Little Bang Theory

So this past week New York said “Buh-bye” to Title 5 money from the Feds by dis-allowing “abstinence-only” sex education in New York public schools.

Finally, a State with a Sack.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand that abstinence is the only way to assure zero pregnancies and zero transmission of STDs.

But unlike the people who are foisting abstinence-only “sex education” on our children, I acknowledge the fact that it doesn’t work. Study after well-controlled major study concludes that it’s ineffective and results in no fewer pregnancies and higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases by insuring that we’re rearing generation after rolling generation of Ignorant Fucking Children. Because God, in His Wisdom, has seen to it that young people will fuck each other. It’s normal, it’s natural, it feels good and we can’t stop it.

But we can stop the adverse consequences of this unstoppable natural behavior. We can reduce unwanted pregnancies. We can prevent most sexually transmitted diseases. All it takes is education about how our bodies work, how problems are propagated, how to keep one’s self safe and what to do if one fails at any step along the way.

The kind of Magical Thinking which rejects true sex education and embraces fairy-tale what-iffery in its place results in a lot of young lives being catastrophically altered, with educations truncated, economic viability rendered unattainable, social parity made unlikely and health care costs pushed through the roof.

And it results in a lot of little babies, some of whom will be loved and cherished and cared for, but most of whom will spend a lifetime struggling to pay for the stupidity of the people who were charged with their parents’ educations, people who failed their children on a most basic level, people who won’t bear the direct costs of their negligence, but who will rather point their greasy fingers at the victims of their own arrogant neglect.

New York has chosen a higher path, a more moral path, a more responsible path for it’s young people. New York has chosen to educate it’s young people, to give them tools and choices and resources to deal with Life On Earth. New York has chosen logic and facts and a practical Way Forward over magical thinking and dogmatic belief in that which has been proven to be untrue. New York has chosen a Path of Potential for its young people over the false promise of Ignorance as Bliss.

And now the battle begins: The Hordes of the Holy will descend on The Empire State from all corners of our country, with missions from Florida and busloads of frenetic fundamentalists from the bible-belt throwing money and lobbying hard to influence the debate, to represent the education of our children as Godless secularism, to insinuate the specter of socialism, to evoke the image of terrorists winning by being proved right by our blatant display of moral depravity.

These assaults on reason must not go unanswered. They must be countered by support from every corner where reason has taken root. They must be met with calls for similar displays of courage from other people in other states, people whose children have everything to gain and nothing to lose from knowing the truth, people who refuse to be held hostage by the Immoral Minority and their manipulation of the facts.

It’s time for each of us to step up to the plate on this matter. It’s time for every Thinking Parent to intercede on their sons’ and daughters’ behalf, to find out what’s being taught in their schools, to speak out against the waste of taxpayers’ money on programs which have been proven ineffective and to insist that young people be told the truth about their sexuality, their responsibilities, their futures.

Our children are depending on us to do no less.