Mike Huckabee may be a nice guy, but he’s a clear knuckle dragger who has no business being leader of the free world.
Abstinence education provides a valuable counterweight to peer pressure and the message young people get from the popular culture encouraging casual relationships and separating sex from love, commitment and marriage. I do not believe in teaching about sex or contraception in public schools. That is the responsibility of parents. “I am disappointed that funding for abstinence education is not likely to be renewed by the Democrat Congress. This reversal only
emphasizes how important it is for Republicans to take back Congress and win the White House with an authentic conservative in 2008.
Ironically Huckabee is anti-choice, but little to nothing will bring about more teenage abortions than idiocy like abstinence-only education.
Sighhhhh…
What these abstinence only fundies don’t get is that teaching comprehensive sex ed, including various forms of birth control and their effectiveness, is like building a car with safety features like air bags.
According to the logic (or lack thereof) of Huckabee and company, installing air bags in cars will only encourage drivers to drive recklessly and get into more accidents.
Or, to put it another way, a passenger on a boat who does not know how to swim still needs to know where the personal flotation devices are and how to use them in the event the boat starts to sink. It’s about being prepared in the event there is an accident.
Actually, there is something to that. Seatbelt use does result in more accidents and people do drive more recklessly with them. However, deaths and serious injury are down from pre-seat belt days. If we assume that teen sex follows the same pattern (which I don’t necessarily believe), then there would be more sex with condoms but fewer STD’s and pregnancies than without condom distribution and sex ed.
So the question for backwards cons like Huckabee is is it more important to prevent teenage deaths (from STD’s and pregnancy complications) or is it more important to prevent teenage sex?
So the question … is, Is it more important to prevent teenage … STD’s and pregnancy … or is it more important to prevent teenage sex?
Your “equation in the form of a question” presumes that teenage sex (i.e. premarital or extramarital sex) has no consequences.
That is an incorrect assumption.
You assume that stopping teenage sex is realistic. It is not. Abstinence programs do little to stop young people from having sex. So the question is then can we keep kids healthy.
Enlightened conservative…nice try Frank.
Teenage sex has all the potential consequences as adult sex depending on the people engaging in said activity.
An emotionally immature 16 year-old having sex will suffer all the same consequences as an emotionally immature 33 year-old having sex.
But instead of trying to give kids the tools and education they need to make responsible choices about their sexuality, no, let’s just not talk about it in anything but clinical terms. Let’s leave them alone with a Bible to figure out what to do with their overactive hormones.
You assume that stopping teenage sex is realistic.‘=
Teenagers are engaging in sex at a greater rate then they used to. This means that, at one time, there was less teenage sex. If it happened before, it can happen again. If we give up on kids, why wouldn’t they give up on themselves> Do you want them to have more sex?
An emotionally immature 16 year-old having sex will suffer all the same consequences as an emotionally immature 33 year-old having sex.
That’s just silly. An emotionally immature 16 year old (who is, by definition, younger than 16 emotionally) is obviously at greater risk than an emotionally immature 33 year old (who could be emotionally anywhere from 25 to 32).
The point is that, with reference to preparedness for sex, no 16 year is prepared, and is likely to be harmed in some way.
Hogwash. Not every teenager who has had sex has come out of it permanently scathed.
But if you’re so concerned about their preparedness, maybe it would be good to, y’know, prepare them, instead of trying to feed them a lot of scary stories and keeping the condoms locked away.
That’s just silly. An emotionally immature 16 year old (who is, by definition, younger than 16 emotionally) is obviously at greater risk than an emotionally immature 33 year old (who could be emotionally anywhere from 25 to 32).
Where’d you get the 25 lower cap from? I know some senior citizens with the maturity of a child.
The point is that, with reference to preparedness for sex, no 16 year is prepared, and is likely to be harmed in some way.
Why do conservatives believe that children and teenagers are stupid by default? Are they THAT afraid of youth?
That was me just now BTW.
I did not use the term “permanently scathed”. I said “at risk”.
That means “at risk”.
And Zython — that’s your real name, right? — no one is presuming that children OR teenagers are “stupid by default”.
The labels “children” and “teenager” (or “adolescent”) were purposely designed to distinguish them from adults by virtue of their immaturity, not their lack of intelligence.
Would you give a teenager a loaded gun, let them drink alcohol, or drive a car?
