'Political Stars Aligned' For Comprehensive Sex Education Proponents, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 18 Mar 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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Congress has "been up to its eyeballs in sex education lately," with sex education proponents and opponents both working to secure federal funding for their causes, Washington Times columnist Cheryl Wetzstein writes in an opinion piece. Last week, the National Abstinence Education Association brought 500 teenagers to Capitol Hill to discuss abstinence, and "[s]ex education proponents responded by blitzing members of Congress with calls for programs that offer plenty of information about birth control," she says. According to Wetzstein, the fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill President Obama signed last week "cuts funding for a major abstinence program" by more than $10 million. However, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) "came through for abstinence, with more than $430,000 in earmarks -- all aimed at Pennsylvania programs, of course," she writes.

Wetzstein suggests "step[ping] back from this fray for a second." She goes on to cite historian Allan C. Carlson's "version of the rules for a sexual revolution," from his book "Family Questions," written 20 years ago. Carlson describes seven "rules" for a sexual revolution, beginning with "'declare the old morality dead'" and ending with "'seize control of the schools and begin indoctrination of the young" into a new moral code, according to Wetzstein. She says that "Carlson is a conservative who upholds marriage and the natural family, so his list is a warning not a call to arms," adding that his "conclusion ... describes us." He wrote that the U.S. is "'divided between two moralities'" and that unlike European nations, the "'great leap to the new morality of sexual freedom fell short" in this country, she says. Wetzstein writes that Carlson believes that U.S. teenagers are "'suspended' between two moral codes that are fighting for dominance -- and necessarily undermine each other."

Wetzstein continues that this "historical logjam may be broken at last this summer -- in favor of the 'new' moral code." She says, "The political stars are finally aligned for sex education proponents," who have "isolated the much-loathed Title V abstinence-education grant program, and all they have to do is get Congress to sit on its hands when the program expires June 30." Wetzstein concludes, "That would mean one abstinence program down, two to go" (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 3/17).

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