Viewpoint

By the staff of The Pitt News

Republican presidential hopefuls are pushing abstinence high on their platforms. So it's not likely that Texas Governor George W. Bush will slide into the White House as easily as a bowling ball rolling down a lane lubed with Astroglide come November 2000. Bush's initiative, the Lone Star Leaders program, is aimed at high-school students, telling them to abstain from premarital sex, drugs, crime, tobacco and critical thinking. Other Republican presidential hopefuls on the abstinence bandwagon include Sen. John D. Ashcroft(R-Mo.), Family Research Council President Gary L. Bauer, publisher Steve Forbes and former Vice President Dan Quayle ("seksual abstinanse is a priaurity"). Premarital sex is an abominable act Ñ if one happens to be of the Victorian-era mindset. The aim of lowering teen-pregnancy rates is noble, but the advice offered by opportunistic politicians is hopeless. Instead of handing out condoms and birth-control pills Ñ distributive measures that could really help Ñ the Lone Star Leaders program is dishing up outdated advice. Is sex before marriage a breach of ethics? Is lust that bad? Should it be a dominant theme on a political platform? No, it shouldn't. You won't catch Bill Clinton running on a pro-chastity ticket any time in the future. His ratings are going through the roof Ñ his spin doctors should be cheering, "Viva adultery!" Come on, no one wants a chaste leader. The sexual revolution was won in the '60s, but backward-thinking Republicans appear to be completely anal about sex. As unmarried college students, we should be allowed to place whatever appendages of ours we want in any orifice we want, as long as the bearer of that orifice agrees. Teenagers should take necessary precautions, not be inhibited by slippery politicians' Biblical "morals." Abstinence is something that should not be forced on a population. Premarital sex is not going to make the world spin off its axis (seeing as Republican desires for an armed-to-the-teeth military will knock us out of orbit first). Abstinence is honorable, and kudos to those who choose to wait until they're married. But premarital sex is not immoral and should not be used by dunces like George W. Bush, whose goal is not to save Texan teenage girls from pregnancy but to inject his own seed into the White House.

This editorial originally ran in Friday's edition of The Pitt News, the University of Pittsburgh's student-run newspaper

10-02-98