from abstinence-only resource providers whose curricula it evaluates
Its founder Leslee Unruh was investigated in 1987 by authorities after complaints
surfaced that she had offered money to young women to carry their
pregnancies to term and put their babies up for adoption. Tim Wilka,
the Minnehaha County state's attorney at the time, told the local Sioux
Falls, SD, newspaper the Argus Leader in 2003, "There were so many
allegations about improper adoptions being made [against Unruh] and how
teenage girls were being pressured to give up their children... Gov.
George Mickelson called me and asked me to take the case."
The Alpha Center pleaded "no contest" to five misdemeanor charges of
unlicensed adoption and foster care practices, and was fined $500 as
part of a plea bargain in which 19 charges, including four felonies,
were dropped.
The information the center provides is often medically inaccurate, and
its website includes misleading information about abortion and
emergency contraception (EC). For instance, the website claims EC can
cause infertility, despite the fact that no medical evidence supports
this.
The irony behind anti-choice forces like Unruh and the clearinghouse is
that while they campaign to stop abortion, they also campaign against
comprehensive sex education programs, which offer information on both
abstinence and birth control - programs that would prevent unintended
pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
"Anonymous, I never heard anyone advocate valueless sex education."
These were the people who don't want societal standards mentioned. They were opposed to mentioning abstinence and now oppose using "spouse" instead of "partner". They want sex ed taught without any influence from our society's moral viewpoint.
"You neglect to mention that during this time comprehensive sex education programs also spread across the country."
They were already widespread before this. The difference afterward was the abstinence movement which was a reaction to the explosion of teen pregnancy caused by these valueless programs.
Agenda Clear in Premarital Sex Survey
by Wendy Cloyd, assistant editor
Pro-family experts dispute findings, conclusions of report that seeks to normalize unhealthy sexual behavior.
Family advocates are questioning the results of – and the agenda behind – a survey released this week by the Guttmacher Institute claiming that 95 percent of Americans have engaged in sex outside of marriage.
The study, published in Public Health Reports, purported to examine how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time. It is based on interviews with more than 38,000 people over two decades for the federal National Survey of Family Growth.
According to Lawrence Finer, author of the study, 99 percent of the respondents reported having had sex by age 44, and 95 percent reported having had sex outside of marriage. Among a subgroup that did not engage in sexual activity until at least age 20, four-fifths reported having premarital sex by age 44.
"This is reality-check research," Finer said. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."
The results, he added, call into question whether the federal government should fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds.
But Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said the motive behind the Guttmacher report is suspect, especially given the group’s close affiliation with Planned Parenthood.
“This is the condom cartel's attempt at normalizing out-of-wedlock sexual behavior,” she said. “This is one in a series of documents that is designed to set the battle lines for January's congressional battles over (funding for) sex education.”
Glenn Stanton, senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family, questioned the method used to collect the data.
"These numbers seem a little high to me,” he said. “Additionally, what they don’t tell us is how active people were before marriage. Were most of these encounters among people who were engaged or were they simply casual hook-ups? We don't know.”
More than anything, though, Stanton is distressed by the author’s implication that since so many people are doing it, it must be fine.
“What did each one of our mothers tell us?” he asked. “Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it OK.”
Dr. Bill Maier, psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family, confirmed Stanton’s -- and his mother’s -- sentiments.
“The fact that a high percentage of individuals are engaging in a particular behavior doesn’t indicate that it’s healthy or wise,” he said. “Sixty-one percent of American adults are overweight or obese — but just because most people are eating high-fat foods and not exercising doesn’t mean we should encourage our kids to embrace obesity.”
Stanton said the study ignores consistent research findings over the last few decades that prove the most sexually satisfied people today are faithfully married men and women who come to marriage with no previous sexual experience.
“What is more, sexual satisfaction tends to decline along with an increase in the number of different sexual partners one has had in a lifetime,” Stanton noted. “In sex, practice doesn't make perfect -- at least with different partners."
Finer’s assertion that schools should forgo abstinence education and simply teach “safe-sex” practices because premarital sex is normal, expected behavior, Klepacki said, is not the way to protect teens and young adults.
“We have an epidemic of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in this country -- especially in the teen population,” she said. “We should be doing everything we can to prevent sexual behavior in our teens.”
Maier said Planned Parenthood and its colleagues at the Guttmacher Institute have a responsibility to give teens all the facts about premarital sex.
“Condoms don’t protect against all sexuality transmitted diseases,” he said. They don’t protect against the psychological ramifications of premarital sex, either, Maier added.
