Hypothetically Speaking

Today we take a little diversion from the usual medley of Capital corruption to bring readers another solid reason that the Christ-o-crats are dangerous:

Valerie Huber manages Ohio's abstinence education program and is also the state's Title V coordinator. She says in the case of Timken High, many of the female students want to have babies. However, she believes another factor is also fueling the teen pregnancy problem.

"There has not been an abstinence education program at that school for a minimum of two and a half years," Huber points out, "so the message of 'wait to have sex until you're married' has not been presented to those students for at least two and a half years."

Nor, she adds, have the rationale and reasons for waiting been presented to the students in "a risk elimination-type model." The abstinence education advocate believes Timken High School would do well to implement one of the two abstinence programs available in Stark County, where the school is located. "Now, within an abstinence program, it's not just a 'just say no' message," she asserts. "It's skill building, decision-making, future orientation."

What? You didn't know that your tax dollars were being spent to pay the salary of an arch theocrat to be the abstinence education advocate in the Ohio Department of Health?

And, since we are in fact paying her, she could at least get her facts right. As Jeff Seemann documented over at Kos, the Canton school system had an abstinence program. The one fact Huber dodged is this: The abstinence program failed. Like the leaders of a certain Iraq war we know, when things go bad, well . . . you just lie!

Seeman and others like the Pandagon folks have already discussed and debunked most of the crap that's surfaced around the Timken pregnancies. Since they've already covered that ground, we wanted you to know a little more about Valerie Huber, and how she developed the amazing wisdom displayed above.

Surely, you think, she must be some kind of ace sociologist or psychologist or doctor to be put in charge of trying to protect the virtue of Ohio's teens.

Think again! Her main qualification is that God personally gave her a gold star:

God placed a passion in Valerie's heart to provide parents and teachers with materials and skills to communicate the message of abstinence to youth.

As a mother in western Ohio, she apparently had a full blown conniption after her son's health teacher (who was always the shlub football coach when we were growing up) warned the boys be smart and always put a wrapper on that wiener:

Like many parents, Valerie Huber of the West Milton Ohio GBC was frustrated by the messages that target youth. What frustrated her the most was where her son was hearing this message - Health Class! Valerie contacted her son's health teacher, a man who professed faith in Christ, but found that he was intentionally promoting a mixed message about morality: "Don't have sex, but if you do, use protection."

Now, Ohio and many other states use lots of federal 'pass thru' dollars to pay for abstinence programs in the school systems. Congress stipulates that abstinence must be promoted as the healthiest option, but not the only option. We might quibble with that healthiest option stuff given some of the recent studies, but we could probably bear to live with it.

Unfortunately, it seems that Valerie apparently has been taking it upon herself to take the abstinence idea one step further.

. . . this program is still in its infancy, giving Valerie the unique opportunity to develop and fine-tune it. Valerie is infusing her Christian beliefs into this program.

. . .

Valerie Huber defines abstinence as, "voluntarily refraining from sexual activity until marriage." There are two key differences in this definition from the one Planned Parenthood is offering. First, refrain from sexual activity - not just sex. Second, one must refrain from such activity until marriage.

Many organizations support abstinence, but it is abstinence until you feel you're ready or simply feel like it. In other words, we're all abstinent until we do it again. Valerie Huber is advocating a different code of morality - the biblical standard of abstinence until marriage.

Huber's substitution of religious tenets for science hasn't gone totally unnoticed. Case Western public health researcher Dr. John Frank has been raising hell and issued a report about the situation back in June when he (naively) hoped the Republican legislators in the Statehouse would take a break from the non-stop blowjobs by the Capital Square whores lobbyists and ask for proof that the $32 million they have spent for Huber and her programs were working.

To its credit the PD covered Frank's attempt to restore sanity to Ohio's school's health education programs.

[Frank's] report found that some abstinence-until-marriage programs:

• Overstate the failure rates of condom use, blame contraceptives for poor mental health among youths and erroneously suggest that birth control pills will increase a girl's future chances of infertility.
  
  
• Misrepresent religious conviction as scientific fact. One program urges teens to "follow God's plan for purity," while another recommends books that are religious in nature.
  
  
• Contain inaccurate or misleading information about the transmission or detection of sexual diseases. One curriculum described HIV as a virus that can remain undetected either by test or physical symptoms for six months to 10 years, when in fact most antibodies are present within two to eight weeks after exposure. The curriculum also suggested incorrectly that HIV can be transmitted through tears and open-mouth kissing.
  
  
• Is not applicable to gay teens because same-sex marriages are illegal in Ohio.

Speaking of gay relationships, the Gay People's Chronicle has caught Huber in a little homophobia scandal of her own. No - it's not what you were probably hoping. Instead, it's just that it seems that Val is paying top dollar to bring in astroturfer Maggie Gallagher to be the keynote speaker at the Ohio Department of Health's abstinence conference mid-October.

Gallagher, despite having absolutely no credentials (like Valerie, herself), was a syndicated op-ed columnist. She ran into a bit of a problem earlier this year when it was revealed that she was being paid by the Bush administration to copyright PR materials about W's "marriage initiatives" and then endorse them in her columns.

Gallagher's appearance isn't the first time Huber's tried to impart an anti-gay theme to a DOH conference. Last year, the Dispatch reported:

[An] Ohio Department of Health-sponsored conference on abstinence education has come under fire from AIDS groups that say its abstinence-until-marriage focus completely ignores gay men — the group most at risk for HIV/AIDS.

. . .

Valerie Huber, program manager for the abstinence-education program at the Health Department, said the exclusion of gays from Ohio's abstinence program emanates from a 1996 federal law that provided funding for state-sponsored abstinence programs. “Since 90 percent of Americans will marry at some point in their life, we really think that this message has value,” Huber noted.

But, what set's this year's conference off is the speakers fee. Huber has agreed to pay this shill $5,000. Again, from the Gay People's Chronicle:

AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland director Earl Pike, a critic of the conference, said he called other abstinence educators to see what their fees were. None were higher than $2,000, which was the fee of Dr. Douglas Kirby, formerly of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Kirby’s work, however, is of a scientific nature, and far more critical of abstinence-only claims than Gallagher’s opinion pieces. It also lacks the overt anti-gay message.

We hope to have more on Huber's appointment to the DOH position in the future.