Abstinence -- True Love Waits

By Dr. Phil Stringer (Florida)

"But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;" (Ephesians 5:3)

THE PROBLEM OF TEEN PREGNANCY

Teen sexual behavior has become the subject of a great deal of public debate in America. Everyone agrees that there are a number of major problems facing our society as a result of teen sexual activity.

In the early 1990's, over one million teenage girls got pregnant each year. These pregnancies result in about 400,000 abortions, 134,000 miscarriages, and 490,000 births. About 65% of these births take place to unmarried teens.

Over two million teenagers a year are treated for sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s). Twenty-six percent of all abortions are performed on teenage girls.

The two sides in the Culture War have entirely different solutions to the problem of teen sexuality.

Those opposed to America’s historic Christian tradition believe that America’s teenagers just need more education, encouragement, and help in practicing "safe" methods of moral impurity. Bible-believing Christians believe that teens need more education, encouragement, and help in developing moral values.

Five controversies illustrate the difference in approaches and how controversial and important this conflict has become.

SEX-ED AND THE SCHOOL BOARDS

In 1992 and 1993, the attention of the country was focused on a battle over sex education curriculum and school board authority in New York City. Joe Fernandez, Chancellor of New York City schools, had stripped the Queens School Board of authority to determine curriculum. The dispute was over the use of a curriculum promoted by Fernandez called "Children of the Rainbow," a pro-homosexual curriculum. Fernandez was also distributing a booklet informing teens of their "right" to have sex. Fernandez was opposed by school board president Mary A. Cummins. Mrs. Cummins described her opposition this way: "We will continue to teach our children to respect social, religious, and ethnic differences. However, we are not going to teach our children to treat all types of human behavior as equally safe, wholesome, or acceptable." Parents overwhelmingly sided with Mrs. Cummins. The controversy finally ended with Mr. Fernandez’s contract not being renewed and the "Children of the Rainbow" curriculum being removed.

ABSTINENCE -- A RELIGION?

A second area of controversy has been the legal battles over whether or not abstinence can be taught in public schools. Fred Ray summed up the legal conflict this way in the September, 1993 Defender Newsletter (published by Phil Stringer and edited for use in this material):

What is this sexual education curriculum that has the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood in such an uproar? It is Sexual Abstinence Education. And the new curricula such as "Sex Respect," "Facing Reality," and "Postponing Sexual Involvement" not only tell teens the dangers they face by becoming sexually active before marriage, but also teaches teens how to resist peer pressure with assertiveness training. Why would anyone fault that, you ask?

To get a better understanding, you have to go to Louisiana and the case of Bettye Coleman v. Caddo Parish School Board. Bettye Coleman sued the Caddo Parish School Board to prevent the two abstinence-based sex education curricula from being taught. It was her contention that they taught moral beliefs that were religiously based and therefore unconstitutional.

However, from the Louisiana Revised Statue 17:281, "The major emphasis of any sex education instruction offered in the public schools of the state (of Louisiana) shall be to encourage sexual abstinence between unmarried persons." This is exactly what the Caddo Parish School Board had in mind when they adopted the curricula "Sex Respect" and "Facing Reality."

But, the revised statutes also go on to say that, "It is the intent of the legislature that ‘sex education’ shall not include religious beliefs, values, customs, practices in human sexuality, nor the subjective moral and ethical judgements of the instructor or other persons."

Since the "Facing Reality" curriculum is very open about wanting to change the moral framework that teenagers currently have about premarital sex, it contradicts the Louisiana code. In fact, as stated in the "Facing Reality" material, any curriculum that goes beyond bare, anatomical facts will be teaching a moral/ethical system because the "authors of most human sexuality materials will present the moral themes that personally engage them." Thus, this statute is so vague that it is doubtful any curriculum could meet the intent of Louisiana’s sexual education legislation and still be taught. However, as the "Facing Reality" curriculum says, "We can encourage moral/ethical behavior without advocating sectarian doctrines." So with minor changes to this poorly written statute, it is possible to have an abstinence-based program, even in Louisiana.

