All forms of government use the practice of moving funding from one program to another.  Texas is no exception.  The fact that they moved funds in itself doesn’t upset me, it’s the program they took it from and the one they gave it to that has me just a bit upset.

Just a short time ago the Texas house passed an amendment to move $3 million set aside for HIV prevention to abstinence education.  The amendment was the idea of Rep. Stuart Spitzer (R-Kaufman).  Is throwing more money at something that already doesn’t work really the answer?  Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) doesn’t think so.  In his opposition to the amendment Turner said “If we gave you a billion dollars for abstinence, would that be enough? Or would you need two?”

Despite the fact that abstinence education is proven not to work the amendment passed with a 97 to 47 vote.  Facts seem to be something that representatives don’t care too much about.  In a state where school districts are required to teach more about abstinence than any other method of sex education, HIV rates of infections are much higher than in the rest of the nation and Texas has the third highest rate of teenage pregnancy and the highest rate overall for repeat teen pregnancies.  Faced with those kinds of facts you would think that the people who are given the responsibility of representing us would find a better use for the $3 million.  How about actual sex education.  There is one thing that I am 100% sure about and that is that teenagers are going to have sex.  And that’s not a new revelation.  It’s been going on forever.  So, teach them about safe sex.  Teach them using birth control is crucial and that there are ways of obtaining it without embarrassing themselves.  Give condoms away.  You can still tell them that not having sex is the best thing but give them the tools they need in case they decide to do it.

Spitzer would have no part of that.  You see he was a virgin until he was 29 and married his first and only wife.  He said “My goal is for everyone to be abstinent until they are married”, he even went on to say that abstinence education and HIV prevention are “essentially the same thing”.  His take is that if they don’t have sex they won’t get HIV.  Done and done.  What a joke.  I guess we could say that if no one had guns there would be no mass shootings but that’s for another time.

What Spitzer and almost all other representatives at the state and federal level seem to not understand is that they are representatives.  What they are supposed to do is actually in their job title.  We need people to represent us.  We don’t need people out there just doing what “they” think is right.  Go to your constituents and find out what they want.  Actually have a conversation and see if the people you represent want more money to go to abstinence education or not.

Lastly stop trying to legislate your religious beliefs into law.  If you think that sex before marriage is a sin then don’t have sex before marriage.  As for all of the people you represent, you just need to come to the realization that not everyone believes what you believe and besides I’m pretty sure you are not the person to judge them.  Or am I missing something?

Those pesky facts.