For A Good Time, Call ...Your Local Church Lady!

"They have long-term relationships. They have better marriages. They make more money. They're happier. All the data is there..."

In order to give credence to Tennessee's walk down the road to the Middle Ages*, abstinence-only advocates are coming out of the woodwork and making outrageous statements:

"All the data is there, and it is time for everybody to recognize it, both in the church and in the public sector that you know what, the church ladies are having the best sex!" - Leslee Unruh, founder of Abstinence Clearinghouse.

"All the data" meaning that something in Christian literature states that abstinence until marriage will reduce unwanted pregnancies much more than sex education combined with birth control. "All the data." Where? To most everyone on the planet, that data is coming out of Unruh's own private place where the sun doesn't shine. 

Last Monday Sermon, we talked about faulty research used to further the goals of the Righteous Right. This example, however, goes beyond those lies because Unruh is citing research that's too twisted for words. 


And twisted research doesn't count. 

The most pertinent study for AO advocates has been, of course, twisted to tout absolute success: the study showed that AO education for 12-year-olds delayed intercourse for only two years - certainly not until marriage. The study group was also held in question as not quite applicable to the question of AO. Of course, if you google "abstinence only studies" this one pops up a lot because of its popularity. 


Earlier in the interview, Unruh stated an even more unbelievable premise: that sex education is "really based on profound ignorance about human nature and what makes for a healthy family." This WTF? moment indicates that Ms. Unruh has been living on Pluto and is as far away from earth's reality as you can get: since the beginning of time, man has always had sex whenever and wherever he wanted. The Church - not man - has set its own limits on sex, creating guilt complexes and suicides.


Oh, and the part about relationships and money, sorry Leslee: you failed to mention that the church ladies also have a higher divorce rate than non-Christians and atheists**, their relationships don't last, and they make less money than their male counterparts, speaking of whom, don't get enough sex. 


At this point, a pertinent paragraph about Unruh - who is now considered the Queen of Abstinence Only - might be in order:

Unruh's obsessions include pedophiles, rape, molestation, pornography, disease, peer pressure to have sex and the idea that having multiple sexual partners automatically makes sex less intimate. She swears her daughter never even kissed her own husband until her wedding day. She thinks that taking birth control pills that limit menstruation is an effort to turn women into men. She also loves to hand out dolls of baby fetuses.

Life with Leslee Unruh must be so much fun!

So the best teen pregnancy prevention program is really not to talk about sex at all, right?


Right. Comparisons of AO programs to no sex education revealed the same results in teen pregnancy. And remember "virginity pledges"? They worked really well! One study over a five-year period showed that not only were virginity-pledged teens having just as much sex, they were having more unprotected sex than teens who didn't take the pledge. 


Tennessee and Utah:  Be Prepared!


It has never occurred in their righteousness just what the consequences of failed abstinence only programs will be, and while it may seem hyperbolic to say that Tennessee and Utah better be prepared for baby booms and playgrounds teeming with misinformation, the grain of truth in the statement is more like a rock. Very much like the rocks in Leslee Unruh's head, for she'll think that abstinence only is working - while she continues to hand out fetus dolls.


NOW ISN'T THAT SPECIAL!

*[JURIST] The Tennessee House of Representatives [official website] has passed a bill[HB 3621, PDF; bill summary] that augments the state's abstinence-only sex education curriculum to allow parents to sue school teachers or organizations that promote "gateway sexual activity."

** Some interesting stats: Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24% Atheists, Agnostics 21%

Update on The Sacred And Profane: Sweetwater, Tennessee's War On The American Family

Our last post might have left readers wondering where the precise definition of the American Family by AFA and Family Research Council can be found. Well, in answer to the AFA's prayers, we've been able to actually locate it: Sweetwater, Tennessee has all the mythical nuclear family needs, right down to its traditional bigotry. 


ours after we posted an OpEdNews article, The American Family: Sacred or Profane?, this bit of insane bigotry was posted by Joe.My.God:

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) invited public comment on proposed new rules banning discrimination against LGBT people in all its programs. That prompted Vicki Barnes, the executive director of Tennessee's Sweetwater Housing Authority to fire off a letter to HUD in which she compares gay people to murderers, cult members, prostitutes and drug dealers.

Here is probably the most ironic and damaging section of the letter:

2. This is not a matter of discrimination. In choosing to name a group of people such as the Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), you are choosing to group together a group of people who are not of the same race, but have made a personal and moral life style choice. Other groups who make a personal life style choice are drug user and sellers, gang members, prostitutes, cults and murderers. You are saying any group of persons can call themselves a family. This will cause chaos in the communities and take away the security and stability of the families and would promote the following:

Ms. Barnes goes on to write that recognition of LGBT families would "promote" VIOLENCE, DRUGS, DRUG DEALING, NOT WORKING, and PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSED CHILDREN.

We could all dismiss Ms. Barnes' mindless screed to her living under a rock named Sweetwater, but this would mean prejudice on our part against the poor and uneducated (most of Sweetwater's 6,000 populace is below poverty level). But Sweetwater hardly considers itself a rock. 

Irony Abounds

Sweetwater bills itself as "The Sweetest Town In Tennessee" and the First Baptist Church of Sweetwater focuses on inclusiveness and love:

You can find that sense of belonging at First Baptist Church. If you visit us, you'll recognize that we have a strong love for each other. We believe that there is compassion, hope, and community for everyone through faith in Jesus Christ.   

Thoughts of isolation aside, here's a look at Sweetwater's website. The historic, pristine, folksy, postcard-perfect little town is extremely WASP and mentions nothing about past slavery and Jim Crow atrocities. It's congressional representative, John J. Duncan, Jr. comes from a long line of Southern Baptist legislative adherents and is a darling of the Family Research Council and the NRA.* It's self-promotion as a squeaky-clean town runs counterintuitive to its need for any Section 8 housing or HUD support: pity the poor people who have to find subsidized housing, since they must be looked upon as the lowest of indigent slackers. In addition, Sweetwater's continuous and constant appeal is for people to move there!


The outlook of towns like Sweetwater is imperative to today's Right Wing in forging behind with it's mythical vision of the American Family: steeped in hallowed "tradition", it helps uber-conservatives with its veneer of decency and righteousness. What Ms. Barnes letter underscores is that it is only a veneer. And a pretty tacky one at that. Sweetwater is a town built of ubiquitous buzzwords. And while it is not completely isolated (surrounded as it is by neighboring Knoxville's Wal-Marts), it would not survive in the real world of diversity and global awareness. It is fit to live alongside Lexington, KY's Creation Museum or Heritage U.S.A., but not fit to deal with the 21st century. 


If this sounds like un-American, small town mom-and-apple-pie bashing ... well, it isn't. Instead, it may be one way of relating the insidiousness of the Right in using stock images and pawning them off as the REAL America. Even Sweetwater realizes that it's image is one of the past. But it promotes its past as one you can live in today, and that just isn't right. History is full of beautiful, romantic images, but it is also rife with covert portraits of racism, discrimination and religious intolerance.

As I've noted before, today's real American Family is under attack, and Sweetwater, TN is leading the battle.

* wikipedia: On John J. Duncan, Jr.:
The Family Research Council rated him as a 92% or above since 2002^[2] and the NRA has rated him in equally positive terms.^[2] He is a frequent contributor to Chronicles, a magazine associated with the paleoconservative movement.