And the Children Shall Suffer....

It feels like a Judas moment.

Yesterday, according to a press release from SIECUS,

"The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations decided to increase funding for the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) grants despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs it supports do not work.

It was widely believed that the programs would be cut or eliminated by the new Congress, but by adding $27.8 million, the House Appropriations Committee is doing President Bush’s bidding and providing $141 million in funding to CBAE. This is almost exactly what the President had requested, and appears to be a ploy by the Democratic majority designed to swing enough Republican votes to make the spending bill veto-proof."

In other words, the House DEMOCRATIC leadership has just INCREASED funding for ineffective, moralistic abstinence-only-until-marriage funding. They have developed a "compromise" about the bodies and futures of America's young people. This, despite, their own Congressionally mandated study, released a few months ago, that these programs don't work to help young people abstain.

It's never really about young people -- or promises of "prevention first." Let's remember that it was the Clinton administration that gave us welfare reform, "don't ask, don't tell", and oh, abstinence-only programs in the first place.

My faith tells me that young people deserve so much more. We have a moral obligation to truth telling, to giving young people life fulfilling and life saving information. How sad that political dealing caused the Democrats in Congress to turn their backs on the nation's young people.

For more background, see my colleague James Wagoner's excellent column at RH Reality Check.