By Hilary White

POTOMAC, November 24, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Maryland Gazette reports today that the eighth-grade health class at Herbert Hoover Middle School identifies two types of sexual intercourse as "abstinence."

It would seem that even after decades of sex ed, saturation of sexual imagery in the media and the virtual abolition of sexual mores since the 1960's that educators still cannot effectively identify the sexual act.

Webster's College dictionary defines the verb "to abstain" as "to refrain voluntarily, especially from something regarded as improper or unhealthy." A chart showing different forms of contraception in the Herbert Hoover health class, however, includes three types of "abstinence" : "no intercourse," "withdrawal" (ejaculation outside of the body) and "rhythm" (no intercourse during ovulation).

Parents have complained to the school saying that their children were being put at risk by the misinformation. Cindy Richards said, "Since when did the term abstinence change to include the two most ineffective forms of birth control possible?"

"Here we have been teaching our kids that abstinence means not having sex, period. What kind of message is this sending?" Richards added.

Another mother, after complaining to her child's sex education teacher, was told that the definition applied because the couple is "refraining from what they want to do."

To those who have been studying the advance of the sexual revolution, this confusion of terms and meaning does not come as a surprise. The redefinition of pregnancy by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology to mean the moment of implantation instead of fertilization in order to legitimize the Pill, is a case in point. The manipulation of language and deliberate obfuscation of definitions has been a key tool in the hands of the social revolutionaries.

The eradication of normal sexual rules since the 1960's has led to many young people living in situations or profound confusion and internal contradiction. Researchers have found real links between the collapse of traditional sexual mores and the social, psychological and economic failure of many young people. Widespread divorce, sexual license and the breakdown of family bonds have created a chaotic social environment that has had long-term repercussions for all of society.

Mary Beth Bonacci, the well-known writer and lecturer on sexual morality said in an interview on Ignatius Insight, the website of Ignatius Publishing, that the mass confusion has led to great difficulties for young people today. When asked what is the biggest problem facing them, Bonacci said succinctly, "Popular culture."

Bonacci said, "The messages bombarding teens every hour of every day from music, television, movies and the Internet all glamorize values that are absolutely antithetical to the Christian message."

Bonacci warned parents to be vigilant in the schools saying, "Parents of kids in public schools need to keep close tabs on what their kids are learning, and be ready to pull them out if the school is doing things that are objectionable."

Christian Heritage Party Vol 12 No 47

Take a close, close look at the Liberals' national day-care scheme. Never mind the propaganda; what do you suppose is really behind it?

Recently, I pointed out that the day-care education industry desperately wants this plan, which will give them a pipeline into the taxpayers' pockets, and make so-called "Early Childhood Education" a public-sector growth industry.

But who else wants this plan to sovietize Canada's children? And why?

The motive certainly cannot be concern for the children: an abundance of evidence shows that institutional day-care-even the best of it-can actually be harmful: from the Harvard Longitudinal Study, to researchers like John Bowlby and Peter Cook, to the Guelph University study which found that most institutional day-care merely "warehouses" children.

The developmental problems of day-care children include a pronounced inability to form emotional attachments. We're just beginning to see the first major "day-care generation" mature into troubled teens.

And the motive is certainly not the wishes of parents: in a 2004 survey by the Vanier Institute, parents were asked to rank seven child-care choices-and day-care centres came in dead last! Sylvia LeRoy of the Fraser Institute reports that 90 percent of mothers and 84 percent of fathers who are married and working full-time would rather work part-time, and be able to care for their own children-if they could afford it.

So who wants both parents out working? Ottawa has been promoting this unhealthy, undesirable idea since the 1970s. Why? Because it provides much more revenue for the central Government, which in turn gives Ottawa more power to manipulate the public.

Putting both parents to work actually provides very little added income for their families: by the time child-care expenses, travel costs, clothing for work and meals away from home are deducted, the average second income nets less than $1,000 a month. Hardly enough to justify the added stress and the adverse effects on the children!

