The Bush administration is pushing schools to adopt a policy that teaches abstinence as the only way to guard against sexual horrors. This policy is misguided, dangerous and ultimately harmful to students.

Admittedly, abstinence remains the only foolproof way to make sure that our nation’s citizens will not get pregnant or contract sexually transmitted diseases. If all people entered marriage as virgins and remained monogamous, most, if not all, problems having to do with sex would be solved.

This idea, however, is ludicrous, and it ignores a central reality of human beings.

People are going to have sex whether they are told they should abstain or not. In the event that they do have sex, an education about the proper ways to protect themselves is necessary.

The abstinence-only crowd would have America believe that showing people scary photos of sexually transmitted diseases in high school will keep people from having sex in college. Perhaps this will keep some people from having sex in college. However, it will not keep all of them from having sex in college.

Approximately 80 percent of all college students in the nation are sexually active. Interviews by this newspaper with SDSU students indicate that that number likely applies to this institution. To get people to remain abstinent until marriage, the Bush administration has to change the minds of 80 percent of the population.

This task is impossible and indicates how far the Bush administration has its head in the clouds about the most basic of issues. To keep the vast majority of the population from having sex before marriage would require every single citizen of this country to become fervently Christian, since many other religions do not make such sexual distinctions, or it would require the Congress passing a law making it illegal to have sex before marriage, thereby eroding basic freedoms.

Abstinence-only education creates an atmosphere where college students enter college without the most basic of sexual knowledge. It fosters an environment full of people unaware of how to protect themselves adequately, thereby creating a world where more teenagers get pregnant, more STDs are spread and more abortions are performed, which is exactly the opposite of the world the administration claims to promote.

The Bush administration must rethink its policies on sex education before more sexual problems are the norm.

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