Bill Smith of SIECUS opened the 4^th Annual "Back to School" briefing last week by saying, "Abstinence is a great thing, a wonderful choice – but it shouldn't be the only thing being taught." This is the major disconnect between advocates for comprehensive sex ed and abstinence-only sex ed: the latter group thinks that the former one does not value or teach abstinence. To the contrary, we gladly support abstinence as it delays sexual behavior and decreases the risk of pregnancy and disease. And comprehensive sex ed programs do stress the importance of abstinence, as well as providing vital knowledge about how to prevent sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy. However, what abstinence-only advocates ignore is that not everyone chooses abstinence — regardless of their education — and even those who do will most likely become sexually active at some point outside of marriage.

This critical lack of information is not the only problem with abstinence-only programs. Ab-only advocates also blame comprehensive sex ed for all sorts of irresponsible behavior, including an outrageous link to pedophilia (see the video below of Wendy Wright's offensive comments). Add the fact that many abstinence-only programs rely on shame and fear to try to manipulate adolescents into abstaining from sex and, well, we've got a serious problem with sex ed in our nation's schools.

The briefing, also sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA) and its Health Information Network (NEA HIN), examined the past 25 years of funding for abstinence-only programs. Despite the lack of evidence of success, the U.S. has spent $1.3 billion tax dollars on abstinence-only programs over the past quarter century. Comprehensive sex ed programs have proven to be effective in delaying teenagers' sexual activity and preventing pregnancy and infection – yet they do not get any federal funding.

SIECUS also focused on three current abstinence-only curricula taught in over a dozen states, including my home state of Idaho. Some of these programs are funded by Crisis Pregnancy Centers, so it should come as no surprise that they give students medically inaccurate information. Abstinence-only sex ed programs are not based in reality. They typically promote faith-based agendas, undermine public health information (such as the effectiveness of condoms), reinforce gender stereotypes, stigmatize at-risk youth (such as LGBTQ youth or children from single-parent homes), and treat adolescents who have already had sex as less valuable or worthy of respect than their abstinent peers.

One example of an exercise taught in abstinence-only sex ed is the "tape game." This involves two boy volunteers and the teacher holding up a strip of clear tape to represent the girl in this scenario. First, the teacher puts the girl-tape on the first boy's arm to represent their sexual relationship. After the "break-up," the tape is ripped off of his arm and held up for examination. The students then observe that the tape is no longer clean – she is dirty, with bits of skin, hair, and DNA stuck to her. The teacher tries glue and paste on the tape, but they don't adhere to the dirty surface as well as a clean one. Moving on to the second boy, the teacher lays the girl-tape on his arm, but calls attention to the fact that this relationship doesn't stick as well – the bonding isn't as strong. Once again the tape is held up and the teacher comments that the tape is less valuable than "she" used to be. Finally, students are asked how strong of a bond they think the girl's marriage will have after she's had sex with other boys.

Another example of a classroom exercise is to ask students to look at their fingernails. Supposedly, girls hold up the back of their hands to examine their manicures and boys react oppositely by making a fist and looking at their fingers curled over their palms. This is supposed to show the difference between genders and emphasize that men and women are different – especially when it comes to sex and love. Now, I don't know about you, but I thought it would be interesting to practice this on a group of my friends: according to that exercise (which I actually did), I am a boy. And my friend who is a boy? He's actually a girl.

Aren't these examples of what is being taught in public schools horrifying? It's maddening to realize that federal dollars are being used to advance what is blatantly a conservative social agenda. In reality, marriage is not the only option (it's not even an option at all for same-sex couples) and "Just Say No" is a naïve approach to education. Our youth deserve to learn the facts – medically accurate, age-appropriate, science-based education. They need someting besides just faith-based ideology.

In the Washington Post, Robin Sawyer said "If we taught driver's ed the way we teach sex education, we'd be saying things like, 'Stay away from the car. Don't stand next to the car.' Yeah, right." This public health professor at the University of Maryland teaches a dynamic human sexuality course and attempts to correct for the inadequate sex ed that most students receive in high school. By the time they are juniors, the majority of teenagers have had sex at least once. But they're not having sex because of sex ed. Does anyone actually think that just telling teenagers not to have sex – without giving them any information about it – will work? Why shouldn't they learn how to protect themselves?

Knowledge is not an invitation to act – it allows people to make informed decisions; ignorance is not the answer. It's time that we stop funding abstinence-only programs and start funding comprehensive sex ed. (REAL) Act for more information.

In the video from CNN below, Wendy Wright blames the Foley scandal on groups that "tolerate diversity", as well as "graphic sex ed."