Feeling Fisky

After 3 plus straight hours of Administrative Law, I'm feeling fisky as in without the 'r' as in I'm in a fisking mood. So it never hurts to have a letter from my favourite fundy group Focus on the Family to talk about.

At this point I should probably put in a disclaimer that despite me being on the SPPA youth committee, in no way does the following commentary reflect anything but my own personal views.

I couldn't link to a free copy on the "Interactive" (why not just call it online, I don't find it particularly interactive) ST site, you'll have to find your own copy.

Anyway, here's "With help, Teens can do the right thing", and I'm going to look at the mathematicians and staticians who read my blog for some help with the stat they cite.

So let's take their statistic on the supposite efficacy of their program, "No Apologies", in case any of you actually wondered, it's to create the fundy's favourite martyr complex i.e. the WHOLE WORLD is pumping sex in your direction yada yada blah.

Assuming all figures are true, from a sample of 17,000 young people in the community for whom they did their programme for, here's their finding. On average (mean I presume), 76% do not believe in pre-marital sex but post-workshop, it rises to 92% (an incredible 12% rise over their reported figures in the little phamplet they have). So what does this really say about the program? Well, one thing that we can be assured of, this is indeed a statistically significant increase. If one were to take the former 80%, it might well be a statistical fluke.

Unfortunately then, what this figure tells me is that lies and fear and undue influence work when they sound authorative enough. And the organisation does indeed use very standard lies (despite the fact that they have been repeatedly rebutted they make no attempt to change the information. I think this goes beyond wilful ignorance to actual lying) with regards to the efficacy of condoms with regards to prevalence of STDs and pregnancy.

And they don't give the opposing viewpoint. I would love to see how they deal with a proper Q&A section with a proper psychologist and doctor who has kept up with the relevant readings in this area. And of course, a debater who doesn't give a damn about religion and religious authority.

Because at the end of the day, until you demonstrate that pre-martital sex is intrinsically bad and that the extrinsic harms that come with pre-martital sex cannot be dealt with by a decent sexual education that does not promote abstinence only, then what Focus on the Family is doing is really real harm, limiting the choices of youth and adults in determining their sexual lives, depriving them of information, putting more guilt on youths who are fighting with a freaking biological imperative and worse of all, probably causing way more harm than good when our youths don't know how to deal with STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

I would seriously love for them to come down to NUS. =P And I invite all my regular readers to ask question, just that, ask questions and for proper citations. For at the end of the day, religion and religious views are never an unmitigated good. Especially when it comes to sex and sexual education. And our youths deserve better.

Peace.

Addendum: This post has been slightly editted for grammatical errors.