You know what’s fun?

Taking exactly the same set of facts and actually seeing how they are digested by Science People and Fundamentalist Idiots in nearly real time.

Sorta like raising sea monkeys, or keeping an ant farm.

Or, rather, like watching scientists debate cosmology on teevee, and then watching sea monkeys debate ants over real nature and purpose of the Mighty Provider Of Sea Monkey Food and whether He is a superior deity to the All Knowing Deliverer of Sugary Goodness.

Of course, sea monkeys are notorious perverts


and ants are bent on the subjugation of all humanity


so maybe not the best examples I could have chosen.

Still, one works with what one has.

So consider this story – “Abstinence education doesn't work: report” – and how the facts of the study are presented here, by both “Scientific American” the “Christian Post”.

A few of the first paragraphs are nearly identical (from Scientific American)…

"For both the program and control group youth, the reported mean age at first intercourse was identical, 14.9 years," says the report, available on the Internet at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/abstinence07/index.htm.

Teens in both groups were just as likely to use condoms or birth control, the report found -- countering the fears of critics of abstinence-only education, who say children ignorant of how to protect themselves from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases will simply have more unprotected sex.

For the report, Christopher Trenholm and colleagues at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. interviewed more than 2,000 teenagers with an average age of 16 1/2. They lived in rural and urban communities in Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Virginia.

About 1,200 of them had taken part in abstinence-only education programs four to six years before.

"Over the last 12 months, 23 percent of both groups reported having had sex and always using a condom; 17 percent of both groups reported having had sex and only sometimes using a condom; and 4 percent of both groups reported having had sex and never using a condom," the researchers wrote.
...

But where normal people see data and trends and might move for an honest, fact-based debate how these new, hard-won facts should be used to inform public policy while taking note of who was trying to suppress the report and who was not,

…
The report, ordered by Congress, was not released by the Health and Human Services Department, but by activists and by California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's office. An HHS spokeswoman did not answer a request for a comment.

…
The report revived the debate on government abstinence-only education programs, which are strongly supported by the administration of President George W. Bush.
"Program and control group youth also did not differ in the number of partners with whom they had sex," they added.

About 25 percent in both groups had already had sex with three or more partners.
"This data supports what a growing body of public health evidence has indicated: Abstinence-only programs don't protect teen health," said Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Government Oversight Committee.

"In short, American taxpayers appear to have paid over one billion federal dollars for programs that have no impact."

The report said the federal government has spent $87.5 million annually since 1998 for abstinence-only education programs.

Activists said the findings showed that children need more comprehensive education about abstinence, contraception and sex in general.

"The vast majority of the public does not see abstinence and contraception as an either/or proposition -- they want teens to be informed of both," Sarah Brown, Executive Director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said in a statement.

"We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that's not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics," added James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth.
…

Fundicrats, on the other hand, look at every ham sandwich and oil slick and see the Blessed Virgin Mary.

From the Christian Post:

...
A prominent Christian public policy group says the new report is timed to affect funding.

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, pointed out several flaws to the study including the ages of the students involved.

"The targeted children were too young to absorb the abstinence message, and there was no follow-up to the original abstinence message," said Crouse in a statement. "This basic flaw in the study design invalidates any findings in the report."

Similarly, Harry Wilson, the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families, said the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior, according to AP.

"This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can't expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career," he said.

"Values" that are taught in the programs is also a significant issue, Crouse noted.

"Comprehensive sex education is not values based. Yet, sex involves values – especially the values of commitment, love and intimacy," Crouse stated. "If values are omitted, the teaching implies that casual teen sex has no lasting consequences as long as the teens use a condom."

Still, some say the study provides evidence that federal money should be used for comprehensive sex education.

...

Yes, “some say” those terrible, terrible things. Things like demanding that any educational system should be specifically designed to teach critical thinking skills above all else.

That it is OK to wade into a murky world of facts and experts and sacred cows without fear. That it is positively the duty of a free citizen to punt a belief out the window when it turns out to have been wrong.

That an educational system should NOT hold as its highest “value” strapping children’s minds into some Dark Ages Fundy Procrustean Bed so that the degenerative sickness of Christopathology can be passed on generation after generation like hemophilia.

So let us return to the compare-and-contrast exercise of Free Press versus the reportage of the Dominionist Pantograph with these, two sentences from the Christian Post version of reality:

“A prominent Christian public policy group says the new report is timed to affect funding.

“Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, pointed out several flaws to the study including the ages of the students involved.”

See, when you refer to someone as “Doctor” in the context of what is essentially a discussion of the medical efficacy of one methodology over another, you run the risk of making people think that “Doctor” Crouse was leaning on some medical expertise to bulwark her ridiculous opinion.

But when you take the trouble – as a real reporters might do -- to examine her bio, and find that she is, among other things…

Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Taylor University.

Formerly Professor and Debate Coach at Asbury College and at Ball State University.

Member of the Board of Trustees of Asbury College

Member of the Board of Directors for Good News

Oh and she was a speechwriter for George H. W. Bush, but after that the credential cupboard stands conspicuously bare, so despite the many really, really spiffy circle-jerk blurbs written about her status as “nationally recognized speaker” for all of their hot-button bigotries by lots other extreme, right wing organizations, “Doctor” Crouse just another freedom-hating theocrat who puts her Christopath ideology before science, fact and humanity every fucking time.

