I an ashamed to be in Sideshow Bob's district, but I gotta say, there is a huge disconnect.  Because the people I run into on the street, at the stores, my neighbors...  they just don't seem to be that focused on sex.  They are raising families, stuck in traffic, working too hard, gardening, raking leaves, fixing their trucks and cars.  I don't understand how so many of them can keep voting for this freak show.

It is sad, really sad....  and disturbing, and embarassing.

1) get rid of Marshall by more than 5%

2) get rid of Cuccinelli by more than 5%

These two extremists are not representative of their districts, nor even Virginians as a whole.  They have no business representing us.

For me, 2007 was not a success for those reasons.

Academic classes are the core of schools BUT if a child isn't healthy, becomes pregnant at an early age and/or contracts an STI all the academics in the world won't remedy the situation.

But the home schooling folks who are politically active in the (usually Republican based) pro-voucher movement tend to be anti-progressive; I've looked at the money trail in a number of campaigns.  Dick deVos is an example of a wing nut who finances extremist voucher causes. http://www.pfaw.org/...

Question -- Is that why the Virginia association you belong to does not ally itself with the national groups?  It seems some of the national groups have lots of political baggage.

This story of there being no link between juvenile-delinquency and early sex was just widely covered in the national press.

The Post version's highlights:

It [a UVA study] found that identical twins, who have the same DNA, were more similar to one another in the ages at which they lost their virginity than were fraternal twins, whose DNA patterns are 50 percent the same -- an indication that genes influence the age at which a person will first have sex. Other twin studies have found the same pattern for delinquency.

Together, those findings suggest that some genes -- perhaps, for example, those that increase impulsivity and risk-taking -- may underlie both behaviors.

"You need to have some appetite for risk-taking to be a delinquent. And the same if you're 13 and going to have sex for the first time," Harden said.

Ha!  A UVA study.  Maybe Sideshow Bob and Cooch will try to cut funding for the UVA program that produced the study.

There's more --

Perhaps most surprising, the Virginia study found that adolescents who had sex at younger ages were less likely to end up delinquent than those who lost their virginity later. Many factors play into a person's readiness for sex, but in at least some cases sexual relationships may offer an alternative to trouble, the researchers say.

Here's the big danger with the Marshall/Cooch mentality -- it may be endangering children because early sex risk takers are precisely the ones who need to know about STDs, etc.

Even then, there are emotional and physical risks. Young adolescents, in particular, are less likely to use condoms and so are vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.

A personal note.  I was raised conservative Catholic and I now regard the sexuality teachings of the Church to be destructive and dangerous.  I really think there is some deep mental sickness underlying the psyches of legislators who wish to force their errant views of the world on others.

Another example -- a clear majority of members of mainstream denominations support civil unions for gays.  66% of white non-evangelical Protestants, and 61% of White Catholics support legal civil unions.

And just because someone says -- "this is what my religion taught me" does not get an exemption from logical, scientific, humanistic scrutiny of their beliefs.  We're not throwing virgins into volcanoes just because someone says god spoke to them.

Thankfully the vast majority of citizens don't subscribe to the horribly outdated, uninformed, and controlling beliefs of Sideshow and Cooch.  The problem is getting this majority to the polls.  There is no problem convincing this majority that those loons are out of touch with the modern world. 

Just let go of that smaller percentage of solid Sideshow/Cooch votes - they're not ours, never were, never will be.  No loss here.

... abstinence-only sex education has been proven in study after study as a complete and utter failure. Not only does abstinence-only sex education fail to lower the rate at which teenagers have sex AT ALL, it also has been causally linked to increased incidences of STD's and teen pregnancies and.... here's the real stick in the side of Republicans... increased incidences of ABORTIONS.

Funny how the right always does everything it can to keep the rate of abortions as high as possible while it's the pro-choice movement that works to cut them down... No wonder abortions were down under Carter and Clinton, but up under Reagan and both Bushes.....

Republicans are the party of increased abortions.  Democrats are the party of reduced abortions.  It seems counterintuitive (mainly because of all the disinformation and propaganda from the right), but it's true.

The point is that these issues do not win elections, except in rare circumstances.  Democrats made these issues their bona fides in the past and it cost them.  Now the GOP is doing the reverse; we can see how well it works for them.

When we work at lifting Virginians (and Americans) up, and giving them the power to decide for themselves how they want their children raised, they become responsible for their choices, and society benefits as a whole.  It is when we legislate away people's choices that they no longer feel they have any choices or responsibility for their actions that society crumbles.

Folks like Bob Marshall are not interested in giving people choices, they want to make the choices for us.  People who want to give my kids condoms at school (or whatever) and don't give me, the parent, a choice about that also want to make the choices for me.  This is why I like Virginia Democrats, because they understand this!

That is the real issue.

Matusleo
Ut Prosim