“Girls who are sexually active experience a higher incidence of clinical depression,” he said, “and women who’ve had multiple sexual partners report the highest levels of sexual dysfunction.”
Klepacki added that is exactly why abstinence-until-marriage education is vital to the well-being of the nation’s youth.
“We want every child to be able to work toward their future goals and dreams,” she said, “without illness impeding those efforts.”
Anonymous, you're lying, no one opposed mentioning abstinence in comprehensive sex education and in fact that is to the best of my knowledge always taught in addition to birth control.
Linda Klepacki, "Focus on the Family" liar said “[The Guttmacher report] is the condom cartel's attempt at normalizing out-of-wedlock sexual behavior”.
Hello? Hello? When the overwhelming majority of people do something it is normal behavior. As is typical of liars at "Focus on the Family" Stanton and Maier make claims about research but don't list any.
How incredibly hypocritical of Maier to say the Guttmacher Istitute has a responsibility to give teens all the facts about premarital sex. Its religiously based groups like "Focus on the Family" that want to deprive teens of comprehensive sex education. Its religious groups that lie about the effectiveness of condoms and birth control, or omit referring to them entirely.
Research on virginity pledges found that for a select group of young people, pledges did delay the onset of sexual intercourse for an average of 18 months (a goal still far short of the average age of marriage).1 However, the same study also found that young people who took a pledge were one-third less likely to use contraception when they did become sexually active than their peers who had not pledged. 2 In other words, pledging can cause harm by undermining contraceptive use when the young people who take them become sexually active.
1.Peter Bearman and Hanah Brückner, “Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and the Transition to First Intercourse,”American Journal of Sociology 106.4 (2001): 859-912.
These groups want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend reality doesn't exist, that they can prevent people from having sex. Clearly comprehensive information about condoms is necessary given the failure of abstinence only sex education
Maybe we need to re-evaluate our attitudes toward sex in the late teens. According to a land-mark study published by neuropsychologist James Prescott in 1975 called Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence the single most determinative factor of the levels of violence in a society is oppressive attitudes about sex in teens. The more freedom they're given, the less violence in the society. Look at the Middle East. Now look at the Netherlands. It's more than coincidence that we have the most violence among industrialized nation and that we are the most religious. Repression is bad physically, emotionally, and culturally.
Add to that the fact that teens have been having sex since there were teenagers, and that nothing - no moral, legal, or religious restriction - is going to prevent that and it's clear we need to plan for what happens when they do because some always will. The strictest parent cannot know what their kid is doing all the time. Denial only endangers them.
Schools are supposed to prepare people for life. One of those preparations has to be clear knowledge of how to prevent the spread of disease and unwanted pregnancy. To withhold information about condoms is literally murder. You've allowed a chain reaction of unnecessary infections when you had the power to prevent them. That's unconscionable.
People need to learn that sex has physical and emotional consequences. There's no "easy" solution to an unwanted pregnancy - even a pregnancy terminated in the earliest stages can cause permanent change in a girl's body. They also need to know that you can get AIDS or become pregnant the very first time - that myth is still pervasive.
It's also important to keep in mind that the most rapid spread of AIDS in recent years is among women who thought they were in monogamous relationships. Assuming that your spouse if faithful can be deadly. A poster to my blog today spoke about a friend of hers who had only ever had sex with one man, her husband, and she contracted AIDS from him. That's a huge price to pay for want of a condom and trusting the wrong person.
This culture puts too much of the wrong kind of emphasis on sex. When you make a big deal out of it and try to suppress and hide it, you make it more attractive. If you approach it as a natural, normal function and deal with it in a matter-of-fact way, kids make better decisions. No one can make an informed decision if they don't have all the relevant information.
We're risking kids lives by not arming them with good information. Is it worth your child's death for you to maintain the illusion that your child is a "good girl?" It had better be, because you are setting her up for exposure to a preventable plague.
Ok,
I have a 16 year old daughter who is a virgin.
Shall we do our own little survey ?
Clearly, a parents attitudes will affect their children's behavior.
Jim, you have teenagers, are yours sexually active yet ?
And I have taught my daughter all about birth control -as by the way did her Catholic high school.
You might say though, it was NOT presented in a moral free fashion.
Theresa, there are some things I am not comfortable talking about on the Internet, especially after some of my statements from the comments section of this blog showed up on powerpoint slides presented by the CRC President.
Sorry, not going there.
JimK
"We're risking kids lives by not arming them with good information. Is it worth your child's death for you to maintain the illusion that your child is a "good girl?" It had better be, because you are setting her up for exposure to a preventable plague."
