President Obama wasn’t just opposed to abstinence — he practiced it when it came to funding conservative sex ed. For eight years, he poured millions of dollars down the drain of “comprehensive” sex education, unraveling President Bush’s positive progress on teen pregnancy in the process. After two terms of Obama’s if-it-feels-good-do-it approach, most experts agree he accomplished one thing: making the situation worse. “Compared with their peers,” a 2016 study found, “teenagers in the [government’s programs] were more likely to begin having sex … and more likely to get pregnant.” And it’s no wonder. The curriculum is so extreme that 40 percent of young people actually said they felt more pressure to engage in sex from their sex ed classes than from their boyfriends or girlfriends! Like so many of the failed programs and policies of the Obama administration, the federal government needs to return to an approach that a) either empowers parents to decide what their children are taught and/or b) includes proven abstinence-based programs that respect and value teens.

Yesterday, with our friends at Ascend, FRC co-hosted a special Hill briefing aimed at “Rethinking Sex Ed” in public policy. In late 2015, when none of President Obama’s strategies were working, Congress agreed to a modest $10 million bump in grants for the kinds of sexual risk avoidance (SRA) messaging that families want. But, as Ascend points out, 90 cents of every federal sex ed dollar still goes to programs that not only normalize but encourage­ early intimacy. That doesn’t make financial sense — not when as many as 60 percent of teenagers are willing to wait, and certainly not when parents on both sides of the political spectrum prefer SRA lessons over the risk reduction that Planned Parenthood and other liberal groups preach. As Valerie Huber points out, “In an increasingly sexualized culture, ALL youth, regardless of where they come from or their past sexual experience, need and deserve the information that can help them make choices to eliminate the risk.”

Naturally, events like ours send people like Cecile Richards into a full-blown panic. With Congress on the verge of defunding Planned Parenthood, it can’t stand the competition for its other federal gravy train: liberal sex ed. Let’s not forget: Planned Parenthood doesn’t make any money encouraging abstinence. Its strategy is to make sex appealing to young people so that they’ll be the next wave of contraception users. Then, when the birth control it provides fails (as the group expects it will), those same teenagers become the next generation of abortion consumers. Right now, their monopoly on liberal sex ed isn’t just profitable, it’s also a down payment on future business. That might explain why Richards went on the offensive with an op-ed in The Hill slamming our briefing with congressional staff.

Desperate to protect her funding, her staff tells a whopper right off the bat. “First, almost no abstinence-only program which has undergone rigorous evaluation has been shown to have any effect on young people’s behavior.” What does she call the Centers for Disease Control’s groundbreaking report this past December? The government’s own agency found that teaching kids to save sex for marriage doesn’t just spare them from pregnancy and disease but a whole host of other health risks! Students in grades 9-12 who made good decisions about sex were just as likely (or more!) to make other positive choices — from bike helmet and seat belt use to substance abuse, diet, doctor’s visits, exercise, and even tanning bed use. Obviously, the values our teenagers hold have a much bigger impact on the rest of their lives than most people realized. And in this case, one good decision leads to another.

That might matter to an organization with teenagers’ best interests at heart. Instead, Planned Parenthood’s Leslie Cantor ignores the data and tries to paint SRA as a “failed policy.” “We can all agree that learning about abstinence and delaying sex is an important part of any pregnancy prevention or sex education program,” she writes. If that’s true, they certainly have an interesting way of showing it! Not only is Planned Parenthood’s curriculum virtually silent on risk avoidance, but Cantor just spent 840 words discrediting the same approach she claims to embrace! The bottom line for Planned Parenthood is its bottom line. When abortion is your biggest moneymaker, then there’s nothing that hurts business more than teenagers waiting to have sex.

Right now, America is at a crossroads. Our public policy should reinforce not only what parents and students want but what’s healthiest for children. And Americans may disagree about the effectiveness of birth control, but every study says the same thing about abstinence: the kids who practice it don’t get diseases and don’t get pregnant!

