From: dostalik@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Bill Dostalik)
Subject: Re: Sexuality
Organization: TI Semiconductor Process and Design Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 17:50:21 GMT

In article <C0n3Mq.IxF@unix.amherst.edu> jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu (jesse fuchs) writes:
>Dave Borden (borden@head-cfa.harvard.edu) wrote:
>> In article <1993Jan05.180438.5289@microsoft.com> fritzs@microsoft.com (Fritz Sands) writes:
>> >In article <1992Dec31.181358.17099@asl.dl.nec.com> dillhoff@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Doug Dillhoff) writes:
>>  
>> >| That is the whole problem. Teachers in sex ed. and drug ed. classes are
>> >| told not to tell children what is right and wrong, to just present the
>> >| facts. This has the opposite effect of what they intend.
>> 
>> >This assumes that the purpose of sex ed and drug ed classes is the 
>> >spread of propoganda rather than information.
>> 
>> Actually, to support Fritz's line of thought, I'd like to mention an article
>> I read in Scientific American about two years ago or so, on our nation's
>> drug policy and attitude toward drugs, over the past one or two hundred
>> years.  It came to the conclusion that the best results are obtained when
>> there is a realistic presentation of the facts, not overstated, not under-
>> stated, not moralized.  When the bad effects of drugs are exagerrated, or
>> moralization about drug use is used, it's just not taken very seriously by
>> a lot of people.  The same goes for sex education.  If you stand in front of
>> a class of teenagers and preach about the evils of sex before marriage, and
>> the virtues of abstinence, most of the kids will not take you very seriously
>> (this applies to a church as well), and you will fail to successfully
>> encourage either abstinence or safe sex.  Give people the facts, and by and
>> large things will work out better than if you don't.
>	Not to mention the fact that maybe I don't _want_ my kids to learn 
>that, say, pot, is morally wrong - or at least any more than any other 
>substance that can be abused. Personally, I think smoking pot and having pre-
>marital sex is not only condonable, but to be explicitly encouraged. These are
>my morals, and then deserve just as much representation as any other person's
>in our school system. Also, if creationism is to be taught in school, I want
>the Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim theories of Creationism to be given equal
>weight to Christianity. As for prayer in school, I support it, as long as the
>breaks are given at the proper times so as to allow the proper method of 
>prayer to Mecca.

>	Only Allah knows why guys like Doug think their morals are so superior
>to everybody else's that they should be taught to our kids.

If you don't mind me butting in with my 2 cents:

I'm not Allah, but I think Doug believes that it is a good idea to allow these
morals to be taught because they are the morals that founded this country.
They are morals that have been wildly successful in developing the United
States into the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known. 
Instilling basic Judeo-Christian values in schoolchildren is hardly a threat to
their freedom:  no one wants to take away their ability to choose their own
religious and the details of their own morality.  It simply seems wise (from
reviewing a couple millenia of history) to instill these values in children
to give them a basis.  They are free to reject all of these ideas.  (Not to
mention, I seriously doubt that inner city parents are most concerned that
their children might learn to pray at school).

The bottom line:  they work.
(BTW, I agree with you on pot, I support legalizing all drugs, at the very 
least pot).

- Bill Dostalik   dostalik@utdallas.edu      
  Go Sooners!

>					-jesse
>> 
>>   - Dave Borden


Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.homosexuality