Sex-Ed: A joke in Utah

Here's an unpopular opinion in Utah: Sex-ed should be expanded in schools. Growing up I saw two pregnancies in my neighborhood. I've read stories about multiple people having children while still in their teens, and none of those stories are from those stupid MTV shows. This article scares me. Why? Because the majority of parents in Utah would teach abstinence only, which tells their children absolutely nothing about sex.

First I'll deal with things that bugged me about the article. I'd have loved any citation for the facts he poses, alas, not everyone is a history major (Chicago-Turabian for life!). He leaves out a key point: Condoms greatly reduce the chances of getting an STD (CDC). Information is power, and if you don't give teenagers information about sex they'll be stupid with it. I was a teenager, fortunately I wasn't stupid (at least when it came to sex).

Here's a play-by-play:

• "So as 'comprehensive sex education' has become more commonplace, and as the schools’ message about sex becomes more progressive and permissive, we can look around us and see what’s happening:" He doesn't cite any of this, so as far as I'm concerned he's pulling all of this out of his ass.
• "Out of wedlock birthrates continue to climb, now pushing 40 percent as a national average." And he'd like you to think it's only teenagers having these babies. I know a few people who aren't married and have had a couple children and they're doing fine. Give me information about the ages of the people having babies and I'll be happy.
• "110 million men and women have STDs." What he doesn't say is that it's much more likely for a homosexual man to have STD's, and while that number is going up the number of heterosexual people with STD's is going down. Source. (See what I did there? A citation!)
• "The divorce rate remains tragically high, tempered only by the increasing number of young people who have sworn off marriage entirely." This has nothing to do with sex, unless you're getting married because of a baby, which, in my opinion, is a stupid reason to get married. You get married for love, not for a mistake. Again, please give me a source! I'd accept an about.com article on it.
• "Kids turn to porn at younger and younger ages." Source! I live in the porn-viewing capital of the US, so I can assume this is true in Utah, but not everywhere else.
• "People in general are less capable of finding and maintaining healthy romantic relationships." That sounds more like a personal problem to me. My excuse for not having a "healthy romantic relationship" is that I'm a history major, and you only get married girls and grandmas in your history classes. It's bullshit and I hate it. 
• "Over 250 thousand people are raped or sexually assaulted every year." Again, a source! While it's a sad statistic, it doesn't have anything to do with sex-ed. 

He says that we keep religion out of schools and that it should be the same for sex-ed. Apples and rocks my friend. The two have nothing in common (although apples and rocks can both fall on you, it's a crappy comparison, sorry), other than religion tells you that sex is bad, the whole original sin concept. Religion is a belief, sex is not. Sex, with the exception of mythological births, is based in reality. It's the same everywhere, religion is not. I can go to Cambodia and make a few strange innuendo-filled gestures and people will understand it means sex. I can't go to Cambodia and do the same thing with religion.

In short: Sex-ed in it's current form (in Utah) is bad, and should feel bad. Teach kids how to do it safely and it will be good, and feel good. You can implement your religious beliefs about it at home.