Well, well, well. What have we here?
Check out these jaw-dropping stats from the National Association of Evangelicals, part of the evangelical wing of the Republican Party that is trying to regulate and enslave the collective uteri of America (please excuse the pompous snarkiness to follow):
- 80% of young evangelicals have engaged in premarital sex
- Nearly 33% of their unwanted pregnancies end in abortion
Hey pot, I have a kettle I’d like you to meet.
I know I shouldn’t gloat, but there is a certain poetic justice in these stats and an undeniable urge to point and say, You should really get your own house in order before you start preaching morality to the rest of us.
But, I have to say, it’s a validation as well. If 80% of their young people are engaging in premarital sex, what does that say about their push for abstinence only education? Obviously, it doesn’t hold water with their own, so why would it – or should it – with anyone else? For them to demand anti-choice measures for the rest of the citizenry, when one third of their own adherents have terminated an unwanted pregnancy, really blows their argument out of the water, in spectacular fashion.
There are some other interesting stats to consider:
At this month’s Q conference in Washington, participants were asked at the end of a session on “reducing abortion” if churches should support the use of contraception among their single 20-somethings. Responding by text message, 64 percent said yes, 36 percent said no.
So, a majority of their numbers favor contraception by a 28 point margin. Does anybody else here see a massive disconnect in dogma vs. reality?
Let’s just say it: abstinence only education does not work, but contraception and comprehensive sex education does. Plain and simple.
From these stats, one can surmise that young people are “going to do it anyway,” so why not arm them with knowledge and facts, rather than some pie-in-the-sky chastity “vow” that is seemingly pointless? This is the question the evangelical community must ask themselves, but even in the face of these stats, they’re trit-trotting through la-la land:
David Gushee, director of Mercer’s Center for Theology and Public Life, said the 15-year gap between the average onset of puberty and the average age of marriage is part of what has stopped some of the silence about sex.
“Maybe there is a trend, realizing that ‘just say no’ and True Love Waits is not enough, that we need a more thorough, more comprehensive and more realistic conversation that goes ahead and deals with the realities that we face in our time,” he said, “while attempting to ask what does the Lord require of us in this area.”
Maybe there is a trend?
Honey, 80% is not a trend. It’s what’s called the steamrolling of reality.
About Beth
So, can we start calling these hypocrites sluts and baby killers?
But if they teach people how to prevent unplanned pregnancy and let abortion remain a choice, it really messes with their adoption agenda.
Yep. That’s all they’re after, increasing the supply of babies to sell to good Christian homes. The anti-choice movement is completely in bed with the adoption industry.
You know, the majority of educated Christians that I know who have chosen abstinence until marriage have made that choice because they feel it is the right thing to do, not because they were ignorant of any other choices.
Just goes to show people get a lot further teaching a value system based on love rather than fear.
Irrelevant. You can only make a choice if you are aware of all your options. Quite aside from that, abstinence-only education means that teenagers *are not taught how their bodies work.* That’s positively criminal. The reproductive system is a series of body parts. We teach them how every other freaking body part works, when they take biology. They need to know how these parts work too–even if they *do* skip sex before marriage, we assume that most of them *will* marry, and then what will they do?
It’s not about us. I don’t care how yucky some of us feel at the thought of our kids growing up–the fact is, they WILL grow up, and they need to be armed with the needed information to make thoughtful, mature choices. Or to not, but at least the full range of options is available to them and they can’t say they didn’t know.
Love it, thinking you can have a reality based conversation with the product of your magical thinking, namely, the evangelical “God”…and, Lisa, the whole Christian religion is based on fear…”if you don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, you are going to hell”…if you have had a religious thought not predicated on that statement, you are deluding yourself. LOL. Think Christianity is based on free choice? Did you choose the “original sin” you say Christ died to save you from? No?