Ultra-Liberals Fight Morality in the Schools : Hemet program is a logical answer to pregnancy and STDs.

With teen-age pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases skyrocketing, the sex-education program adopted by the Hemet School District should become a prototype for every school district in Southern California.

The Hemet program, which promotes abstinence, begins by placing the primary responsibility for teaching children about sex on parents and the secondary role on schools. The Hemet school board researched three established and recognized abstinence programs from across the country and combined their findings into one.

The program teaches self-discipline, a sense of responsibility, self-control and a sound reasoning process. It also gives teens skills on how to say no, along with instructing them that they must never use verbal or physical harassment to intimidate. The study guide emphasizes “that jokes, slurs and derogatory statements made on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, color, creed, religion or culture are demeaning and destroy the dignity of the affected individual.” Condoms are not displayed until the 11th grade; no form of contraception is distributed by the school. Finally, all sex-education programs are age-appropriate.

Who, you ask, would ever be against this kind of balanced, informative program that gives our kids the only foolproof method to prevent AIDS and other STDs? Five sets of parents, backed by none other than the mother of promiscuity, Planned Parenthood, and its ultra-liberal sidekick, the American Civil Liberties Union. They have sued the Hemet School District and all five board members to stop the program.

Seems like teaching morality in today’s climate of immorality truly brings out those who would live and thrive on putting our children’s health and self-esteem at risk. For the past two decades, these anti-moral parasites have fostered attitudes in our schools that brought us Lakewood’s infamous “Spur Posse,” where 15-year-old boys boasted of having sex with girls as young as 10 as part of a competition. One “Spur” mother reported stocking her 14-year-old son’s room with condoms, while a father proudly called his son “all man.”

These twisted attitudes instill in the minds of today’s teen-agers that, like animals, they simply cannot control themselves. Psychiatrist Richard Bloom has attributed the 200% rise in teen-age suicide to the free sexual lifestyle practiced by today’s teens. Roughly 20% of the teen-agers in a University of Michigan study were infected with chlamydia, and nationwide, 3 million teens a year become infected with STDs ranging from AIDS to syphilis. After billions of tax dollars spent on sex-education programs, 58% of young girls still refuse to use contraception during their first act of sexual intercourse.

This insanity--which turns educators into advocates by allowing them to pass out condoms and portrays those who dare to suggest boundaries and standards as right-wing religious zealots--must stop. There is no cure for AIDS; if a young person becomes infected, he or she will die. Yet the pro-sex evangelists refuse to tell children that so-called safe-sex condoms have a failure rate of 26% in preventing AIDS and 16% in preventing pregnancy.

As responsible educators, the Hemet school board looked at these disturbing statistics and decided to institute an abstinence-based program. Now the board is being sued for teaching children common-sense values and self-preservation. Bonnie Park, who teaches “sex respect” at Hemet Middle School, says the program centers on “the idea that human beings really can control their behavior, including sexual behavior.” Students support her.

As the mother of a 16-year-old, I challenge Planned Parenthood to give me one negative aspect of teaching our children to wait. Where is the flaw in teaching kids how to say no? Finally, can Planned Parenthood name one child who ever died from abstinence? Yet, in an apparently concerted effort, small groups of parents from around the country, apparently fronting for those who profit from teen-age promiscuity, are suing school systems that dare to teach abstinence.

In a recent survey at Grand Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, 82% of the 1,043 adolescents questioned said they wanted help in how to say no. Louis Harris’ recent poll found that 87% of teens did not want sexual services such as birth control and abortion referral at their schools. Yet the do-badders plow on. Could it be that these middle-aged proponents of the free-love, anything-goes ‘60s are threatened by the morals their offspring are being given--the same ones they rejected? The Hemet school board should be supported and imitated, not sued and harassed.