“Tell kids they shouldn’t be banging each other like bunnies?”
Nooooooooooooooooooo…!!
Your obsession with sex is showing, gentlemen (all of you, Oliver included), and it is ugly.
The con position is to pretend that teens won’t have sex and that saying “Don’t” will suffice. The evidence shows that this does not work. It leads to kids having sex, not knowing the mechanics, and ending up pregnant and largely having abortions. It increases the amount of abortions. The rational response is to tell kids not to have sex, but should they do it give them the info and tools so they do it without getting pregnant and having to drop out of school, have abortions, etc.
One side is talking about fairy tales, we’re talking about the real world.
“The rational response is to tell kids not to have sex…”
Please pass that along to the other commenters. There are some conservatives who believe in sex education.
I just wouldn’t want it forced on my child without my knowing about it, anymore than you would want your child to learn that Intelligent Design is a viable alternative to the Theory of Evolution without your knowing about it.
They’re not going to keep your child’s curriculum a secret just so they can laugh at you, Frank.
They’re not going to keep your child’s curriculum a secret just so they can laugh at you, Frank.
And why would they? They already have pleanty of other perfectly legitimate reasons to laugh at him.
I can tell neither of you nitwits have children. And neither of you jerks know how public schools work.
So before you embarrass yourselves further, move on to one of the Iraq - oriented threads, where ignorance and foolish run rampant on the left.
Sex ed is real, Intelligent Design is not real (science). Most sex ed requires a permission slip. If you want your kid to be an idiot that’s your own choice, but for the sake of society I want the other kids to have an option.
If you want your kid to be an idiot
Right. Because if you don’t learn about sex in school, it doesn’t count.
My point, as you well know, is that I, who have children, would want to know exactly when they are having sex education.
Since I have never been sent such a slip, either my school district doesn’t bother with them, or they have offered that education without my permission.
Your experience with the sex education of children is abstract — mine is real.
I forgot — maybe they don’t have it at all. Good thing I taught them what they need to know.
Would you give a teenager a loaded gun, let them drink alcohol, or drive a car?
A. Teenagers DO drive.
B. As for the other two, my answer is no. However, I don’t trust most adults with a loaded gun, so that point’s kinda moot.
“Tell kids they shouldn’t be banging each other like bunnies?”
Nooooooooooooooooooo…!!
Once again, the conservatives fail to understand the agruement. Liberals aren’t against the “absinance” part of abstinance-only education. They’re against the “only” part. So riddle me this, Batman, why do you so venomously oppose teaching about contraception in school?
why do you so venomously oppose teaching about contraception in school?
I don’t…
Next question?
My experience with sex ed is abstract? That’s interesting considering I was the kid who brought home the permission slip from Montgomery County schools to my mom. Sheesh. She didn’t need to sign it because she had done her job as a parent and explained everything to me - that’s the right way.
If your school district didn’t do it, then they should have. But that aside, not having sex ed in school is stupid for the reasons I discussed above.
This is a very simple concept: teach abstinence and contraception. It’s not complicated. It saves lives, heartache and pain.
You brought it home, and your Mom didn’t sign it. So, apparently this much vaunted sex education that you want every one else to have foisted on their children was never experienced by you. Is that correct?
BTW, what I was referring to was having children in a school system.
I’m not saying you have to have children to have an opinion, or even the right opinion, but it’s harder for me to be so casual about letting my children be educated on such a complicated and sensitive subject, when they seem to have botched the job of teaching far simpler stuff.
For the love of all that is holy, either deal with what people have been saying to you or shut up.
Nimrod Gently: Who the hell do you think you are?
Do you really think you can give me orders?
If you were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on you to put you out.
Let’s look at your profound contributions to this thread, shall we?
They’re not going to keep your child’s curriculum a secret just so they can laugh at you, Frank.
For the love of all that is holy, either deal with what people have been saying to you or shut up.
Now,was there a point you were trying to make?
You brought it home, and your Mom didn’t sign it. So, apparently this much vaunted sex education that you want every one else to have foisted on their children was never experienced by you. Is that correct?
No, you’re fucking wrong again because you can’t read. My mom signed the slip. I went to sex ed class, even though I knew 99% of what they were talking about. Some of it was hokey, silly, etc. but those kids knew more about the downside of sex than they knew coming into class and that’s the whole damn point.