Teaching Homophobia: Abstinence-Only Sex Education Programs
Teaching Homophobia: Abstinence-Only Sex Education Programs
Abstinence-only programs promote abstinence from all sexual activity until marriage. It's true that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. But many studies have shown that teaching abstinence alone is not effective. Only comprehensive, medically accurate sex education — which includes information on both abstinence and birth control — has been proven to prevent pregnancy and infections.
Many teens in abstinence-only programs are already sexually active and need information on safer sex to protect them. The abstinence-until-marriage platform excludes sexually active straight teens and all LGBT people, no matter how old they are. It implies that gay people should either marry straight people or go without sex for the rest of their lives. Keep in mind gay marriage is illegal in 49 states. According to abstinence-only programs, even unmarried heterosexual adults should not be having sex!
For over a quarter century, the federal government has supported abstinence-only education programs that censor information to youth. Federal support of such programs began in 1982 with a limited pool of funding through the Adolescent Family Life Act. Then beginning in 1996, funding for abstinence-only and abstinence-only-until-marriage programs grew exponentially with the enactment of welfare reform (P.L. 104-193). The law contained a little noticed mandate of $50 million a year to fund abstinence-only programs. In fact, the law amended the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant legislation (Title V of the Social Security Act) and was groundbreaking, both for its funding level and also for its unprecedented, eight-point definition of abstinence education. This definition has remained at the core of all federal abstinence-only funding streams, including the newest and, arguably, the most controversial – Community-Based...
View Full Essay