Category Archives: Media

Emerging Questions for Emerging Answers

November 12, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

A pattern has emerged. Five easy steps, repeated each year, continue to promote the notion that adults should forget teaching teens the benefits of remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.

Step one: Those in favor of promoting contraception to our young people as “safe and protected sex” publish a Report suggesting sexual abstinence for teens is an impossible … and possibly undesirable … goal.

Step two: The liberal media quickly skims for any phrase that might give them a justification … no matter how slight … to print bold headlines declaring that abstinence education is a failure.

Step three: Repeat “Step Two” ad nauseam.

Step four: Experts fully and thoughtfully analyze said Report, revealing glaring errors, omissions, and inaccuracies in the report. Press releases are issued: the Report fails to qualify as research and is demonstrated to be a thinly disguised political tract controlled by bias.

Step five: The liberal media ignores their own prejudiced reporting of flawed “research.” No headlines appear to retract their errant headlines. The media could take responsibility and announce, “We goofed,” “We messed up,” “We were wrong.” But they don’t.

The latest report to trigger this five-step pattern, Emerging Answers 2007, was issued with great fanfare this month by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies. Written by Douglas Kirby, Ph.D., it was quickly raised on high by the liberal media … ad nauseam … and used to “prove” that … you guessed it … teaching sexual abstinence to teens is a failed enterprise.

Now that the media has finished its part in this charade and departed for other urgent news flashes, thoughtful experts will be able to take the time to analyze Dr. Kirby’s work and put forward their responses. I offer the following Emerging Questions for their consideration:

  1. Why is researcher bias ignored? The introduction to the report states, “Dr. Kirby thought it important to also note that ETR Associates also developed and continues to market several of the curricula reviewed in Emerging Answers 2007.” Plainly speaking, Dr. Kirby makes money selling the curricula he helped write and is now “researching.”
  • Listed as the sole author of the report, Kirby also gives credit to his Research Associate for “important contributions” … none other than an ETR Associates employee of eight years. Further, ETR staff Lori Rolleri and Karin Coyle are thanked for helping determine the topics covered by the report and creating its “balance.”
  • Amazingly, The National Campaign announces these conflicts of interest with thanks to Dr. Kirby for his admission, as if the admission absolves both of them from any professional or ethical challenges. Would this work for the tobacco industry?
  1. Why do The National Campaign and Kirby continue to isolate and address only one of many consequences of teen sex … teen pregnancy? Throughout the report, teen pregnancy is identified as the target for educational programs and the basis for Kirby’s evaluation. If there are fewer pregnancies, the program succeeds? No matter how much sex adolescents are having? No matter the age of the adolescents having sex?
  • This emphasis on teen pregnancy is a foundational research bias. It defines what will be accepted as “success” by the researcher. Consider an 11-year-old who is sexually active. One program may prevent pregnancy by helping her become sexually abstinent. Another program may inject her with Depo Provera. Which approach is successful?
  1. Where are the many positive evaluations of abstinence-until-marriage programs and curricula? These exist. Could their exclusion from Kirby’s “balanced consideration of topics” have anything to do with the research bias set up from the outset in the design of the study favoring contraception for adolescents?
  1. Why is medically accurate information on STDs minimized and even mischaracterized in its importance for teens, suggesting that “protecting” teens from pregnancy is the same as “protecting” teens from STDs? Kirby refers to “behavior that affects the transmission of STDs” and to “protection against pregnancy and STD” as if such “protection” actually exists.

Behavior doesn’t cause STDs. Bacterium and virus are the culprits. The research on their individual infectivity for the major STDs is clear. Condoms have a limited ability to prevent STDs. Chemical contraceptives have NO effectiveness.

In good time, the answers to these and other Emerging Questions will emerge. They will be developed by experts in the field of teen sex who will finally be able to review the full 204-page report in detail. Their answers will shed great light on teen sex and truly effective ways to intervene.

Most likely, “Programs That Work” will actually include many abstinence-until-marriage programs overlooked by Dr. Kirby and The National Campaign. These abstinence programs will focus on teen sex as an inherently risky behavior and will teach teens the truth about the many negative consequences, in addition to pregnancy, related to teen sex.

When that time comes, one great question remains: Will the press take note, much less care? Never mind the ad nauseam. Will the truth, when it fails to conform to media bias, ever make even one headline?

Some Hate Is Better than Other Hate

October 8, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Murder is outlawed.  Murder, since the death of Abel at the hands of Cain, has been the ultimate offense against our brother.  Listen! God commands Cain.  Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.

