Your thoughts on Gay Marriage / Homosexuality?

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Have you read all of my replies in this thread?

i'd like to keep religious ideas out of secular schools. i think religion should be discussed only from a comparative or socio-cultural approach, and not from a moral approach at all in schools. that's the way it is done in my city. we actually do have religious schools that are part of the public school system too - christian, muslim, jewish, etc. but the regular schools do not teach religious morality.

it's impractical to use religious morality in sex ed anyway as there are too many religions to choose from, each with its different set of morals.

Yeah, in my school, I was taught the different approaches religions have to sex, abortion, etc in religious studies, but that was completely separate from sex education. Like it should be.

I think you missed my point. Just because the idea of abstinence is a religious one doesn't mean it's bad or that it should be kept out of sex ed. God should be kept out of sex ed. Religion itself should be kept out of sex ed.

Teaching children that the best birth control and protection against STDs is to not have sex should be done.

I was being mildly facetious, given the complete lack of sensible reasons why gay marriage (and assumably gay sex beyond that) is so bleeding evil. Thought I would throw in a "pro" and see if it dredged up a decent "con".

my misunderstanding stems from your statement "...and the religious arguments against sex before marriage."

which is why i said "i'm fine with my children being taught that abstinence is the best way to avoid stds and unwanted pregnancies. i just want them to also know that it's not the only way..."

you keep bringing up the imperfection of birth control and condoms. just how effective/ineffective do you think condoms are? birth control pills? patches? implants? shots? ...condoms plus birth control pills? patches? implants? shots?

condoms plus an additional method of birth control is a very reliable method of avoiding conception. we all seem to be misinterpreting your tone and position and i'm usually more than willing to take the blame for my misinterpretations, i can't use that to reconcile anyone else's.

while abstinence may be the most effective method of birth control and to prevent the transmission of stds, it is far from "ideal" unless your idea of "ideal" is "least work for grownups when giving the talk." i don't want my kid's teachers telling her that santa claus is the reason she should behave because i don't think it'll be very helpful when she grows up. there are good reasons to behave and none of them ride a flying sleigh. likewise, i don't want my kid's teacher telling her "Eh... not really." when she's old enough to ask if "safe sex" is "safe." if you want to tell the truth and say "well, condoms are only 99.9% effective and the same is true of the pill" then that's fine with me.

"Eh... not really" in response to the idea that safe sex is better than abstinence (since abstinence is undesirable to the hormonally tormented teenager) is seen as a "scare tactic."

like the pope saying condoms help spread aids. if people did everything else the pope said, the world wouldn't need condoms at all.

but that's not how it works and discouraging condom use ("birth control fails all the time") in teenagers is about as smart as discouraging condom use in africa.

in any regard, abstinence may be was some religions advocate, abstinence should never be taught in public school as a "religious notion." there's no surer way to get kids to indulge in something than to tell them you don't want them to. especially if it's something they know is fun. appeals to reason are much more effective than appeals to authority with teens.

Oh... my bad. lol

I'm utterly confused by your response to me.

Why waste the time with something they already know? That's like saying "you don't want to be electrocuted, don't stick a metal object into the wall socket." It doesn't need to be said to them, they understand that.

See that. Teenagers are more likely to use condoms than those who are over 40.

Source and full article

great information here. well said!

Thanks

oh, i see. yes, i agree that abstinence should be taught as a valid alternative, and that students should understand that it is the most effective way to prevent STIs, pregnancy, etc.

haha i think you misunderstood me. i was citing that as an example of how awesome humor can be and how outrageous the notion of "not a laughing matter" can seem, sometimes. i found out about that app the day before halloween and bought it for lulz. every time my roommate gets a text i hear the song and it's rad that it worked out for him the way it has.

but consider the chilling side note that the intruder hasn't been caught. hopefully the focus on that awesome music video and the money from it that got her out of there helped alleviate the stress that attack must have caused.

it's not that i don't enjoy the humor, it's just that i can't help but see the parts that aren't funny, too.

is a picture of pedobear getting caught by chris hansen funny? i think so. then i have an overwhelming feeling of disgust at everything that connects to. i love jon stewart but think about the horrible reality behind each of those jokes.

catholic priest jokes are another great example of a laughing matter that is no laughing matter.

but it's funny because we can't do anything about it.

so we laugh. because laughing feels good.

that's all i was saying.