She does, however, have the full backing of the “Beverly LaHaye Institute”.

Which was founded by the wife of Tim LaHayne.

Who is the co-author of the multi-million best-selling crimes against both Christianity and Literature known as the “Left behind” series.

So she’s got that going for her.

And speaking of things that a real reporter might have bothered to mention, let us pause for a moment in remembrance of the Fallen Paragraphs.

Those heroic, explanatory nuggets of text that can limn an issue so clearly and cleanly but which, for reasons known only to wingnut editors and propaganda-slinging “reporters”, are consistently and conspicuously omitted from the day-to-day reportage of their news.

The Exiled Clauses. Those snippets of narrative, the absence of which, like the Dog that Didn’t Bark in the Night, fairly leap off the page once you learn to see the blast-shadow of where they should be between the lines of what finally made it onto the page or screen.

Like when you hear an organization whose name just reeks to Humanist Heaven with that telltale, “Happy Puppy Club For A Better Tomorrow”, Orwellian double-think naming convention deathstink the Party of God now uses to perfume its every perfidious evil.

Like, say, “Concerned Women for America”, which should send even a junior reporter fresh out of J-for-journalism-not-Jebus-school positively sprinting for the internets where he or she could easily find Exciting and Highly Relevant Background Information such as this from the good people over at the People for the American Way:

…
[The] CWA opposes gay rights, comprehensive sex education, drug and alcohol education, and feminism, while advocating what it calls “pro-life” and “pro-family” values.
…

CWA is anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-feminism and anti-sex education. Beverly LaHaye started CWA to respond to the advances of feminism after watching NOW founder Betty Friedan on television in 1978. CWA identifies feminism as “anti-god, anti-family.” CWA identifies state-level Equal Rights Amendments (ERAs) as responsible for the breakdown of families, “The ERA proposes the elimination of our God-given roles as men and women, resulting in the redefinition -- and eventual destruction -- of family.”

Some of the CWA’s activities include:

· CWA has lobbied against the Freedom of Choice Act and gay rights legislation in many states. Grassroots activity in most states is led by a CWA Area Representative and a steering committee. According to its 2003 990 Report, CWA spent a total of $92,560 in lobbying expenditures to influence both public opinion and legislative bodies.

· CWA fights against sex education curricula that is not completely abstinence based and opposes anti-drug and alcohol abuse programs that emphasize self-esteem. Many challengers to books and curricula in public schools use CWA-produced materials.

· CWA has been active in the fight against using Harry Potter books in schools. Publications such as “Harry Potter: Seduction of the Occult” claim that the books promote the practice of witchcraft among children. CWA offers books and videos such as, “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged: Making Evil Look Innocent.” (Produced by Tim LaHaye, Beverly LaHaye’s husband.)

· CWA has also been active in supporting the teaching of Creationism and “Intelligent Design theory” in science classrooms.

· CWA’s anti-gay work covers many issues, from supporting the Boy Scouts of America ban against gay participants, to opposing any openly gay people in President Bush’s administration. CWA has been active in opposing any and all gay and lesbian civil rights measures, including supporting the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians in employment.

…
· As a leader of the religious right, Beverly and her husband Tim LaHaye are strong supporters of other Religious-Right groups and leaders. For instance, in the summer of 2001 the LaHayes gave Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University $4.5 million. (Beverly LaHaye is a trustee of the university.)

…
· In 2002, CWA vehemently opposed ratification of CEDAW (the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women), claiming its pro-women empowerment and equality sections comprised a “leftist utopian wish list.” The Convention, which opposes the discrimination or subordination of women across the globe, was criticized by LaHaye Institute Fellow Janice Shaw Crouse, as imposing contemporary colonialist, neo-Marxist agendas. CEDAW was ratified on January 7, 2005, by 71 countries, and endorsed by 76 signatories. The United States was not one of them.

Any and all of which they are, of course, entirely within their rights to do and say and believe, because this is still America, and one is still free to promote any medieval, narrow-minded and repellently anti-American and anti-Christian drivel one chooses.

But having “Doctor” in front of one’s name doesn’t mean you aren’t contemptible, and slapping “Concerned” onto your letterhead doesn’t mean that you aren’t a theocrat, and reporters and editors of this story who failed to disclose the real radical agenda behind the CWA are either lazy or lying by omission, but either way they failed spectacularly here in their basic responsibility to make sure the public is in possession of all the facts pertinent to a particular story.

But then again, from women and their bodies to children and their education to the Earth and its true genesis and fate, hasn’t it always been the very profitable business of the Party of God to martyr every problematic fact and crucify every inconvenient truth to promote their agenda of ignorance, hatred and fear unfettered by reality?

Oh, and the final litmus test?

Anyone who can pass along this golden line

“But Bush administration officials have cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study...”

from the very same people that lied us into a war with this...

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

...and this...

"We know where [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

...and this...

“I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.”

...and this...

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

...and this...

“Costs of any such intervention would be very small.”

...and this...

“There’s just no reason that this can’t be an affordable endeavor.”

...and this...

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

...and this...

“…"the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

...as straight dope and without going taser-to-the-genitals helpless with laughter and then throwing up into their wastebasket cannot possibly be a real journalist.