Aided by Churches, Bush Expands Abstinence Education

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Standing at a chalkboard in an East Orange, N.J., classroom, a man from a church ministry promoting abstinence from premarital sex poses a question to 15 high school freshmen. How, he asks, could Maxine and Charlie, fictional high school students in a video just shown, have avoided the mess […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Standing at a chalkboard in an East Orange, N.J., classroom, a man from a church ministry promoting abstinence from premarital sex poses a question to 15 high school freshmen.

How, he asks, could Maxine and Charlie, fictional high school students in a video just shown, have avoided the mess they’re in: They have an infant, born of a teen fling, whose needs threaten to dominate their own young lives.


A ninth-grade boy smirks: “Wrap it up!” _ slang for using a condom.

Other students in the class at Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts laugh, but the instructor shakes his head.

“Wrapping it up? Wrapping it up is not foolproof,” says Keith Dent, 37. “It’s not 100 percent foolproof. I’m sure you guys have heard stories, maybe they broke.”

Classes like this focus on what is called “abstinence-only” education, an approach that stresses avoiding premarital sex altogether. The teachers do not discuss contraception, except to stress potential failures.

These classes are now on the front line of the national debate on sex education, an intricate puzzle of competing concerns that include the interaction of religion and government.

Abstinence-only classes are expanding nationally. The Bush administration increased federal funding to $167 million for such programs this fiscal year.

About $1.3 million is being used in New Jersey’s Essex County, part of a three-year grant won by Impact Community Development Corp., a group associated with the nondenominational Christ Church in Montclair, N.J. Its program, “Winners Wait,” was taught at the Cicely Tyson school this year, and officials hope to expand it.

At Cicely Tyson, the class was taught from mid-January through March to five groups of ninth-graders _ about 80 teenagers _ in lieu of English class one day a week. Most students received “wait rings” signifying pledges to abstain from sex until marriage.


A reporter was allowed to sit in on the East Orange classes.

Class discussions were spirited. Girls talked about boys breaking hearts after sexual relationships. Boys talked about being made fun of by other boys if they had not had sex. Boys asked if the instructors themselves had abstained from premarital sex (the answer was no, with regrets). And boys and girls asked what diseases they could catch from oral sex.

The instructors, Dent and Annette Rivera, 42, also used slang. They spoke of abstinence as a conscious lifestyle choice and urged students to “take the pledge.” They distributed books calling virginity a “gift.” And they avoided mentioning condoms or other contraception unless a student brought the matter up, in which case they discouraged relying on it, saying only that it is not guaranteed to work.

The East Orange students will not learn about contraception during the abstinence-only program, but the state-required subject will be taught in other classes, said Beverly Jenkins, the school nurse.

Although the “Winners Wait” teachers were from a church ministry group, the class was largely secular in nature. There was no mention of abstinence as preferred by God, or of premarital sex, contraception or abortion as sinful. Rather, worldly reasons were given for abstinence _ to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Its main teaching tool is called “The Choice Game,” an interactive computer program with fictional teen characters in situations involving sex, drugs and alcohol.

One segment involved Maxine and Charlie, the teen parents. Another featured a girl named Ragana, who accepts a boy’s offer to go somewhere they could be alone. The two sit on a couch, with the boy, named T.J., sliding Ragana’s sweater down her left arm.


At that point, a video narrator says: “Another critical choice for Ragana: Does she allow him to remove her sweater?”

Later in the sequence, Ragana tells her girlfriend she has contracted gonorrhea from T.J.

Rivera, the instructor, pounced on the cue: “If she would have remained abstinent, she would not be in this situation now. You can’t get infected if you don’t put yourself at risk.”

In interviews, students said the part of “Winners Wait” that influenced them most was pictures of people with physical symptoms of AIDS, gonorrhea, genital warts and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Upon seeing a picture of lesions, Shenijah Jackson, 14, said: “I’m so glad I’m a virgin!”

Without exception, every student interviewed _ more than two dozen _ said they enjoyed the program and found it interesting and educational.

Girls in school “talk about it every day,” said Natasha Roberts, a freshman. “They’re teaching us to be women and to know what we’re getting ourselves into. … It’s taught me to stay abstinent, to not believe what boys say” about having sex.


Yet most students also said the class should include more details on contraception so that sexually active students could learn about it from a trusted source. That would “make people more careful,” Shenijah said.

Many said most students already know, from popular culture sources, that condoms can prevent pregnancy and disease.

“Most of my friends who have sex without a condom know it’s more dangerous,” said Jevonnah Mayo, 14. “They know that having sex with a condom is more safe.”

Federal rules surrounding “abstinence-only” grants let recipients teach teens to abstain from sex, alcohol and drugs. But teachers are not allowed to instruct about or “promote” the use of birth control.

Supporters of the federal restrictions say teaching teens about birth control encourages them to have sex, and they note birth control can fail.

“Abstinence works every time,” said Kristi Hayes, director of government relations for Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D. The group opposes teaching students about contraception. “If you’re abstinent, you’re not going to get STDs. You’re not going to become pregnant.”


Others fear the classes discredit condom use.

David Landry, a senior associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research organization, worries that some young people who are “buying this message” won’t know “how to protect themselves when they do become sexually active.”

Critics also say it is absurd to assume most teens will honor pledges not to have sex.

And some worry that religious groups are teaching the program in public schools.

“Whatever they want to do in their churches is just fine,” said Susan Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University. Wilson said she supports teaching teens abstinence, as well as contraception, “but to put a program like that in public schools absolutely blurs the line between church and state.”

MO/RB END RNS

(Jeff Diamant covers religion for the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo to accompany this story.

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