The breaking news is that abstinence education abjectly fails to decrease either teen sex or risky teen sex. The reason this is breaking news has nothing to do with the study results that draw this conclusion, because that would be the foregone conclusion of people thinking rationally about these problems. The real news here is that America is experiencing a crisis of faith!
If we would only believe hard enough, abstinence education would work, global warming would be "junk science," and Iraq would be taking strides toward stability and peace. Despite the continuous increase in our work productivity (i.e., profitability), it seems that Americans are losing ground in faith productivity. That's what this nation really needs: not more faith-based initiatives (where the bulk of the $120 million spent on abstinence education went), but a Federal Faith Initiative. Faith itself must be restored through a concerted government program before any of these programs can reach fruition. F.D.R. had his New Deal. The Bush Administration should pursue something like this, a New something or other - New... New... well, they'll think of something; they're good with names.
The millions poured into new federal government projects for Compassion and so forth, and earmarked for groups who proclaim a particular religious outlook (and/or who happen to have supported President Bush's campaign in 2000) have produced very little clear success. This is clearly because of the faith productivity lag. After all, how could abstinence education have overcome the fact that an estimated 90% of the target population has intercourse, unless enough of us believed that "just say no" would work? The Administration can lead the way, by refuting studies that deny the effectiveness of abstinence education and reaffirming their conviction that abstinence is the way to teach safe sex.
Speaking of "just say no," consider how badly the War on Drugs is going. If only we all got together and believed drugs would go away, clearly they would, and we would win the War without firing another shot.
As for so-called global warming, in this case it's obvious that once the rapture comes, climate change won't be an issue, so I suppose we needn't worry about believing it's junk science any more. This is good, because we'll need to concentrate our faith productivity on those areas where we can make a real difference: sex and drugs.
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