Daycare not only damages children psychologically-it is also physiologically harmful: the incidence of disease, from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to middle-ear infections, is several times higher in day-care children than in children raised at home.

With Canada's health-care system under stress, that makes no sense at all!

So then, why the push for so-called "Early Childhood Education"?

I truly believe it's because those who are using Government as a social engineering tool want to get at our children at ever-younger ages, to be able to alienate them from their parents' convictions and beliefs. Those who want to change the nation by shaping your children's minds think they know-better than parents-how those young minds should be shaped.

They're already teaching them tolerance for sexual deviance, and intolerance for moral absolutes-but they hope to make their brainwashing campaigns even more effective by starting at ever-younger ages. They want children to be guided by their peers, not by moral principles. Hence the stress in school on cooperation, rather than competition. Individualism is out, and Orwellian 'group-think' is in.

Parent-care is not only the best care for children-who should be our first concern-but it's also the best way to transmit, from one generation to the next, the culture that built our civilization.

Beware of those who want to short-circuit that transmission of moral principles-which is the only true 'early childhood education'. Anything else should be called by its real name: infant indoctrination.

London, England (LifeNews.com) - A British school is coming under fire for giving pregnancy tests to girls as young as 11 without letting parents know about it. Observers say the situation gives credence to a lawsuit a British woman has filed requiring parental notification for any abortion or sexual health matters. The school, Leon School and Sports College located in Lakes Estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, has 700 students between the ages of 11 and 19. The school developed a program to tests students for pregnancies because of skyrocketing teen pregnancy rates in that part of England. Approximately 59 percent of girls between 15 and 17 become pregnant, according to government statistics. Headmaster Simon Viccars instituted the program but did not tell parents about it. In an interview with the London Daily Mail, he defended it. "We have decided to offer pregnancy testing for those young girls who have a need," he said. "We have not consulted parents on this. We have taken the lead. It has been backed totally by the school's governing body and we have consulted the local health authority."

(Eerdmans/Associated Press)
David F. Wells, author of Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World.

By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press

As the 21st century began, University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter produced a jeremiad that deserved far more attention than it received: The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil (Basic Books).

Mr. Hunter contended that the United States is suffering a dangerous decline
in "character" and morality among youth, and criticized public schools' attempts at moral education and "values clarification."

He said educators, misled by psychology, treat morality in terms of preferences, supposing that the inherently moral self should be liberated to make autonomous decisions. That never works, he claimed; history and experience show that morality stems from strongly held, socially shared beliefs about absolute rights and wrongs.

For most people in most situations, religion provides those beliefs, and in the West the Bible is crucial. Religion as such isn't required, he wrote, but at least the equivalent is necessary because morality becomes "binding on individual conscience only in the particularity of moral traditions and the communities that embody them."

With those conditions absent, "character is dead," he asserted. "Its time has passed." And Americans' religious diversity and increasing moral relativism add to the difficulties.

He thought Americans confront the problem haplessly as they "tinker with the system," promote slogans ("just say no"), complain about Hollywood, post the Ten Commandments, impose curfews or require school uniforms and metal detectors.

Effective moral education, he wrote, survives within "pockets" of American society that resist the wider culture, uphold authentic moral visions and teach "not only how to be good but why." Tenets shared among these varied moral subcultures will provide the hope for change, he concluded. If particular communities are the key, that underscores the importance of a new manifesto from theologian David F. Wells: Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World (Eerdmans).

Mr. Wells teaches at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, a key evangelical Protestant school. Polls indicate that the growing and assertive evangelical movement forms the largest sector of religiously active Americans.

But Mr. Wells thinks his own movement is going soft, less insistent about doctrinal beliefs and moral teachings despite persistent demands that some make in the political sphere.

De-emphasis on doctrine and a decline of serious preaching, he charges, cause "compromise, trendiness and manipulation which ends up promoting worldly agendas, be they political, social, ideological or personal, in place of biblical truth."

"A script is being written, however unwittingly, for the church's undoing, not in one cataclysmic moment, but in a slow, inexorable slide."

