Texas Tries To Combat Teen Pregnancy With Abstinence-Only Website That Doesn’t Mention Birth Control

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/27/2690281/texas-abstinence-website/

…how is Texas’ Department of Health hoping to help prevent future unintended pregnancies among young women? By spending $1.2 million to build an abstinence-only website that doesn’t include any mention of contraception.

Two things.

1. To be fair, while the site itself never mentions birth control, if you look hard enough, you can find links to pages that discuss birth control.

2. Abstinence only education doesn’t work:

A 2005 survey of 12,000 adolescents found that those who had pledged to remain abstinent until marriage were more likely have oral and anal sex than other teens, less likely to use condoms, and just as likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases as their unapologetically non-abstinent peers. The study found that 88 percent of those who pledged abstinence admitted to failing to keep their pledge.
(Source: Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010), 283.)

Image source and article: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/27/2690281/texas-abstinence-website/

And a link to the TX website: http://www.ourtown4teens.org/

And this whole thing makes me think of this:

Sexual Salvation – A Recap

http://trybestpractices.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/sexual-salvation-a-recap/

Basically, the message I’m trying to get across is that desire isn’t a switch that can be turned on or off at will. Feeling sexual desire is a part of what it is to be a human being and we need to accept that. This feeling of sexual self-acceptance is basically what James Nelson is talking about when he refers to sexual salvation.

Image source and article: http://trybestpractices.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/sexual-salvation-a-recap/

I’M AN EX-WESTBORO CHURCH MEMBER WHO HAS RENOUNCED THE GROUP MY GRANDFATHER FOUNDED

http://www.xojane.com/issues/libby-phelps-alvarez-westoboro-baptist-church

People sometimes ask why it took me so long to leave. I seem so well-adjusted and, well, normal, so they don’t understand how I could have ever thought my family and their beliefs were anything but hateful.

But, for almost 26 years, I was more than just sheltered. I was warned against the outside world: again and again, in sermons and private conversations, I was told that people outside of WBC were sinners, alcoholics, drug addicts, lost souls with no moral compass. So I was terrified of what lurked beyond the protective walls my family had carefully erected around me -– especially of gay people, because according to the WBC, homosexuals were the absolute worst group of people in the world.

And later…

When you look at the places WBC picketed, it seems as if church members are continually compelled to find someone or something to complain about, or they cannot be content.

In the inner workings of the church, the same is true. The elders will find fault with a person, and when that situation is resolved to their satisfaction, they’ll scan the rest of the group in search of another insignificant issue with which to find fault and “correct.” They rebuke one another.

Image source and article: http://www.xojane.com/issues/libby-phelps-alvarez-westoboro-baptist-church

The Christian wife-spanking movement

http://morganguyton.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/christian-wife-spanking/

File this squarely under WTF? It’s hard to believe but the facts about this movement get worse the more you read.

There are very detailed instructions for how to administer the spankings. There is more than one type of spanking: beginner, intermediate, advanced, blended, maintenance. There’s even a “punishment generator” app into which you can plug in misbehaviors and a menu of punishments.

Image source and article: http://morganguyton.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/christian-wife-spanking/

See also:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/19/spanking-for-jesus-inside-the-unholy-world-of-christian-domestic-discipline.html

And yes, this really is a thing: http://beginningdd.com/

Abstinence-Only Sex Ed is Over

http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/09/03/abstinence-only-sex-ed-over

Somebody has to say it: Our approach isn’t working, and it’s time to rethink “the talk.” It’s time to expand the conversation into territory where many evangelical parents dare not go.

And later…

An overwhelming majority of teens actually say it would be easier to abstain if parents would address sex in an open and honest way.

Image source and article: http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/09/03/abstinence-only-sex-ed-over

a flacid penis is a righteous penis [COMIC]

Image frame from The Oatmeal’s facebook page: www.facebook.com/theoatmeal

See the frame in context here: How to suck at your religion

The Naked Truth about the Christian Purity Movement

http://blog.tinaschermersellers.com/2013/08/15/the-naked-truth-about-the-christian-purity-movement/

The purity movement had millions of young earnest Christians believing that their sexual thoughts and experiences could separate them from God’s love. This was the heart of the lie and the heart of the violence to sexual and relational health. This is the first place of healing. NOTHING separates you from the love of God. Rom 8:38-39.

Image source and article: http://blog.tinaschermersellers.com/2013/08/15/the-naked-truth-about-the-christian-purity-movement/