And telling kids that condoms are 98% effective, WHEN THEY ARE NOT - is ALSO MURDER.
The previous curriculum did just that.
And telling kids that homosexuality is innate and can't be changed, when it is not innate and there is proof that people have changed - is also MURDER for a certain set of kids.
And no warning kids about the specific dangers of engaging on MSM - is also MURDER.
I find it pretty darn ridiculous this continuing posturing that just because some of us would like a curriculum that focuses on abstinence, and does not hide from kids all the dangers of pre-marital sex and that birth control is not fool proof, that you continually and incorrectly assume that we don't want kids taught about birth control.
NOTHING could be farther from the truth.
There are plenty of sexually active kids whose parents think they are virgins. No matter what you teach your kid, or what they tell you, you still don't know if they are or they aren't. Of course, kids need to be told that no birth control is 100% effective, nor are condoms a guarantee against AIDS. They're still safer with one than without one, and if they need one, they'd better know how to use it correctly.
As it stands now, we have kids taking chastity pledges who then participate in high risk practices like anal sex to maintain their virginity, and they don't use condoms because they were only taught abstinence.
Theresa, the fact that you are open to both abstinence and birth control education doesn't mean your view is representative of the opposition. Many people don't want anything but abstinence mentioned. Your kids go to a Catholic school, so of course they included morality in the conversation, but many parents who send their kids to public school would rather the teachers stick to facts and let the family deal with moral values.
On the subject of homosexuality, it occurs naturally in over 1,500 species. It is a perfectly natural variation, no more deviant than having blues eyes on a planet full of brown eyed people, or being left-handed on a planet full of righties. Telling kids it is anything but natural sets the kid up for depression, suicidal tendencies and self-loathing. It also encourages kids who are uncomfortable with their own homosexual urges to victimize kids that are openly gay. Hate crimes begin at home, and parents have a responsibility to foster tolerance and discourage violence toward people who are different in any way.
If you really believe homosexuality is a choice, you might want to examine your own feelings to see if you might be bisexual and in denial. Only bisexual people see sex with either gender as a possibility. Straight people usually can't imagine being anything but straight. Gay people usually stick to their own gender. Are you sure you aren't projecting your own bisexual tendencies on other people? Alternately, if you really believe people can go either way, what makes one right and one wrong? Why can't it be just as natural to go either way?
Theresa, all the evidence shows that in the vast majority of cases gay people cannot change their orientation. Virtually none of the gays taking "reparitive therapy" studied by Shidlo and Shroeder were able to change their orientation. Spitzer took 2 years to come up with 200 gays merely claiming to have changed out of an estimated 250,000 that went through "reparitive therapy".
We don't need to be giving gay kids the false hope that they can avoid societal hatred and change from gay to straight. Peterson Toscano spent I believe it was 15 years giving it everything he had to try to be straight and failed. We don't need these kids wasting their lives and becoming suicidal to attempt something that might work .04% of the time. They need to be told the truth, they almost certainly can't change and they'll be much happier and healthier the sooner they learn to positively accept their sexual orientation. Please stop hurting these kids by teaching them there's something wrong with them and that they can't be happy and healthy being who they are.
"If you really believe homosexuality is a choice, you might want to examine your own feelings to see if you might be bisexual and in denial..."
Good one, clever approach.
So now anyone who believes that homosexuality is a choice is actual a bisexual in denial. I see why people don't bother to identify themselves on this blog.
I believe that homosexuals have their own little support society, and that yes, the behavior which may start as experimentation becomes more and more learned. And I believe it is EXTREMELY dangerous to present to kids that the behavior is innate.
As for myself, there is a certain feature of my husbands anatomy that I am rather fond of :-), and really couldn't imagine doing without.
Theresa, you are free to believe that if you want, but all the scientific research, all the anecdotal evidence, everything says otherwise. Even though you feel strongly about this, it would not be appropriate for the school district to teach these beliefs.
JimK
Merry Christmas, Theresa. It's good to see you posting with a sense of humor.
I'm sure your husband is very pleased with your feelings about his anatomy. That must be some Christmas present!
Anyway, not that it relates to you, but just because you like men's anatomy it wouldn't make you straight. I know women who like men as they are, and like women as they are as well. That makes you bisexual.
If, as a woman, you are simply not turned on by women, nor have ever had any desire for a woman, then you're straight, as this society defines it. That's all.
Jim's point and that of others here has always been that behavior can certainly be a choice and subject to habituation, but one's feelings of desire cannot. And there is no evidence at all that is not the case.
