Sex and Religi'tics In American Schools

Religion and politics are oft considered ill topics for friendly social gatherings and for good reason. In a country as politically polarized as the US, these might well be dangerous topics. Unless, of course, it is a gathering of like minded souls who all agree that something should be done about those soulless bastards that are not ‘like minded’.

Having made my generalization regarding the pervasive nature of this polarization in American society, I shall, for now, confine my remarks to the area I have studied recently. Namely sexuality education, or the lack of it in American schools.

At any given time, less than five percent of US high school students are receiving any level of comprehensive sexual health education. At the same given time, thousands of US schools have initiated belief based, ideologically inspired ‘classes’ using Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage guidelines.

$100 million Federal and State tax dollars go into Abstinence-Only programs every year.

Meanwhile, more comprehensive approaches to sex health education go under funded and under constant attack from right wing Christian organizations, groups of religiously inspired Republican members of Congress, and departments of the Federal government such as the CDC and Health and Human Services.

For more details regarding the HHS mandated guidelines for Abstinence-Only ‘educational’ and ‘motivational’ programs, hit link #1

For more info regarding attempts to shut down and cut funding to educational groups and web sites advocating comprehensive sex education, check the links in my blog entry entitled “More Foolishness”, July 19,04.

Something is very wrong when the Federal government mandates what amounts to Christian morality ‘classes’ in public schools, in place of medical/science based sex health education.

Something is very wrong when the present government funnels literally millions of dollars into the churches and “faith based” groups that advocate and often create and run these useless programs..

Something is terribly wrong when politically motivated ‘faith’ groups dictate educational and health policy in return for their support for a political party.