As Bible-based U.S. Christianity suffers internal dry rot, he says, it confronts two powerful outside challenges: competition from world religions and "postmodern" thinkers' attack upon the very notion of truth.

The following form is from the Canada Family Action Coalition.

Parents' Directive Regarding the Education of Their Children

To the administrative authorities of _________________________ School

in _______________ in the province of _____________________:

Regarding our children, namely: ______________________________________

We as parents are desirous of the welfare of our children in every aspect of their lives. We are thankful for the positive opportunities for education which are available in our country, and for teachers in our schools who generously devote their time to teaching the children and youth of our nation.

Conscious that parents are the first educators of their children and that they continue to bear a prime responsibility for their education, we are communicating the following statement of wishes regarding our children's education. We request that this statement be kept on file in the school to which we have entrusted our children and that it be brought to the attention of all those teachers and other staff members who will be charged with dealing with our children. We respectfully issue this statement as a legal directive to school authorities and personnel.

Holding certain principles regarding the family as the basis for our own teaching of our child or children, we desire that those principles should in no way be undermined. We hold as an ideal the concept of the family as founded on the life-long commitment of one man and one woman to one another in marriage and on their commitment to the welfare of their children. Nothing taught to our children in the school should undermine respect for this principle. The school should seek the welfare of all children entrusted to it and to the best of its ability protect all from harassment, but it shall in no way teach our children that concepts of the family diverging from our ideal are equal or superior to that ideal.

We hold to the belief that human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and nothing taught to our child or children in the school should undermine respect for this principle.

We as parents have signed two copies of this document as an indication of our wishes. We request that you return one copy with the signature of the school principal as an indication of his or her having received the document. We further request that any principal succeeding the present one shall likewise sign this document.

Dated this ____________ day of _______________, in the year ___________

at _________________________ in the province of _________________________

Parents' signatures: ________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Principal's signature: ________________________________________________

"As shocking as it may seem, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that courts--not parents--have the final authority on when and what to teach children about sex education."

"In their ruling, the Court determined that parents DO NOT have a fundamental right to control when, where and how their children are taught about sex. Rather, the Court ruled, that right belongs to activist judges." AFA

Read more...

By Hilary White

ST. PAUL/MINNEAPOLIS, November 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This week, Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary will give a talk to a group of Christian pastors in Eden Prairie Minnesota, on the ramifications of the Canadian redefinition of marriage. Henry spoke to a local reporter yesterday saying that the passage of the same-sex "marriage" law has triggered a social revolution in Canada.

In the last two years, Bishop Henry has endeared himself to family advocates in Canada as the only member of the Canadian Catholic hierarchy to be so outspoken in his opposition to the homosexual political agenda as to risk prosecution. His courage has attracted attention in the United States where laws legalizing same-sex unions are pending in many jurisdictions and the fight to preserve marriage is often being more agressively carried on by Christians, church leaders and others than it has been so far in "nice" Canada.

Henry's comments appeared in the Minnesota Star Tribune, in which he said the legal alteration has created an oppressive atmosphere in Canada where public opposition to the homosexual legal juggernaut is outlawed and children are forcibly indoctrinated in the public schools.

Minnesota is currently facing a state proposal to preserve the traditional legal definition of marriage and is under siege from homosexual activists and their supporters who are using, says Henry, exactly the same rhetoric that worked to gain their ends in Canada.

He told Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Katherine Kersten that, as in Minnesota, voters in Canada were told that the change would not affect any existing marriages but would merely expand marriage to make it more fair and "inclusive."

The change, he pointed out, means not that all marriages are treated equally, but that any preference for normal male/female marriage can be interpreted as unconstitutionally discriminatory, a "violation of human rights".

"Canadians who believe in the historic definition of marriage, who believe that children need a mother and father, are now the legal equivalent of racists," Henry said.

Henry said that the Canadian legal establishment is "combing through its laws and institutions to remove evidence of heterosexist discrimination." References in law and government to the "wife," "husband," "mother," "father," are being eliminated across the board.

