Do we really need the government trying to convince us to wait until marriage? Sexuality is a part of our culture and a significant part of our identity. Sex is not evil. But it can be dangerous. We should be spending that same money on educating people on contraceptives and STD prevention -- not on abstinence-only programs.
I know a girl whose mother had a habit of going through all her kids' possessions. Backpack's, dressers, cars, you name it. She found contraceptives in This girl's car. The row that ensued was horrible.Her mother could be heard screaming outdoors. "Whore! Slut!, Jezebel!" on and on and on. Her little sister certainly learned the lesson. No contraceptives for her. Pregnant by 17.
The point of this little story is that the people who think like this aren't rational. Thinking reasoning arguments will NEVER sway them. They don't have room in their mindset for thinking about issues that they are told are faith. Unfortunately these people do VOTE at an astoundingly high percentage, and as a bloc. It is perhaps the single best example of how a democracy can be subverted by a vicious minority. The whole thing smacks of Taliban.
Kids have sex, it's what they do. I didn't have sex till after I was 18 because I was a geek and couldn't figure out how to attract any girls I wanted, not because I didn't want to. Her little sister was in fact educated about contraception, STD's and the whole works, her home environment was just so hostile to it that she chose to risk it anyway.
I don't realistically think that there is anything that we could do to rally a similar or larger bloc of voters that would turn out in the polls without fail. Without the threat of that a letter writing campaign is doomed to be ignored even when facts and statistics are on our side.
This disenfranchisement angers me. For president I have a choice of a spineless stupid coke head son of a Lying CIA chief or a spineless moneylaundering son of a corrupt former senator. I can't remember the last time I had a choice of a congress person in NY with a spine from any party. I have reached the point where I'd vote for a person with a backbone even if I disagreed with everything they believed in. But even that is not an option. When John McCain lumped Falwell in with Farrakhan as hateful racist assholes, I applauded, tears came to my eyes, but even as I heard it I in the back of my head I could hear the right wing wackos calling their Party representative And saying I want him out. When he said he would veto bills he agreed with just because there was too much pork in them, I believed him, but I could hear the executives at GM and GE and their ilk calling on the phone " I want him out"
I don't know the answer to this. I've been looking for it since I was 15. I'm going to keep looking and keep voting.