In Rush Limbaugh’s The Way Things Ought To Be, he tells of another battle over abstinence-based education in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jacksonville School Board "decided to teach real safe sex, which is abstinence. However, six families, along with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, are suing the schools over this program. This bunch of curious citizens says that teaching abstinence puts the children at greater risk of catching AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. ... The suit alleges that the schools are provided a ‘fear-based program that gives children incomplete, inaccurate, biased, and sectarian information." Says Lind Lanier of Planned Parenthood, "It ‘s not right to try and trick our students."

No developments so clearly illustrates the Culture Was as this. Basis moral teaching, taken for granted in our schools 30 years ago is considered controversial today. This same moral information is the subject of lawsuits and is outlawed or restricted in some communities.

Clinton administration officials have illustrated the "new pagan" thinking about teen sex. Kristine Gebbie (AIDS "czar" in the Clinton Administration) said, "Unless Americans embrace sex as an essentially important and pleasurable thing, we will continue to be a repressed, Victorian society that misrepresents information, denies sexuality early, denies homosexuality, particularly in teens, and leaves people abandoned with no place to go."

NEW PAGANISM & SEX

Former Clinton administration Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders offered her advice as to how to help American teenagers deal with their sexuality: "we have to be more open about sex. We need to speak out to tell people that sex is good, sex is wonderful." She also said, "I think the religious community could be very, very powerful and very, very influential. They have the prestige and the acceptance and I feel that if they would stop trying to moralize these issues and educate our children, then we could eradicate many of these problems." She has also insisted that her ideas about sexuality and health education should be taught in all the public schools as early as kindergarten. As hard as it is to believe, these leaders believe the problem is a lack of emphasis on sexuality for teens. They clearly believe that any emphasis on moral teaching makes teens think that sex is bad.

However, many parents, religious leaders, religious groups, and many teenagers have taken exception to this emphasis. A 1986 Harris Poll (commissioned by Planned Parenthood) found that teens who have been through a supposed "safe-sex" education course were 53% more likely to participate in sexual relationships. The message that "everybody’s doing it" is very powerful, especially when it is presented by school administrators, teachers, and political leaders.

POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES; ENCOURAGING RESULTS

A number of programs like "True Love Waits" have provided a totally different answer for teenagers. The programs encourage teens to take a public vow to wait for sex until marriage. Using slogans like, "Wait for the ring," these programs are designed to provide positive peer pressure and accurate information for today’s teens. One teenager described these as being for "teens who are tired of being talked to like they were animals in heat."

Because of our Culture War, even programs such as these are controversial. Liberal critics have described this approach as naive, outdated, and misleading. When America had a common moral code, and a common culture, most churches, government agencies, school, and parents encouraged American young people to morality. Now a Cultural War is being fought over what moral code to teach to America’s young people.

The ultimate debate over teaching moral values was the Dan Quayle-"Murphy Brown" controversy. In a speech, then-Vice President Dan Quayle suggested that the "Murphy Brown" television show was providing a poor example by having the main character have a baby out of wedlock. He was immediately subjected to an undying stream of abuse accusing him of attacking single parents, claiming that single-parent homes were not really families, and accusing him of trying to impose his moral beliefs on everyone. The actual quote form his speech is as follows:

Ultimately, however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about his.

It doesn’t’ have matters when prime time TV has "Murphy Brown" -- a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid, professional woman -- mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice."

I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong. Now its time to make the discussion public.

It is a clear indication of how heated the Culture War is that such a statement has become controversial in America.

What are the results of teaching abstinence? A five-year study on the pro-abstinence curriculum "Sex Respect" in California showed that the pregnancy rate for girls who had taken the course was five percent, compared to 49% (in the same schools) for girls who had not taken the course. When Marion Howard, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology asked 1,000 teenage girls what subject they wanted to learn about most in sex education, 82% answered, "How to say ‘no!’" After this, Howard developed an abstinence curriculum which was tried out in the Atlanta, Georgia schools in eighth grade. Results showed that students who took the course were four times less likely to become sexually active in high school than those who did not.

GOD’S METHOD WORKS BEST!

• Hebrews 13:4, Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

• Colossians 3:5, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry."

• Ephesians 5:3, "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints."

Dr. Phil Stringer is Executive Vice President of Landmark Baptist College, Haines City, Florida