Marion Crecco was right

Turns out Marion Crecco was right.

I know. For some of you it's hard to believe, but it is true.

Yes, THAT Marion Crecco, the Assemblywoman from Bloomfield.

For a decade, Marion tried to pass legislation that would require our schools to stress abstinence when teaching young people about sex education. The concept was simple, tried and true: Abstinence is the ONLY sure-fire way to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Marion actually believed that abstinence should not just be stressed, but be the sole thing told to young people about how to avoid babies and disease. She knew, however, that she could never get that bill passed.

The "stress abstinence" bill was hard enough. She introduced the bill during every single legislative session that took place during the 1990's. Finally, during her last term, under the leadership of Speaker Jack Collins and with a new ally in the Senate in the person of Joe Kyrillos, who co-sponsored the bill, and in the waning days of her last term - on January 2, 2002, Governor Donald DiFrancesco signed the bill into law.

The text of the bill covers less than a full legislative page and its essence is as follows: any course of sex education dealing with sexually transmitted diseases or teen pregnancy "shall stress that abstinence from sexual activity is the only completely reliable means of eliminating the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and of avoiding pregnancy."

But for a decade, the liberals attacked and vilified and ridiculed the gentlelady from Essex County. The usual suspects - Planned Parenthood, NOW and the like - went bonkers. How dare she?! They argued that if you ONLY teach children about abstinence and you do not teach them how to use contraceptives, then they are going to have sex anyway and that will lead to more teen pregnancies and the spread of STD's. I mean, after all, they ARE teenagers! Oh, the humanity! The fury from the liberals was nearly unbearable.

But guess what ladies and gentlemen? Marion was right.

The very first peer reviewed study on abstinence education published earlier this month in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine proves it. And before you think the study was authored by some right-wing fringe group, think again. The lead author of the study was John Jemmott, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine - hardly a bastion of conservative study.

Jemmott and his colleagues studied 662 African American sixth and seventh graders enrolled in an abstinence-only curriculum (with no instruction on contraceptives) and were taught (without ANY moral or religious arguments) that they should delay sex - they should abstain - and that would keep them pregnant and disease free.

This is all you need to know about the study (although please, please feel free to google it if you think I am slanting the facts - I beg you):

A third of those in the abstinence-only classes began having sex during a two-year period compared to half of students who took other classes. And it gets even better. The study found that the kids in the abstinence-only classes were NOT less likely to use condoms or other forms of birth control.

Put that in your District 34 pipe and smoke it!

Oh, and guess what? There's a punch line too: The Obama administration has announced in its new budget that it will no longer fund abstinence-only education!

Is this a great country or what?!