Abstinence=Bigotry?

The Liberty Council has a grassroots program going on in high schools around the nation today to have kids wear white t-shirts to school to help promote the idea that abstinence is a good thing. The kids also plan on distributing pro-abstinence literature to other students.

Given the current state of teenage pregnancies and STDs, is this really all that bad a thing, to encourage kids to wait until they're married before having sex?

said Alice Leeds, a spokeswoman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "It's redefining it in their context to conform to their frankly bigoted agenda." (emphasis mine)

Now Ms. Leeds was referring to the plan to call today a "Day of Purity" as an abomination because it is using the word "purity" in a manner in which she does not approve (but a manner which is consistent with common usage of the word for the last few hundred years).

But how can she honestly sit there and claim that promoting abstinence - even with an unapproved, non-PC use of the word purity - is bigoted? Since when did responsibility become bigotry? Since when did morality, at least that accepted by a large segment of the population, become bigotry?

There is nothing bigoted about the promotion of abstinence. It may be a disagreeable position for Ms. Leeds, and one that she would not teach to her own children, but not every disagreeable position is bigotry. Placing more value on purity than promiscuity does not a bigot make. If Ms. Leeds ever wants to have her message of free same sex love accepted, she needs to become more accepting herself.

And she's not the only one out there complaining about the movement:

Eliza Byard, deputy executive director for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, said in an e-mail that her group applauded any effort to promote healthy sexual choices by young people.

"Unfortunately, this program seems to have a limited idea of what that means and doesn't appear designed to provide the kind of information students really need," she said.

"Doesn't appear designed to provide the kind of information students really need." That sentence, more than any other in the article, really, really bugs me.

Why is there an assumption that all sides of every issue must be presented at all times? This effort by the Liberty Counsel is engaging in advocacy. They believe strongly in a certain position and want to promote the benefits to others of taking that position. In a court, do we expect the defense to assist in the prosecution while the prosecution assists in the defense? No. We have an advesarial system set up so that both sides of the story are presented and a jury determines which side is the better choice. Ideas are really no different. The grand marketplace of ideas is also advesarial. But instead of lawyers, the marketplace of ideas uses advocates. Sometimes they are politicians. Sometimes they are private citizens or organizations. But if we don't expect the State Attorney to defend a murderer, why should we expect a church group to defend or educate about promiscuity?

If Ms. Byard feel so strongly that an important part of sex education is being left out then she should go out and advocate it. Just like the Liberty Council is. Let the ideas of abstinence and promiscuity fight it out in the marketplace of ideas. Surely if Ms. Byard doesn't feel a twinge of embarassment or guilt at going forth and recommending that girls become sluts. Surely she has no concern with going out and recommending that teenage boys act on their urges with anyone, male or female, who happens to be willing.

Or maybe she does have issues with going out and publically advocating such positions. Maybe Ms. Leeds knows that she cannot legitimately win in the marketplace of ideas, so she tries to brand the abstinence message as bigotry, hoping that the stigma of the word will be enough to make up for her lack of intellectual argument.

I applaud the Liberty Council for making an effort. I don't believe that they'll be too successful as the free love crowd has already made some serious inroads in the educational system - inroads that will be very difficult to reverse. But they have taken a position and they are advocating it in an adult, responsible manner. Got to give credit where credit is due.

Also, as an aside, I am not attacking homosexuality here, only unfettered promiscuity. Please don't read in to this something that is not there.