The Abstinence-Only Sex Ed. program that I am paying for

I do not usually feel the need to comment on the politics of this country. I hid safely behind my dual citizenship, claiming Canada with pride and a hint of condecention. HOwever, over coffee this morning I was accosted by the latest headline in Education Weekly. Apparently with the passage of the much discussed health care reform bill, was the renewal of Title V, some legal-eeze that mandates Abstinence-Only Sex Education for our youngsters. The article describes that this program was first signed into law under Clinton more than ten years ago. It also states that this program will continue to recieve over $250 million in funding over the next how ever many years.

The article goes on to delineate the type of abstinence program that would qualify, because clearly not every abstinence program is doing it right. There are eight tenents that a program is measured against, the first of which is "Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children". Which makes me reflect about my own relationship. I guess since I do not have the legal right to marry, I should not be engaging in sexual activity. I guess I am missing out on what is described as the "social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity," and I am clearly putting myself at risk because "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects".

Apparently there has been one lone study in the past ten years that has shown scientifically based evidence of the success of an Abstinence-Only education program. One. I wonder who funded that study? I wonder who performed the data analysis? I wonder?

Where am I? is it really 2010 or did I wake up in the middle ages? I understand that the government needs to find methods for controlling to population, this is not new. But what happened to the glorious idea, seperation of church and state, upon which this country was founded (I at least know that). People want to have sex, we always have we always will, it is out of our control regardless of our religious beliefs. I think history has taught us that. Besides which with shows like 'pregnant and 16' and the multitude of visual media that sell using sex, we probably want to have sex more now than we did 100 years ago. Perhaps we should study that?