Abstaining from Intelligence

Keith R. Schmitz

What do you call people who have their kids follow abstinence only sex ed?

Grandparents.

More and more studies are finding that yet another conservative fairy tale fails to play well in the real world. As usual this is a their answer to a complex problem that this simple, straightforward...and wrong.

Many of you recall the Bristol Palin interview on Fox News a few weeks back, where she maintained her mother's approved mode of sex education is "not realistic at all."

People are taking back their government and reinstating common sense. The Pittsburgh School Board this week voted to replace A-O with comprehensive sex ed and no doubt more will follow.

In the usual case of money well wasted, the Bush administration spent $176 million the last year W had the budget on this bit of alchemy.

Unfortunately things have not changed in the House of Representative, oddly the Democratically controlled House, which despite the Senate Finance Committee’s recommendation to cut $28 million in funding for abstinence-only until marriage initiatives cut only $14 million. Why the lapse of guts is hard to explain, and why the party does disappoint from time to time. A penny spent on this program is a penny too much.

Write David Obey and tell him to rethink this bit of miss-allocation of funds.