Among the hottest battlegrounds are Canadian schools, Henry says. "Children will have to be taught about homosexual acts in health class, as they now are about heterosexual acts."

Such classes and curriculum material are in fact already in place, but until the passage of the law, parents could opt their children out. Henry said, "Books that promote same-sex marriage are being introduced in some elementary schools. In one action, complainants have demanded 'positive queer role models' across the whole curriculum. If parents complain, they'll be branded as homophobes."

The enforcers of the new Canadian morality are, says Henry, the Human Rights Tribunals, an extra-judicial "court" that does not recognize a requirement to follow established legal practices that make up due process. "The human rights tribunals have become like thought police."

Henry himself has experienced this personally, "In Canada, you can now use the coercive powers of the state to silence opposition."

Read coverage in the Minnesota Star Tribune:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5711527.html

See LifeSiteNews.com's page of resources on marriage:
http://www.lifesite.net/features/marriage_defence/

WASHINGTON, November 4, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The debate over abstinence education in the United States went up a few notches yesterday with 'safe sex' proponents storming the stage at an abstinence education conference. At the "Strengthening Programs Through Scientific Evaluation" conference, hosted by the Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs and Administration for Children and Families, activists opposed to abstinence education, physically accosted Deputy Assistant to the President, Claude Allen.

While abstinence education proponents maintained a professional environment, Allen was aggressively overcrowded as safe sex proponents attempted to take over the podium, eyewitnesses report.

After police removed the demonstrators, Allen gave a message of strong support for abstinence education because it gives the best chances for youth to become healthy, well adjusted adults. Abstinence Clearinghouse, an organization involved in the promotion of abstinence education, reports that the group which initiated the violence was Housing Works, which like other 'safe sex' proponents advocates the usual explicit, condom-based sex education.

Abstinence Clearinghouse has called on prominent safe sex education proponents to condemn the violence at the conference.

By Erin Curry
Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Children born out of wedlock today are more likely to have mothers in their early 20s than teens, according to new data from the National Center for Health Statistics that prompted leaders of the True Love Waits abstinence movement to point to virginity pledges as a leading factor in the reduction of teen pregnancies.

A record high number of 1.5 million babies were born to unwed mothers last year, but the surprising trend is that most of those moms were not teens, according to a report on the data by USA Today Oct. 31.

While teens accounted for half of all unwed births in 1970, they accounted for but only 24 percent of the total in 2004.

For women ages 20-24, 55 percent of births last year were to unwed mothers, and the figure was almost 28 percent for ages 25-29, the study said.

From 2002 to 2004, births to unwed mothers ages 25-29 jumped more than 14 percent, and for mothers ages 20-24, the number rose 7 percent.

"This new report is a composite of both good news and bad news," said Richard Ross, professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spokesperson for the international True Love Waits campaign.

"About the best news is that teens who once accounted for 50 percent of unwed births now represent only 24 percent," Ross said. "I am sure the condom crowd will want to take most of the credit for this drop, but the facts argue otherwise."

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which is funded by more than 17 federal agencies, show that the behavior of adolescents who have made a virginity pledge is significantly different from that of peers who have not made a pledge, Ross noted.

After reviewing the data from the Ad Health study, the Heritage Foundation concluded that teenage girls who have taken a virginity pledge are one-third less likely to experience a pregnancy before age 18, Ross said. Girls who are strong pledgers (defined as those who are consistent in reporting a virginity pledge in the succeeding waves of the Ad Health survey) are more than 50 percent less likely to have a teen pregnancy than non-pledgers.

"Condoms are not the issue. Teenagers who choose abstinence are, in significant numbers, just not having sex," Ross told Baptist Press.

The Heritage Foundation in 2004 also said teens who make a virginity pledge are far less likely to be sexually active during high school years. Nearly two-thirds of teens who have never taken a pledge are sexually active before age 18, but only 30 percent of teens who consistently report having made a pledge become sexually active before age 18.

USA Today also noted that unwed celebrities may have popularized the single-mom baby boom, even though experts say unwed mothers are more likely to be economically disadvantaged.

