PTET - godless culture

A reply to Darkstar218 on Sexual Health Policy

Hi Tim

I apologise if you are offended by my raising of the issue of the Catholic Church. I wasn't asking you to defend them. I was, however, interested in your opinion on their use of inaccurate information...

I take it your opinion on this point is closer to that of Hank Hanegraaff. He argues against the promotion of condom use, and that Biblical morality and a belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to save humanity from sexual disease and sin.

The trouble is that not everyone shares that opinion. In fact, the US Constitution would seem to say that political policy based only on Biblical morality would be unconstitutional, in that it would be an establishment of a religion.

I say it is immoral to fail to prevent evil where it is within our power to do so. Since "abstinence only" programmes have not been shown to be entirely effective - because many are not able to remain abstinent - I say it is immoral to fail to properly educate people about sexual health. Most condom "failures" happen because of poor sexual education. Properly used, condoms are highly effective.

I say a responsible health education policy must include accurate information about the use of condoms - and of course the very real risks involved in sexual behaviour. In this thread you have "laughed at the idiocy" of a US Congresswoman for promoting that same policy.

But given that teen pregnancy and STD rates in the USA are *higher* than in Western Europe where "abstinence only" sexual education is practically unknown, it is clear that the USA has a problem.

Since the *result* of abstinence only education is an *increase* in the risk of STDs and unwanted pregnancies amongst those who fail to abstain, such policies have a negative and harmful effect.

I don't want to give children the licence or the tools to have sex. What I want to give them is an educated, responsible attitude. Your insistence that children should not be taught proper condom use out of pure religious dogma has been shown to cause active harm. That, to me, is immoral.

I also apologise if I have offended you by commenting on comments made by another of your weblog guests. However, I stand by my remarks - the opinion he stated was clearly in contradiction to the facts.

As for "bastard children", I do not think there is any shame in being born "out of wedlock". It seems that you do. I have asked you before what time and place you feel was the best example of Christian society which you would wish our society to emulate. I'll ask again. Would you like to return to values of a generation ago when it was generally considered shameful for children to be born out of wedlock? Would you accept all of the values of a generation ago? Or perhaps two generations ago?



See the full discussion on Darkstar218's weblog