Clearly, by your description, you are NOT familiar with the studies. They do not 'Take a small trend line of only one decade,' they establish rigorous controls, as does any scientific study, and examine the effect of similar populations over the same time period but with different treatments. Questioning a controlled, well-set-up study b/c you do not like the results is the equivalent of saying, 'f**k the evidence, f**k science, if it disagrees with my morality.' You expect reality to conform to your morality, rather than conforming your morality to fit reality; unfortunately for the children whose education is controlled by people like you, reality tends to bite back.


do you have any data to support that assertion?


That's a BRITTISH article. The NIH is an AMERICAN government institution that gives money to AMERICAN scientists to do research; the NIH would be plagarising if it published a Brittish study.
That article does not describe the education protocol; it has been shown in the US that all programs are not equal, and those that do not emphasize self-respect (ie, insisting that one's partner use protection), demonstrate *proper use* of birth control (ie, showing how and how not to use a condom), and give accurate data about success and failure rates, do not work as well as those that do (and sometimes do not work at all).


That's just a different article about the same project as above. It does give us the advantage of a slightly better description: they appear to have just handed out birth control willy-nilly.


Oh, you mean the program that has dropped the teen pregnancy rate 11%?
From YOUR article, quote:
Amid a rising teenage population, the conception rate has dropped by only 11 per cent since 1998...
In other words, the program is working, but it is not working well enough to counteract the teenage demographic bubble. Try reading your own citations before you use them as support for your point of view. Also: citing actual research is far better than citing opinion articles several times removed from the research.



That study was widely seized upon b/c it is one of the few that supports abstinence-only education; however, it does not show what it was widely claimed to show. Basically, it shows that abstinence-only is better than no sex ed at all over 2 years. From the actual study (source:http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/164/2/152?home):

Interventions An 8-hour abstinence-only intervention targeted reduced sexual intercourse; an 8-hour safer sex–only intervention targeted increased condom use; 8-hour and 12-hour comprehensive interventions targeted sexual intercourse and condom use; and an 8-hour health-promotion control intervention targeted health issues unrelated to sexual behavior. Participants also were randomized to receive or not receive an intervention maintenance program to extend intervention efficacy.

Note that "an 8-hour health-promotion control intervention targeted health issues unrelated to sexual behavior" is the control.

Results The participants' mean age was 12.2 years;
So this is a study that measures the effectiveness of sex ed from 12.2 years to 14.2 years - not the ages most succeptible to teen pregnancy.

53.5% were girls; and 84.4% were still enrolled at 24 months. Abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual initiation (risk ratio [RR], 0.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.48-0.96). The model-estimated probability of ever having sexual intercourse by the 24-month follow-up was 33.5% in the abstinence-only intervention and 48.5% in the control group. Fewer abstinence-only intervention participants (20.6%) than control participants (29.0%) reported having coitus in the previous 3 months during the follow-up period (RR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.90-0.99). Abstinence-only intervention did not affect condom use. The 8-hour (RR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.92-1.00) and 12-hour comprehensive (RR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.91-0.99) interventions reduced reports of having multiple partners compared with the control group. No other differences between interventions and controls were significant.

In other words, abstinence only delayed sexual onset for pre-teens better than no sex ed at all, and when those pre-teens did have sex they did not increase their condom or bc use to prevent pregnancy. In addition, what the abstract does not show, but what is evident from reading the full text, which I unfortunately do not have access to here, is that the 'abstinence - only ' program in that study was science-based (ie, "abstinence is the only way to be sure that you won't get pregnant or catch an STD," as opposed to morality-based (ie, "you're a bad person if you have sex."). The latter are the basis for many of the current 'abstinence only' programs in the US.



see above; those are the same study.



No, it didn't; it merely meant that lots and lots of teens were forced by their respective parents to marry early b/c of an unintended pregnancy. And that lots of teen girls were sent away to isolated homes in shame to bear their kids and then give them up for adoption. What has changed is not the pregnancy rate, but the acceptance of it.
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/So-Th/Teen-Pregnancy.html
quote:
The most recent American teen birth rate of approximately 51.1 births per 1,000 adolescent females is consistent with historical trends and matches the 1920 figure.



The Northern European countries have consistently, over the long term, had great success with their programs. It is not short-term data, nor is it local or isolated.



*snort*
Yeah, because soviet motives are [i]just like American ones {/sarcasm}... do you have any data to support the assertion that that was the intention, or is that just something you read at some right-wing blog?

Just because you think they know it, doesn't mean it shouldn't be said. Teens know stealing is wrong, but many still do it.