In addition, it's becoming quite clear that those who make a career of railing at homosexuality are indeed gay or bisexual. It takes a very special person to make that one's career. Few who have a choice would take on such a hateful profession without some very potent personal reason. And the same goes for those who blog 365 days a year expressing the same intolerance. There aren't many like that, thankfully, but they're out there, and we've seen two big ones fall just this year.
All women are bisexual. How could they not be? Women can just be so darned hot!
Yes, Randi, that does seem like a fact that is too important to overlook.
JimK
Well, Dana -
In case you are curious, my potent personal reason is 8K/year in property taxes.
I moved my kids into public schools the year they introduced this curriculum. And realized that though the education was excellent, the attitude of "anything goes" was simply unacceptable.
I quickly moved them back to private schools the next year (actually, my daugther in the spring of that year, when the decided to teach all the 10 year olds about masturbation during the spring health care class for the fifth grade).
I intend to stay furious that the public school would choose to denegrate my Catholic beliefs in a public school health class with MY property tax money.
I am going Christmas shopping.
See ya.
Regarding your property taxes: you certainly have the right to send your kids to private school. I attended both religious and public schools, as did my children.
Your property taxes are used to fund public education for all, not specifically for you. That's the price of being a member of this society.
The sad thing is that you don't seem to understand what it means to be part of this society. There are many things I don't like funding with my taxes. I do it anyway because it's the price I pay for being a citizen. Many of those governmental functions I fund run against my deeply held Jewish beliefs. So what? I can choose to fund other institutions with my own personal dollars after taxes.
That you would pull your daughter out over a masturbation lesson is pretty sad. Do you really believe she doesn't know how to masturbate? Why does this matter so much to you? And where, anyway, in your Bible does it say anything about masturbation?
"you are free to believe that if you want, but all the scientific research, all the anecdotal evidence, everything says otherwise."
There is no scientific research that says homosexuality is not a choice or is any different from any other desire. Neither does ALL the anecdotal evidence says so.
"Your property taxes are used to fund public education for all, not specifically for you."
It's obvious that society would be better off if taxes paid for an education for all and not a PUBLIC education for all.
As has been pointed out here many times, the American educational system is falling behind. This is due to the hyper-secularization of public education. Private schools, unshackled by the burden of having to pretend that religious influence in human affairs doesn't exist, outpace public schools by a healthy length. You can trace the decline of public schools to the Supreme Court's banning of prayer from them- to the minute.
Or is it just another coincidence?
"In addition, it's becoming quite clear that those who make a career of railing at homosexuality are indeed gay or bisexual. It takes a very special person to make that one's career."
Ah, yes Haggard and Foley must prove that. Except that neither of those guys made that their career. It's a conceit of the lunatic fringe gay advocacy that anyone who opposes them has made a career of it. Haggard preached on a wide range of topics; Foley worked on a wide range of legislation.
What's clear is that the lunatic fringe will say anything to advance their agenda.
Anon, I have blogged several times about this hypothesis, which I originally considered a cheap shot. When we attended the CRC's March, 2005, hate-fest, I was struck by the fact that they were able to line up a series of four speakers who spend their whole day, day after day, doing nothing but talking about how terrible gay people are. Peter Sprigg, Robert Knight, and Tres Kerns, in particular, are professionals who do nothing but that.
Imagine Kerns up there at the podium, telling us how he has to go to all these "gay conventions," just to pick up the lurid posters and literature they pass out, so he can take it back to his hotel room and make overheads to show at his speeches. Imagine Concerned Woman for America Robert Knight -- Google him, he spends every day talking about gay people. Look at Peter Sprigg, what else does he do? Besides lecturing on the curious characteristics of the gay steroetype (which he calls "facts"), he may spend some time strategizing about how to defeat the gay agenda, or trying to figure out what gay people are up to now.
And Don Dwyer ... what can I say? Where does all that energy come from? Does he really think gay people threaten heteresexual marriage? How could he possibly come to that conclusion, where would that intensity come from, if it was not his own marriage that was threatened.
No, you can't prove that every bigot has something to hide, but I think there is a good case for assuming it in many cases.
JimK
Hey, Anon, your "decline" in public schooling also coincides with the fluoridation of the drinking water. Coincidence? Or Soviet plot? It also coincides with the use of antibiotics in this country. Coincidence, or proof?
Anonymous at December 24, 2006 6:38 AM said "There is no scientific research that says homosexuality is not a choice or is any different from any other desire. Neither does ALL the anecdotal evidence says so.".
