But for readers, I think it’s great what you’ve written and I completely agree with all your points.

Sadly, I am guessing that proponents of abstinence until marriage may simply not care about gay and lesbian people, at all, and that, obviously, is, to me, one of the worst things of all.

Health is health is health. I don’t care who you are.

Mary Anne – again – feel free to provide links etc. for your point of view – there are conservatives who read this blog and possibly proponents of abstinence only education too.

If you’ve worked this long and hard for this cause, please, I’m sure you have more than invective to contribute.

Thanks.

Just so you know, Jill, Mary Anne is now on the board of the National Abstinence Education Association, and works for a group called the A & M Partnership (or something like that) in Illinois. She’s no longer with Operation Keepsake.

I actually spend a relatively small amount of time on Abstinence Only Until Marriage — most of the reserach on that issue is done by others, and is out there. But I will say that one of the reasons we as an organization have weighed in on the issue is that “Abstinence Only Until Marriage” categorically excludes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, who cannot legally marry in Ohio. When I’ve asked leaders of the Abstinence Only Until Marriage movement about that, these are the responses I’ve received:

#1: “We didn’t write the laws.”

My response: Then will you join with us to work against laws that exclude a whole group of people?

#2: “We are providing education that addresses the normative values of most Americans.”

My response: Abstinence from all sexual activity until heterosexually married is not normative–in fact, most people have sex before marriage.

#3: “In health education, you do what you can. If we wanted to do programs on the benefits of exercise, for example, would we stop doing it just because some people are unable to execize?”

My response: Of course not. But comparing “unable to exercize” to “unable to get married” ignores one fundamental reality: no one is forbidden to exercize, as a matter of law. But gay and lesbian people are forbidden to marry. It’s illegal.

So . . . I guess that until I see the leaders of the Abstinence Only Until Marriage movement address the fundamental exclusion of gay and lesbian people in their message, I’ll continue to say something about it. The question no one has ever been able to ask — the question that gets dodged every time, as I’m sure it will be again — is this: are you saying that since gay and lesbian people cannot marry those they love, they should be abstinent from all sexual activity (again with those they love) for their entire lives?

Earl Pike
AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland

Could you please ID that misinformation and correct it?

What’s odd is that this post is the re-telling of what happened when I got a push poll survey call from the National Abstinence Education Assn. I’m not quite sure how there is misinformation in there since I experienced the call – but again, the best tactic with blogs is to point out the problems and continue the conversation.

Thanks.

You didn’t provide information about the post I wrote. You only wrote about Earl. When commenters start picking on other commenters, I find myself far more interested in figuring out what’s going on.

As I suggested, please feel free to provide all the links you like about Earl and yourself.

Thanks again for reading and commenting.

According to this article, you are the head of Operation Keepsake which identifies itself as “a sex education program that seeks to empower and encourage young people to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.”

When you leave comments on blogs, you really should ID yourself.

Now – if the person who left the comment above is not Mary Anne Mosack, I hope we can get that info too.

Is the Abstinence and Marriage Partnership org. okay with you leaving comments in this vein?

As for the substance of your comment, I don’t see anything that indicates Earl’s predisposition against abstinence education. Probably abstinence-only education, like myself, but abstinence as part of a sex ed program that explores the range of issues and options? I don’t see that.

When you return here, you should feel free to link to places where you think we should be reading.

Thanks.

I did find a bit of that from googling. No one has called me back yet so I’ll probably call one more time. I didn’t e-mail the group but I’ll do that too.

Thanks for that info re: Creative Response Concepts. Creative doesn’t begin to describe what they do, hm?

Also – the FRC connection?! That’s why I wrote in a post last night that Huckabee is a total no-go for me because he’s hired, as his communications director, the FRC’s communications maven, Charmaine Yoest. Very scary indeed.