Cain murdered Abel.  God passed judgment on the crime.  Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood.

It was murder.  And it was punished by God.  He told Cain, When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you.  You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.  But Abel’s murder wasn’t a hate crime.  At least according to modern law, it wasn’t a hate crime.

Cain told God, My punishment is more than I can bear.  But he can be grateful he was only punished by God’s justice and not by modern American justice.  Today’s punishment would have been so much worse…had it been a hate crime.

Hate crimes are crimes more dastardly than mere crime.  They are special crimes defined by hate…that is, a certain kind of hate…depending on who you hate.

In the United States federal prosecution is possible for hate crimes committed on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity.  To date, 45 states and the District of Columbia have statutes criminalizing various types of hate crimes, and 31 states and the District of Columbia have statutes creating a civil cause of action, in addition to the criminal penalty, for similar acts.

But that is not enough for some.  As of October, 2007, congress is considering legislation that would add gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability to the list.

With all of this attention to the types of hate that might motivate crime, one would think that we have covered the worst of deeds with our modern legalese.  One would think.

King David murdered Uriah the Hittite?  Hate?  Not under the new improved hate crimes law.  His was the lesser, kinder kind of murder, killing a man to gain access to his beautiful wife.

What if O.J. Simpson actually confessed to the two brutal murders proved to be his deed by blood and DNA?  He would finally be imprisoned to pay for the slaughter.  But hate?  Nope.  These were the lesser, kinder kind of murders, killing a wife who wanted her freedom and a man who made the ultimate sacrifice to save her.

By definition, until now, murder has always been considered a hate crime.  But soon, encoding into our law a special kind of crime defined as hate, we will have by exclusion reduced all other crimes, including murders, to something less than.

Creating one class of victim that is hurt by hate, to the exclusion of other victims who are merely annoyed by hate, we have fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy that predicted the reduction of equality into something other than.  All animals are created equal…but some are more equal than others.

We have become too sophisticated to see the obvious.  By legally reserving our deepest compassion for a limited set of victims, we have diminished our ability to protect one another in a civilized world where hate is called what it is regardless of who is hated.

Murder is final.  It is no less painful because the law says it is the lesser, kinder murder.

The more we work to define what kinds of hate are worse than others, the more we all need to worry about being left behind in the group of people outside the circle of protection.  There are no degrees of good hate and kinder murder.  Hate is hate.

Happy Teens

August 20, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Mass Marketing 101 teaches that successful marketing campaigns sell with promises of happiness.  Thus, we end up with hamburgers in the hands of Paris Hilton, scantily clad and writhing seductively in suds washing over the ultimate in cars, a Bentley.

This 2005 television ad had it all…a famous pretty girl, a luxurious car and sex…the ultimate symbols of human happiness.  By all accounts, Carl’s Junior executives were pleased.

This formula is repeated day in and out.  And in modern America, the formula has made its way from adult ad campaigns to those targeting teens…and their younger brothers and sisters.  Playboy bunnies are appliquéd to tops for toddlers, and rhinestones spell out Hey Baby! on the seat of velveteen pants riding low on the hips of ten-year-olds.

Sex sells.  This has become a truism in Mass Marketing 101.  Have a buxom beauty hold a widget while staring seductively through the camera lens, and you’ll sell a million widgets.  If we buy their widget, we will be best friends with the buxom beauty and we will be happy.

Everywhere, sex is connected with happiness.  Entire prime time television series serve up episode after episode where pretty people spend all of their time thinking, talking and doing sex.  And sex educators take their cue.

Paid by Planned Parenthood, educators stand in front of teens and remind them that “sex is natural…when you are ready, we can show you how to do it ‘responsibly’…your parents don’t have to know…after all, sex is your right…you have a right to be happy…and sex is the basic human drive that leads to happiness.”

Consequences?  Well, if you manage to encounter a consequence when your saferrrrrrrrr sex practices fail to “protect you,” Planned Parenthood has a tool kit of remedies.  You can detect your consequences through testing.  You can treat your consequences with drugs.  And you can destroy your consequences with a “surgical procedure.”  After all, you have a right to be happy.

This is the world we have created for our teens…to make them happy.

Wrong!  We are wrong.  We have been wrong for years.  And now a poll by The Associated Press and MTV of 1,280 young people ages 13-24 lays out for adults what our teens really want in order to be happy.

“What makes you happy?”  Teens resoundingly reply, “spending time with family.”  Kristiana St. John, 17, from Queens, New York, says, “They’re my foundation…My mom tells me that even if I do something stupid, she’s still going to love me no matter what.  Just knowing that makes me feel very happy and blessed.”

