As newspaper editors, we tend to be biased against ignorance. While the religious right might believe that Eden is lost when you eat from the Tree of Knowledge — especially the Tree of Sexual Knowledge — we do not share their fear of education. Nor do we share their belief that young adults are made safer by being kept in the dark about sex and contraception while in high school, when 60 percent and 70 percent of teenage women and men, respectively, have sex before age 18.
We believe knowledge is empowering for young people, especially young women who have historically lacked control over their own sexual lives. That is why the Emerald, along with the majority of Americans, cannot support the Bush administration’s push for abstinence-only education in public schools. Since 1996, the federal government has spent $1 billion trying to sell the virtues of abstinence, with even more to come in the next fiscal year, despite the fact that more than
75 percent of parents prefer comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
It is not surprising that parents are apprehensive about abstinence-only education. Studies have shown that these programs fail to significantly delay sexual activity, reduce the number of sexual partners or reduce teen pregnancy; in fact, evidence suggests these programs stunt sexual maturity, leading to increased incidents of unprotected sex and the potential for sexual disease and pregnancy, according to research from the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
Abstinence-only programs also fail to
deliver scientifically accurate information, and more often than not pass along bogus religious propaganda about the dangers of everything from masturbation to homosexuality to abortion. A 2004 report, released by Rep. Henry Waxman, found that more than 65 percent of these government-funded programs contain misleading or inaccurate information, from overstating the pregnancy risk associated with condoms to suggesting that HIV can be transmitted through sweat and tears.
Abstinence mis-education is only one aspect of a larger religious movement to regulate our private lives. They want to ban gay marriage, outlaw gay and lesbian sexual acts, make marriage harder to dissolve, criminalize adultery, censor pornography and all acts of “indecency” on television and radio, make abortions illegal and restrict access to contraception, especially for those under 18.
The overall intent is to teach young adults to fear sex and feel ashamed of their natural desires and fantasies. We should be teaching just the opposite in the schools: how to embrace one’s sexuality, how to enjoy sex responsibly, both physically and psychologically, and how to adequately care for a partner’s sexual and emotional needs; maybe even, god forbid, how to have more pleasurable, more inspired sex.
The truth is nothing to fear. And hopefully one day we will have the courage to tell our children the truth: Sex is a healthy thing when done responsibly.

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