So, what I hear you telling me is that everytime you stuck a new food in your mouth you had a neutral reaction to it, you decided you'd like it or hate it through some unfathomable process, and you immediately had the like or hate reaction the next and every time you ate that same food. Ridiculous.
The studies by Shidlo and Shroeder and Spitzer showed that in virtually all cases attempts to change sexual orientation are a failure. It took Spitzer 2 years to come up with 200 people merely claiming to have changed out of an estimated 250,000 that went through "reparitive therapy". The only evidence we have strongly, strongly suggests that being gay is not a choice. If you think it is, how about you describe step by step your experience in choosing to be heterosexual. That none of you bigots do is very telling in itself alone.
"Anon, I have blogged several times about this hypothesis, which I originally considered a cheap shot. When we attended the CRC's March, 2005, hate-fest, I was struck by the fact that they were able to line up a series of four speakers who spend their whole day, day after day, doing nothing but talking about how terrible gay people are. Peter Sprigg, Robert Knight, and Tres Kerns, in particular, are professionals who do nothing but that."
Jim, we were discussing someone's comments that "those who make a career of railing at homosexuality are indeed gay or bisexual". I noted that Foley and Haggard didn't make a career of it.
Now, you bring up these three guys, none of which have been discovered to be gay. Further, while they have probably had more to say about the dangers of the homosexual agenda than Foley and Haggard, it's still a reach to say they have made "a career out of it."
"No, you can't prove that every bigot has something to hide, but I think there is a good case for assuming it in many cases."
Oh, it must happen. But assuming that opposition to homosexuality implies homosexuality is baseless. When you make such an assumption, you become what you profess to detest- a bigot.
"Hey, Anon, your "decline" in public schooling also coincides with the fluoridation of the drinking water. Coincidence? Or Soviet plot? It also coincides with the use of antibiotics in this country. Coincidence, or proof?"
Exposure to fluoridation and antibiotic use increased in all student populations. Forced secularization happened only in public schools. Public schools have been in trouble ever since.
Or is it just another coincidence?
"The only evidence we have strongly, strongly suggests that being gay is not a choice."
No, it doesn't. The "evidence" you cite, which is dubious, would only show that it's a difficult choice to undo. That's not the same as not being a choice.
"If you think it is, how about you describe step by step your experience in choosing to be heterosexual."
The theory might be that everyone is born a heterosexual but that some give it up. Could be many factors that cause them to make this decision but the degree of social acceptance could be on of these factors.
Anonymous, choices by their very nature can easily go one way or the other. The fact that the vast majority of gays cannot choose not to be gay is clear evidence, if not incontrovertable proof that being gay is not a choice. There's nothing dubious about that. The only thing that's dubious is your baseless assertion that people choose their sexuality when overwhelmingly people report that they do not.
Anonymous said "The theory might be that everyone is born a heterosexual but that some give it up. Could be many factors that cause them to make this decision but the degree of social acceptance could be on of these factors.".
Ridiculous. The vast majority of gays state they were never heterosexually attracted, that their gay attractions appeared unchosen. If there were any truth to your theory, where are the people who can describe step by step the process they went through of deciding to be gay? If there were any truth to that, social acceptance would be the deciding factor, so how do you explain the existence of gays in countries that execute gays, like Iran? The persistence of gays across all societies throughout recorded history shows people don't decide to be gay based on the social acceptance of it.
You can easily prove it is not a choice yourself. Attempt to choose alternately to be attracted and not attacted to men and women. See how much luck you have. That you know you can't choose and yet insist others can highlights your dishonesty.
Merry Christmas, Channuka Tova, Joyous Kwanza, Happy Eid al-Adha, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays to anyone I missed. I see you all have been busy over here.
Anon cited another commenter who said "The only evidence we have strongly, strongly suggests that being gay is not a choice."
Yes, that would include studies mentioned in the Jim's blogs, studies presented by the AMA rep at TTF's forum in the Resource section here, and lists of studies supplied by blog commenters like Randi and others. Lots of studies which suggest sexual orientation is not a choice can be found via links and citations provided on this website.
Anon replied No, it doesn't. The "evidence" you cite, which is dubious, would only show that it's a difficult choice to undo. That's not the same as not being a choice."
So Anon disagrees with all the "evidence" that has been posted on this website, well, at least "evidence" that s/he bothers to read. OK Anon, what "evidence" have you got that proves your point? Show us some "evidence" by providing links or citations to studies that disprove the widely accepted fact (by groups including the AMA, both APAs, AAP, etc.) that sexual orientation is not a choice and instead proves each of us chooses our own orientation.
Aunt Bea
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