A little footnote to my previous rant about the government’s expansion of abstinence-only education: although the people making the policies may be idiots and prudes (not necessarily in that order), the American people are not. According to a study recently done by the University of Pennsylvania, 80.4 percent of American adults prefer a balanced “abstinence-plus” approach to sex education. Also, according to the study:
- 91.6 percent of liberals, 86.4 percent of moderates, and 70 percent of conservatives support comprehensive (abstinence-plus) programs, while 19 percent of conservatives, 5.3 percent of moderates, and 3.7 percent of liberals oppose such programs.
- 47 percent of conservatives support abstinence-only programs, while 67 percent of liberals, 50.4 percent of moderates, and 39.9 percent of conservatives oppose this approach to sex education.
- 37.5 percent of conservatives, 13.4 percent of moderates, and 9.1 percent of liberals oppose condom instruction, while 51.2 percent of conservatives support it.
- Among all respondents, 57 percent disagree that condom instruction encourages teens to have sex.
- Of the respondents who never attend religious services: 87.4 percent support comprehensive sex education and 57.9 percent oppose abstinence-only programs.
- Among those who attend religious services more than once a week: 60.3 percent support abstinence-only programs; 60.3 percent support abstinence-plus programs; 52.6 percent oppose and 37.9 percent support condom instruction; 31.3 percent oppose abstinence-only instruction.
In short, Americans aren’t as easily fooled as the puritan bureaucrats would want us to be. I’m cautiously optimistic about the election results, but hopefully, between statistics like these and the backlash against the Republicans, the government will have to stop pretending that sex is something that you can just sweep under the rug.
More good news: congratulations to the people of Spokane, Washington, who ousted Brad Benson, the Republican State Senator who claimed earlier this year that Planned Parenthood deliberately distributes condoms with an 80% failure rate because “they have an interest in the follow-up product.“