Byron York over at NRO gives a great run-down on the whole issue of the “sex ed” bill and Obama’s claims that it was merely about preventing sexual abuse of children. The whole thing is a must read, but this part here - in and of itself - demonstrates that McCain is telling the truth, and Obama is incorrect about what was in the bill:
The second purpose was to increase the number of children receiving sex education. Illinois’ existing law required the teaching of sex education and AIDS prevention in grades six through twelve. The old law read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS.
Senate Bill 99 struck out grade six, changing it to kindergarten, in addition to making a few other changes in wording. It read:
Each class or course in comprehensive sex education in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV. (emphasis added)
On can try to spin this as much as one likes, but the bill clearly provided for sex education for kindergarten - including instruction in how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. You can’t have even the most basic instruction on how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases unless you familiarize your audience with the varied sex acts. Period. End of story.
Now, as to why I say McCain is telling the truth while Obama is mistaken - I’m giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. My bet is that Obama didn’t even read the bill - it was backed by various leftwing groups with a lead role for Planned Parenthood and one thing we know about Planned Parenthood is that when it says “jump”, liberal Democrats say “how high?”. Liberals, you see, genuinely believe that Planned Parenthood is a good organization - that it was founded by a racist eugenicist and is America’s largest abortion provider (and thus has a vested interest in as much sexual activity as possible) is not something that they think unimportant but is, instead, very likely something they don’t know - and are uninterested in knowing.
For all I know, Obama really believes that the bill he supported was about preventing child abuse - it might be what Planned Parenthood told him in order to get him to sign on to the bill. Given Obama’s well known wariness about putting his name on anything controversial, the best way to get him to back such a bill was to tell him it was about something as non-controversial as preventing child abuse - had the bill’s sponsors told him it was about extending sex ed to kindergarten, Obama would have likely voted “present”, as he did when so many other controversial bills came up for a vote.
The end result of all this is yet another reason to keep Obama out of the White House - it is clear that he’s not interested in being well informed on what is going on and, furthermore, this is a strong indicator that any liberal group which comes along will be able to get him to sign off on just about anything, no matter how absurd and/or destructive.
Tags: culture of death, Culture of Life, John McCain, liberal lies, Obama Deceptions, Planned Parenthood, sex education
September 16th, 2008
R. R. Reno over at First Things has some interesting insights into the alleged “pregnancy pact”:
…it seems pretty clear that some teenage girls in Gloucester wanted to get pregnant, talked about it with their friends, and succeeded in conceiving. The school offers free pregnancy testing, and the school nurse reported girls celebrating when the tests came back positive. So, official pact or not, there has been an upsurge in Gloucester of something that our oh-so-inclusive age finds alien and threatening: planned teen pregnancies.
One predictable reaction has focused on sex education, or more accurately the bemoaned lack thereof. If only the students had better information about the real consequences of sexual intercourse! If only the school health clinic were permitted to dispense birth control pills! If only Gloucester didn’t suffer from the repressive mentality of a majority Catholic culture!
Hello. We’re talking about girls who wanted to get pregnant. Is it so difficult to notice that girls who want to get pregnant are not victims of supposedly prudish culture that won’t teach children the truth about sex and give them condoms?
Another reaction is less easily dismissed: It’s not about sex but parenting. If only these girls knew the extraordinary difficulties of raising a child, then they never would have done such a silly thing! So the way to prevent teen pregnancies is to dramatize the challenges of motherhood, especially single motherhood.
Mr. Reno says he has to chuckle about these reactions - especially the suggestion of “if they only knew”, that would have stopped them. My reaction is this - given what we teach our children these girls did absolutely nothing wrong.
Now, as a Christian I can say quite properly that what the girls - and the boys who impregnated them - did was wrong. But our society is, at least in popular culture, entirely post-Christian. These girls violated very basic Christian morality, but what they did is entirely in keeping with the morality prevalent in our public square in 2008. To throw up our hands in horror and ask how this could have happened is akin to a drunk asking how he could have passed out on the floor again: We tell the kids how to have sex; we refuse to tell them not to have sex; we refuse to impart to them Judeo-Christian morality; we do impart to them the concept that “right” and “wrong” are mere social constructs subject to our individual will; we place no moral opprobrium on those who engage in extramarital sex and/or have children out of wedlock - and in conjunction with this we propagandise them massively via books, magazines, music, movies and television that sex is just the coolest thing anyone can do. What is surprising is that many of our youngsters still refuse to be drawn into this sort of thing - not at all surprising that large numbers of them get into it.
People make rational decisions based upon the information they have - we are, after all is said and done, creatures who have reason at our command…the only thing which can be different from one person to another is the sort of information they have to base their decisions upon. Can anyone out there demonsrate that these girls had information which in any way, shape or form would dissuade them from their actions? Only if its Judeo-Christianity…and we don’t know if they had any of it at all or, if they did, how strongly they had been instructed in it vis a vis how strongly they were instructed in the morality of our public square. If this event in any way disturbs you, then there’s only one thing for you to do - insist upon a greater application of Judeo-Christian values.
Tags: birth control, Judeo-Christian Civilizaiton, pregnancy pact, sex education, teen pregnancy
July 6th, 2008
