Nearly half of the states are turning down federal funding for abstinence education, turning away millions of dollars. In this article on the subject, it appears that the reason is not that these programs are ineffective in reducing teenage sexual activity. It’s that many officials just disagree with the concept that sex outside of marriage is wrong. The programs, said one official, are just “too strict.”
I would say, however, that I see a weakness in the programs. They reportedly focus on the social, psychological, and health benefits of abstaining from sex until you are married. But the main reasons against extra-marital sex are not pragmatic but MORAL. I’m sure that avoiding the M-word is out of fear of seeming religious and thus becoming ineligible for federal funding.
But morality, in itself, is not necessarily religious at all. (Christianity is not some moral code but the means of finding forgiveness for violating the universal moral code.) We need to teach children, as well as adults, to think in the moral dimension. If we avoid that and instead just re-enforce the materialistic pragmatism that destroyed our moral consciousness in the first place, of course we will not have moral behavior.
HT: David Halbrook
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