While the Biden administration doubles down on COVID, they're keeping another pandemic at arm's length. Data released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show "reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States decreased during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but most resurged by the end of that year." After STDs set new records for six straight years, gonorrhea and syphilis cases increased again in 2020, while the CDC explained a slight dip in chlamydia cases to COVID-related reductions in diagnoses, "rather than a reduction in new infections." Most concerning of all, 53 percent of reported cases occurred in young people, aged 15-24. Yet, "America isn't taking the STD crisis seriously," complained an STD advocacy group.
If the CDC took COVID seriously, they're doing the opposite for STDs. America's public health agencies responded to COVID by quickly identifying how the disease was transmitted and recommending countermeasures. Oh, it's an airborne virus? Let's everybody cover their nose and mouth and stand a bit further apart. The means at least seem reasonably connected with the end in theory. Meanwhile, Dr. Leandro Mena, Director of CDC's Division of STD Prevention, speculated, "If we are to make lasting progress against STDs in this country, we have to understand the systems that create inequities...." Seriously? Does he really believe the root cause of STDs is systemic injustice?
If only we could figure out how sexually transmitted diseases were spread! Maybe we could use such information to ground our public health response. "If everybody did monogamous sex only," Dr. Scott Field of the American College of Pediatricians said, "there would not be any STDs." STDs require much closer human contact than an airborne virus, but we're still waiting for the CDC to recommend "social distancing" as a countermeasure to limit the spread of STDs.
As alarming as the rise in STDs may be, it isn't the least bit surprising, especially among young people. Field attributed it to "policies, and the emphasis away from sexual fidelity." This is the natural outgrowth of the Left's attempts to sexualize children and encourage sexual promiscuity throughout the education system.
To prevent this sexualized indoctrination, states have resorted to legislation. Earlier this year, Florida passed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, which protects children in kindergarten through third grade from sexual indoctrination. The bill attempted to give children at least a few years to learn -- to read, write, add, tie their shoes -- before dousing their imaginations in moral filth. The Left's demented, national apoplexy at Florida's commonsense measure says it all. When they weren't completely mischaracterizing the bill, the Left's two main critiques were: 1) of course this isn't being taught in schools, because that would be wrong; and 2) how dare Florida harm kids by preventing this from being taught in schools. Can you find the disconnect?
The Left understands what the Bible teaches better than many Christians, that our identity defines who we are and how we act. This is why God didn't simply give us a list of commands to follow; he gave us a rich and detailed account of who he is, who we are, and how we should relate to him. Even the Ten Commandments are prefaced this way: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Deuteronomy 5:6). The Israelites were God's people, delivered out of their bondage to sin to serve him. That identity explained why the Israelites should follow his laws, and "teach them diligently to your children..." (Deuteronomy 6:7).
Instead, the Left wants to subject children to a radically opposite worldview, teaching them that only they can determine their identity, that they must do so according to their internal sexual feelings of the moment, and that, in fact, those sexual desires are their identity. How deceptive! How demonic! Their worldview leads only to broken lives and broken health, while the Bible provides "all things that pertain to life and godliness," (2 Peter 1:3). The Left wants to control education to lead astray an entire generation; we cannot stand by and let them.