Originally published here.

Air Force Throttles Back Speech

It’s a good thing America isn’t fighting a war on political correctness, because our military would be losing. After eight years of President Obama, some habits are tough to break — including over-the-top “sensitivity” training. At the Lackland Air Force Base, the lingering effects of the last commander-in-chief are still being felt in overreaching policies and memos like the one Fox News’s Todd Starnes exposed yesterday. According to an anonymous source, base leaders sent an email to airmen outlining words phrases that might be considered “offensive.” Guess what topped the list? “Boy” and “Girl.” “Please be cognizant,” the email read, “that such conduct is 100 percent zero tolerance in or outside of the work climate. Let’s capitalize on our richly diverse climate, and help others seek assistance if they are struggling with compliance.”

Now, obviously, there were legitimate examples included on the list, but when did a simple acknowledgement of a biological reality — someone’s gender — become offensive? Have we come so far that simply uttering a person’s sex is cause for chastisement? And “boys” and “girls” aren’t the only victims. Airmen are also warned against the use of “colonial,” “blacklist,” “blackmail,” “blackball,” “sounds Greek to me,” “too many chiefs, not enough Indians,” and “blondes have more fun.” Of course, when Todd reached out to the base, a spokesman tried to backpedal, insisting that these were just suggestions and that the Air Force “has no list of prohibited terms.” Apparently, “100 percent zero tolerance” means something else in the military, Todd joked.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of the kind of mess left behind by the Obama administration. And while no one can undo eight years of anti-faith, anti-American PC overnight, the Trump team has its work cut out for it in a military decimated by “suggestions” like this one. As FRC’s Lt. General Jerry Boykin has said, it’s no wonder the troop morale is in the gender-free toilet. “They spent all their training time in classrooms listening to lectures on diversity, tolerance, and inclusion instead of the Military Code of Conduct. Talk to any service member today and you will find that a majority of them will express great frustration with the amount of time that they spend in these lectures at the expense of preparing for war.” “We must,” he went on, “restore the warrior culture and ethos because the enemies of this nation will have no mercy and will not care about how well versed we are on tolerance, inclusion, diversity, or sensitivity. All they will be concerned with is whether we are capable of and willing to kill or capture them on the battlefield.”

Originally published here.

Boston to LGBTs: Don’t Reign on Our Parade

In Boston, the only thing on parade for St. Patrick’s Day has been the far-Left agenda. After decades of keeping the celebration statement-free, liberal groups finally forced organizers to drop their ban on groups with a political agenda in 2015. What used to be a sea of green turned into a mass of rainbows — forcing Catholic groups like the Knights of Columbus to pull out of their own parade.

No more, said organizers. After violating the agreement not to march under their own banners, the LGBT group OutVets was ousted from this year’s festivities. Not only did the organization turn in its application late, but in 2016 it openly violated the code of conduct. The council for the parade was clear: “[We] will not allow the advertisement or display of one’s sexual orientation as a topic that should in any way be depicted as a theme of our parade.” That didn’t sit well with OutVets founder Bryan Bishop, who fired back, “I will not alter our logo. If they want me to change the identity of this organization… absolutely not.” Those are the rules, the council replied, and voted 9-4 to drop the group from this year’s parade.

But the Left won’t go quietly! The decision ignited a firestorm from liberal activists. Within hours, the Chief Marshal dropped out of the event, along with one of the parade’s sponsors. “I will not tolerate discrimination in our city of any form,” Mayor Martin Walsh said in a statement. “I will not be marching in the parade unless this is resolved. Anyone who values what our city stands for should do the same.” Gov. Charlie Baker also piled on, insisting that it “didn’t make any sense” to bar the group. He, like so many of the Left’s flame-throwers, seems perfectly happy to ignore the fact that not only did OutVets miss the deadline (and expect special treatment), but the group refused to abide by the parade’s rules! Boston’s organizers have no objections to including LGBT groups, but they — like everyone else – are expected to honor the code of conduct.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.