Money?  Almost no teens responded “money” when asked what makes them happy.

Sex?  In spite of the hard sell by television and the saferrrrrrrrr promises of Planned Parenthood, “being sexually active actually leads to less happiness among 13-17 year olds according to the survey.  If you’re 18 to 24, sex might lead to more happiness in the moment, but not in general.”

Future Goals?  Marriage.  Ninety-two percent of these young people either definitely or probably want to get married.

Religion?  More than half of the young people said they believed in a higher power that has an influence over their happiness…nearly half said religion and spirituality are very important to them.

Reading through extended reports on the survey, the good news is that teens seem to know more about happiness than we give them credit for.  If we wanted to help them move toward happiness,

  • we would affirm the value of religion and its role in their life and decisions,
  • we would help them maintain a “general stress-free feeling” where they were “not worried about anything”,
  • we would teach them skills needed to create successful relationships leading to happy marriages,
  • we would strengthen the bonds between students and their parents, and
  • we would link the deepest desires of young people for education, family, marriage and children into a meaningful life plan.

The best news for parents and adults is that we have educators who have made it their goal to truly help teens reach happiness.  This latest survey and its results confirm what these educators find from their work in the classrooms.

Who are these educators?  Working with many different agencies and programs around the country, they teach and encourage teens to abstain from sex until marriage as a way to eliminate stress and negative consequences from their life.  They build bonds between parents and teens.  They support parental goals by giving teens medically-accurate information.  And they teach life-skills to help in developing healthy relationships today and in building a foundation for healthy marriages and parenting in the future.

These educators are leading the way to happiness for teens.  Yet, they struggle against the “wisdom” of a culture saturated with “sex-will-make-you-happy” messages and promises that, if not “safe,” sex can at least be “saferrrrrrrrrr.”

You can play a part in the effort to support teens in their quest for happiness.  Check out the National Abstinence Education Association at www.abstinenceassociation.org.  Review the research and reports that tell the truth about abstinence education.  And watch for action alerts as Congress debates whether students should be able to have abstinence education.

It is time for us to take hold of the messages sold to our teens by the media and by “sex-will-make-you-happy” teachers.  Our teens have told us what they need in order to be happy.  It is time for us to listen.

The Real Problem with Abstinence Education

August 13, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Opponents of abstinence education have spent the past ten years denouncing these important health education programs.  Their attacks are relentless.

Opponents are not content with allowing abstinence programs to serve students, schools and families that want this education.  They are not content to let abstinence education exist as an alternative to other programs promoting use of birth control as a “saferrrrr sex” message for minors.

Opponents want to kill abstinence education.  Completely. They work tirelessly to strip every penny of funding support for abstinence programs that encourage and support students who make a personal commitment to remain sexually abstinent.

One has to wonder what the real problem with abstinence education is.  Why is it so terrible to teach our youth the importance of remaining sexually abstinent?

Opponents would have us believe that medically accurate information supports encouraging teens to engage in “saferrrrr sex.”  It doesn’t.  Opponents would have us believe that abstinence education doesn’t work.  It does.

These two battles are actually smoke screens.  Diversions.  They hide what we are not supposed to see.  What opponents of abstinence education would like to bury in the sand is their real reason for opposing sexual abstinence education for teens.

Abstinence education is about revealing truths its opponents would rather ignore.  Abstinence education does not suggest that outercourse, petting, or naked showers together are several of many healthy and satisfying options to abstinence that teens can choose from when they “are ready.”

Abstinence education shines a light on the problems inherent in promoting sex as entertainment without rules, seeking gratification for one’s own pleasure without concern for those we impact as a result.  Abstinence educators are not afraid of acknowledging the life in the womb created by the union of egg and sperm.

It restores a line in the sand.  It dares to stand up for true medical accuracy.  It is supported by a growing body of research about the foundational needs of humans.  It embraces the impact of sex on the welfare of a human being in holistic terms, not only just physically, but emotionally, socially, financially and spiritually.

Studies confirm what abstinence teachers around the country see in their classes.  These truths resonate with young people who have not been corrupted by years of liberal dogma.  They know when their hearts are broken and when they have been exploited by someone who professed “love” only to get the sex they were after.

Teens want love, honor, fidelity.  They look to adults, the role models who are in charge of demonstrating higher goals, only to find these “role models” either wallowing in the mud…or more often…confused about the role of sex in their own lives.

