Editor,
Jason Darensburg's letter published in the Daily Lobo on March 13 concerning high rates of sexually transmitted infections among teenagers sadly misses the mark.
To blame the Bush administration and religious fanatics for these sad statistics lacks both depth and understanding. Darensburg contends that if we would emulate our Western European brethren and "go back to teaching sex education to our children at an early age like the rest of the civilized world," we would have no such problems.
Interesting argument given the fact that Western Europe has a slightly higher overall rate of STIs than we do. The simple fact is that if you don't have sex, you won't get a sexually transmitted infection. If you don't have sex, you won't have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.
The choice with regard to pregnancy is made with one's decision to engage in sex, and I dispute the notion that mechanical information alone can result in a significantly lower long-term STI rate.
High STI rates are the result of promiscuity - plain and simple. The youth of our culture are inundated with an obscene glorification of sex in a climate of permissiveness that readily leads to irresponsible sexual activity.
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Writing in 1949, Fulton Sheen accurately noted, "Sex has become one of the most discussed subjects of modern times. The Victorians pretended it did not exist; the moderns pretend that nothing else exists."
The matter has gotten worse in the ensuing decades, not better, until it is now nearly impossible to watch TV or look at a magazine rack without subtly being told that if you're not having frequent sex with multiple partners, you aren't quite fully human.
Couple this with decades of liberal human secularism telling our young to "do what makes you feel good" with little regard for the consequences. Add a dose of welfare state self-pity and high STI rates should come as no surprise.
Our children should be given appropriate factual information, but the type of sex education they need, and the only type that can ultimately succeed, must be rooted in moral values. They need not become prudes, but they absolutely need to learn that exchanging bodily fluids does not constitute intimacy.
We should teach our youth to respect the true dignity of both themselves and others as human beings. We must allow our schools, now insanely compelled to challenge our children to ask themselves if they might be gay, to more importantly allow them to inquire into their fundamentally spiritual, and therefore moral, nature. This is not religious fanaticism - it is valuing our humanity.
John Bauer
UNM staff