"Young adults are acting on their attitudes. They are doing what they think is OK," Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said, pointing to federal data that found almost two-thirds of girls ages 15-19 say it's acceptable for an unwed woman to have a child, USA Today reported.

Jimmy Hester, senior director of student ministry publishing at LifeWay Christian Resources and a spokesman for True Love Waits, told BP the stats that show girls are having children out of wedlock less in their teens and more in their 20s indicates leaders "haven't convinced them that what's best for them and their child is to wait until marriage."

"It appears that True Love Waits and the abstinence movement are influencing young women's decisions," Hester said. "Even so, we still have popular trends to confront, such as the one mentioned in the article: 'Unwed celebrities may have popularized the single-mom baby boom.' We also have to continue educating young girls that it is not 'OK for an unwed woman to have a child.'"

Abstinence campaigns create an "identity movement" or "moral community" that provides peer support for teenagers and helps them say no to sex outside marriage when the temptation arises, Hester said. But there are way too many girls who have not yet joined that kind of support system.

"Despite the progress made over the past decade, much work remains to be done," he said. "The United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births in the industrialized world, resulting in severe economic and social costs, not to mention the personal pain early sexual activity places upon teenagers and their families."

In an effort to address the ongoing need, True Love Waits has launched True Love Waits Takes the Town, Hester said, which is an initiative that encourages cities to take a community-wide approach to promoting abstinence. Schools, governments, businesses, churches, health organizations and others are urged to unite around the common goal of helping teenagers choose abstinence and keep a commitment to purity.

"True Love Waits Takes the Town supports students and challenges community leaders to develop a unified message that the healthiest, best and most godly approach to sexuality is to delay sexual involvement until marriage," Hester said.

SAN FRANCISCO, November 3, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Palmdale school district in California wanted children in the first, third and fifth grades to think about sex as part of a study on "barriers to learning." When parents took the Palmdale school district to court, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them.

The court ruled that, "There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children...Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."

The group of parents, outraged that their young children were being exposed to explicit sexual suggestions, argued that parents had the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs."

Advocates of family rights have long complained that public schools are being used to program children in modern ideas of sexual libertinism. Homosexual activists, Planned Parenthood, and a host of well-funded organizations, with the complicity of activist courts dedicated to the spread of the sexual revolution have long targeted school children for early indoctrination.

The survey, administered in conjunction with the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University and the Children's Bureau of Southern California, asked the children, some as young as seven, to rate mental distractions on a scale from "never" to "almost all the time." The items included, "Touching my private parts too much," "Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside,' "Can't stop thinking about sex," "Having sex feelings in my body."

A spokesman for Focus of the Family said, "Anyone who wonders why pro-family organizations like ours have been so concerned about activist courts only has to look at this case."

In his opinion Judge Stephen Reinhardt agreed with an earlier decision that the parents’ civil rights had not been violated, "and that even if they had, the School District is immune from suit." "In fact" he added, "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."

Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus said, "The 9th Circuit did more than rule against parents who were upset that their elementary-school-aged children were being asked explicit questions about sex in class. They told all parents they have no right to protest what public schools tell their children."

The Ninth Circuit and particularly Stephen Reinhardt are infamous for leftist judicial activism. Reinhardt’s reputation has long been established as one of the most overturned judges in US judicial history. By 1997, the Supreme Court had unanimously overturned seven of his rulings, including one in which he said there is a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. He is on record as saying that abortion is a "fundamental right" and in 1993, wrote in the Washington Post about the need for openly homosexual judges.

The parents in the Palmdale School District have a reasonable expectation that an appeal to the Supreme Court would result in a reversal of the ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court has found it necessary to reverse the Ninth Circuit more than all other appellate courts combined. A former Supreme Court clerk told the Weekly Standard in 1997 that justices have privately referred to Reinhardt as a "renegade judge" and give his opinions extra scrutiny.

Read Judge Reinhardt's opinion:

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/E8695945B7C6F6B5882570AD0051320A/

Weekly Standard article on Reinhardt's judicial activism:

http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/414ilyss.asp