American media, entertainment and marketing industries have capitalized on this confusion, exploiting the natural human tendency to want to satisfy our appetites while ignoring the consequences.  We buy their products, and cultural “rules of engagement” allow them to market this message to children just entering kindergarten:

  • Supreme Court justices in 2004, preserved the right of pornographers to use the Internet unrestrained in their promotion of material harmful to children.
  • Girls of the Playboy Mansion, a television “reality” show, builds destructive fantasies of three twenty-something girls sharing the bed with an 81-year-old leering millionaire.
  • Abercrombie and Fitch glamorize teen group sex in wall-size murals greeting our youth and their younger siblings as they enter the store at the mall.
  • College health centers serve as a pass-through to local abortion agencies with little or no mention of adoption.
  • Leaders in the most visible health crisis of the century, when challenged by a physician at an HIV conference, refuse to set sexual abstinence as the expected standard for children at any age.
  • Hollywood adultery is considered a harmless transitional stage between marriages, and this has been adopted by mainstream politicians hoping to lead our country as President.
  • Magazines like Redbook and Seventeen that used to offer wholesome articles now sell promiscuity and risky sex behaviors on every page.

For nearly forty years, we have been “educated” that the problems encountered with sex can be cured by buying a pack of pills and a “medical procedure.”   This education is only possible if we are willing to ignore medically-accurate truths.  This is the very education that opponents of abstinence hope to force on every child in America.

People who oppose abstinence education oppose it for one simple reason. They don’t want their culture to be challenged and reined in by limits to sexual behavior…of any kind …at any age.  And that’s no good reason at all.

A Christian Nation

August 6, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

America is a blessed nation.  For over 200 years, we have been a Christian nation, founded on the principles taught by Christ.

At every turn, America is being challenged.  Our laws are being re-evaluated by people who do not believe in Christ…who, in many cases, do not believe in God.  Our legislation is being crafted by people without a God-fearing faith…and by people of faith in other gods.

What are Christians to do?  How do we preserve what God has entrusted to us?

Good Christians have taken up the battle.  We fight on many fronts.  Our laws must preserved in the courts.  Legislation must be scrutinized for provisions that violate God’s commands.  Media outlets must be challenged to fully and fairly report the news.  And most importantly, on every front, Christians are fighting to preserve our religious freedom, our freedom to openly speak and act as Christians.

The battle is fierce.  And therein lays a danger.  As we fight to preserve a Christian nation and the freedoms it gives us, we must keep our focus on that larger struggle.

Our legal arguments are needed to preserve our right to pray.  Good reporters are needed to give voice to Christians otherwise silenced by a media hostile to Christians.  Congressional representatives must be free to speak and work, expressing their beliefs in what they do.

All these things we must fight for…without neglecting our first duty…our Christian duty as it was distilled and crystallized by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The great commission came to us from Christ…not as a law of government.  It is the personal entreatment from our Lord, tend my sheep.  Our Christian duty is personal.  Do we love Him?  Yes?  Then shepherd his sheep.

The greatest battle of all is the battle for the human heart.  Christ came down to us not to rewrite Roman law.  He came to write God’s truth in our hearts through the ultimate miracle of living God’s love in our midst.

Clever legal arguments came from the Scribes and Pharisees who plotted together how they might trap Him in what He said.  Christ answered not with citations from the Torah, but by focusing human attention on Godly matters, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.

Christ did not command a separate nation be built to sequester his followers away from the Samaritans.  He waited for the Samaritan woman at the well and told her all the things that she had done, serving her living water.  He taught that even a Samaritan can feel compassion and bandage the wounds of a traveler fallen by the side of the road.

Must we stay engaged in the culture, fighting to preserve our government founded on Christian principles?  Yes.  Most definitely.  But Christians are not won to Christ by writing laws in Congress or by winning battles in the courts.

Do we know the saving grace that guides our nation?  Yes.  But it cannot be shared with Samaritans by pointing to our Christian heritage and demanding that they bow to tradition.

Jesus is not “justified” by the number of people who vote for Him.  He was alone on the cross.  God is not more powerful or more loving because he is encoded in our government.  He is.  He was.  He always has been.

Laws that do not arise from the human heart will never be able to stand on precedence.  In times of trial, we must be willing to stand alone.  It is imperative that we stand for government under God.  But this is never going to be a convincing argument to convince non-believers of God’s existence or draw them under His wings.

We win The Battle, when we lead the way to Christ.  And we lead the way by following Him.  Do we love Him?  Yes?  Then tend his sheep.  All other matters belong to Caesar.  And while they may be matters of importance, we must do these things without neglecting the first.

Follow Him.