Syte Reitz

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world…….

Browsing Posts tagged self-control

Wisconsin Sex Ed:  There’s an Elephant in the Room

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It’s become pretty challenging, trying to cut through the rhetoric, to understand what’s actually going on with the Wisconsin Sex Ed bill.  At first glance, the political posturing and contradictions are bewildering—until you look at the raw data on teen pregnancy and STDs, and realize that everyone is tiptoeing around an elephant in the room.

Some of the Background:

In 2010, Wisconsin’s liberal legislature passed a liberal sex ed bill, called the Healthy Youth Act, or HYA. Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, gets to design the curriculum.

In 2011, the new, now conservative legislature which was elected in Wisconsin in November 2010, has recently proposed a modification to the liberal sex ed bill, which would allow conservative communities to opt out of the most progressive requirements of the “old” 2010 sex ed bill (HYA), such as opting out of the condom demonstration in the classroom requirement.  This proposal is called Senate Bill 237,  or SB 237, or Strong Communities Healthy Kids Act or SCHKA

Outside the SB 237 Senate Hearing  (Photos of Senate hearing by Tom Reitz)

 

More details:

Conservative objections to HYA (now in use in Wisconsin):

 

1. HYA requires Sex Ed with a liberal and permissive spin or no sex ed at all:
If sex ed is taught, every community in Wisconsin must teach ALL elements of the curriculum outlined in HYA , including the demonstration of condom use in the classroom.  Misleading phrases such as “medically accurate” and “age appropriate” are used in HYA to require the teaching of detailed explicit sexual practices and methods, including the practices previously considered by law, and still considered by numerous religions, to be deviant, unhealthy, risky, and damaging to society. continue reading…

US Military, Joint Colors

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The Huffington Post recently published an article on “religious boundary violation” in the U.S. Military – criticizing the obligatory “spiritual fitness test” given by the U.S. Military, on which

Pansy, symbol of freethought

“freethinkers” got points docked for their lack of religion.  Those who were religiously unaffiliated were then offered optional information on the benefits of developing their spirituality.

.But here are some more facts:

Death of Socrates

Balance

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Commendations

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Why wouldn’t the military be commended for surveying these topics among military personnel and offering religiously unaffiliated soldiers opportunities to learn about spirituality and its benefits for the individual and for the army?

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Nobody’s telling the soldiers which religion to choose, nobody’s even forcing them to choose a religion at all.  The alternative, however (eradicating all mention of religion from the military), would constitute religious coercion– forcing all soldiers into the practice of atheism.

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Religion; a parachute

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If the U.S. military has determined that particular lifestyle changes make for better soldiers – changes in diet, weight, length of hair, or supplemental education (including spirituality education) – the military would be negligent in withholding this information from soldiers, whose lives are so dependent on each other and are so often on the line.

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Incidentally, religious practice has been shown to benefit ALL aspects of life substantially:

  • Strength of marriages and family relationships
  • Reduction of violence, infidelity and out-of-wedlock births
  • Increased educational achievement
  • Improved overall health, including mental health
  • Lower levels of infectious disease, depression and suicide
  • Greater levels of cohesion in groups, higher levels of charitable giving, and less violent crime
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