Abstinence-until-marriage: Congress needs to know it's cool

By Connie Marshner
web posted April 22, 2002

The times they are a-changing. A New Sexual Revolution is
sweeping the country. The pendulum of social dysfunction seems
finally to have reached its extreme, and has started to return to
the center. Congress must decide whether it will try to hold back
the pendulum, or whether it will help restore society to health.

The children of the sexual revolution are creating their own
counter-revolution. The "Me Generation" of the Seventies and
Eighties produced a crop of young people who lived their lives
as the wounded casualties of their parents' social and sexual
experimentation. They grew up with fatherlessness, divorce, and
unfaithfulness. Fed a steady diet of sexual innuendo and sexual
explicitness by their radios, movies, and television sets, and
egged on by Planned Parenthood-style sex ed or "safe sex"
classes in school, they followed their parents' path - for a while.

Now, they are turning away. Searching for truth and meaning in
their lives, they are finding meaning in relationships and in
sexuality. They want to do a most radical thing - connect sex
with permanent relationships, with marriage. "I'm worth waiting
for!" is their slogan. This budding counter-revolution has been
underway for quite a while, but recently it was assisted by a
little-noticed provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform law, which
allocated $50 million for abstinence-until-marriage education.
The idea was to see if the need for welfare could be prevented
before it starts. Now President Bush is asking for a renewal of
that program, plus a little more new money in another title.

But liberals want to corrupt the abstinence-until-marriage
programs and turn them into the "do it but be safe" nonsense,
which they are now calling "abstinence-plus". Sounds like a
detergent, but this kind adds dirt instead of taking it out.

Mary-Louise Kurey, Miss Wisconsin of 1999, testified last
week before the House Ways and Means Committee
Subcommittee on Human Resources on behalf of a five-year
extension of grants for abstinence-until-marriage training.

Kurey, an eloquent and passionate aspiring opera singer, is on
the way to becoming a spokeswoman for her generation. But
Congressman Jim Greenwood is carrying the torch for the
Sixties. He is opposing abstinence funding even though:

* The majority of high school students are virgins, and this
percentage is increasing.
* 93% of teens feel that teens should be given a strong message
that abstinence is the best choice.
* Most teens who have been sexually active regret doing so.
* One out of five sexually-active teen girls in the U. S. gets
pregnant.
* One out of four sexually active American teens has a sexually-
transmitted disease.
* Condoms give no protection against diseases passed through
skin contact, such as Human Papilloma Virus, the most prevalent
STD and the leading cause of cervical cancer.

Young people know this, and young people are doing something
about it.

Abstinence-until-marriage programs have been proven effective
in reducing early sexual activity. They provide a foundation for
personal responsibility and enduring marriages. These programs
would not be having the success they are without the leadership
of young people, like Kurey and basketball star A. C. Green,
whose program "Game Plan," is one of the star curricula.

But Congressman Jim Greenwood does not want to help A. C.
Green and Mary-Louise Kurey.

Popular myths to the contrary, the primary cause of teen sexual
activity is not raging hormones. The real cause of teen sexual
activity is emotional emptiness. It is a search by young people for
acceptance, identity, purpose, or love. Everybody knows how to
avoid pregnancy: why do so many teens get pregnant? Because
they think it will make them somebody, that it will put someone in
their life who will always love them.

Real abstinence education addresses identity, self-esteem,
healthy relationships, character. It creates hope for the future. It's
not "safe sex". It's not "just say no". It's not the "here are the
keys but don't drive the car" kind of titillation that now calls itself
"abstinence plus". Abstinence-until-marriage education is life-
transforming, character-building, and soul-strengthening.

But Congressman Jim Greenwood does not want to help
abstinence-until-marriage education.

Congressman Jim Greenwood is a Republican who has a 100%
score from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. He is the
primary Republican opponent of the President's proposal to
provide money for abstinence-until-marriage education under
Title V of the Social Security Act, upon which a vote is expected
next week

Maybe it's because Jim Greenwood was a social worker before
he became a Congressman. Perhaps in affluent Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, he didn't see the pain experienced by sexually-
active young people - though he saw abused children and should
have been able to connect the dots.

Perhaps it's because Greenwood is the kind of Republican who
thinks that taxpayers dollars shouldn't be spent on social
programs. He did, after all, receive an award in 1994 from
Citizens Against Government Waste. I could respect a
Congressman for holding a principle like that -- if he were
consistent about it. If Jim Greenwood were advocating that
Congress abolish Title X, which funds the most common type of
sexual experimentation programs which inhabit most schools and
health departments, then being against abstinence funding might
at least be consistent. But Planned Parenthood receives most of
its budget from Title X, so forget about consistency. It's a simple
question of whose ox is being gored.

Nor is Greenwood alone. There are other Republicans who are
similarly retro, and, naturally, lots of Democrats. Smart young
people nowadays know that sexual activity outside of marriage
ends up hurting themselves.

Wouldn't it be cool if that message could reach the members of
Congress?

Connie Marshner is director of the Center for Governance at the
Free Congress Foundation (http://www.FreeCongress.org).

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