LeAnna Benn, Welfare Queen
This is part 2 of my griping about the embarrassment to Spokane that is Teen-Aid, Inc. Part one is here.
As I mentioned last time, Teen-Aid, Inc. is an agency in Spokane, Wash., dedicated to promoting abstinence-only education through scientifically-inaccurate, false and misleading material that they sell to school districts and other organizations. LeAnna Benn her cronies have been peddling their snake oil for the last 27 years to school districts around the country, but in the last decade or so they have found a new mark: the federal government.
From 2001 to 2008, Teen-Aid, Inc. was awarded at least $5,253,824 in federal grants for their abstinence-only education program (Search for yourself here). This, of course, does not include tax dollars that school districts use to purchase Teen-Aid's wares, which aren't exactly cheap.
Now, in the grand scheme of the federal government budget, 5.25 million dollars over eight years isn't that much money*. But that still doesn't give the government the right to essentially flush that money down the toilet.
Several studies have pretty convincingly demonstrated that abstinence-only education is ineffective (Results of one: "Study Casts Doubt on Abstinence-Only Programs," Washington Post). The most recent study ("Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," Washington Post) found that teens that took virginity pledges were just as likely to engage in premarital sex as peers that had not take the same pledges. Furthermore, they were less likely to use contraceptives (Saddlebacking anyone?).
Fortunately, it appears that there is some hope on the horizon. With Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, there is some hope that this money will stop being wasted ("Critics push for end to abstinence-only funding," AP).
Naturally, this seems like as good a time as any to help give the cause a little push. Consider spending a little time today writing to Senators Murray and Cantwell, encouraging them to end all federal funding for abstinence-only education. If you feel like beating your head against a brick wall, you can write to Representative McMorris-Rodgers, too.
To kind of put an exclamation point on this whole mess, let's take a moment to hear from Derek Dye the "abstinence clown," an Ohio-based recipient of federal abstinence only funding (who reminds me so much of Petey the Sexual Harassment Panda, that I now have his little ditty stuck in my head).
Ah, now that is some money well spent.
* The 1.5 billion dollars spent on abstinence-only education overall, though, is another matter.
Sometime in the future, look for part 3 where I mock Teen-Aid's attempt at "diversification": Marriage-Friendly Communities
2 comments:
That is truly a big slice of awful.
My wife and I have friends who sponsored a Marriage-Friendly Communities program called "10 great dates" at their church. We went to it and got what we could out of it, but the religious icons were abundant. The 8th session was "spiritual connection", which I wanted to walk out on, but stayed for my wife and christoholic friends. What a money suck!
That's interesting. I haven't heard much yet about the Marriage-Friendly Communities curriculum, but figured it was going to be heavy on the religion. The fact that the religious aspects are never mentioned in the advertising really bothers me.
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