7/14/11: Marriage Classes Don’t Include Abstinence

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The Department of Health and Human Services recently authorized new grants for its Healthy Marriage Initiative and for “education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills and budgeting.” But one of the “unallowable activities” is teaching abstinence.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association says she’s “never seen anything like this inserted in a funding announcement, where a specific program that has a clear connection to the benefits of that program is prohibited.”

She notes a body of research that links teen sex to future divorce and complains that the political and ideological leanings of the Obama administration trump science, health and what’s in the best interest of young people.