(This article first appeared in the February 8, 1993 issue of Christianity Today.)

"Sex is supposed to be about fun, pleasure, family, and babies—not about disease and death."

Pat Socia, a sex-education consultant from Texas captured the attention of 400 students and their parents at Downers Grove North High School in suburban Chicago. During the next hour and a half, she gives a compelling and disturbing presentation of how perilous it can be a teenager in the age of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), AIDS, and drugs. Hers is also an inspiring presentation, whose core message—no sex until marriage—many consider a lifesaver.

Others, however, are alarmed: They feel the abstinence message of Socia and others like her is, at best, naive and, at worst, the intrusion of a political and religious agenda that must be silenced in our public schools.

The volatile debate taking place in public schools throughout the country is nothing less than a battle over core values. Is sex before marriage healthy or immoral? One view, the religious and moral, is rooted in the belief in a Higher Authority who has revealed what is right and wrong. The other view, a naturalistic and humanistic one, is rooted in belief that with so many different beliefs, no one has the right to say what is right and wrong. What is at stake is the way to stem the casualties of the AIDS epidemic. Except abortion, there is no greater flashpoint for this worldview clash than the sex-education debate.

Emotions run strong, and the battles can be fierce. Planned Parenthood, for example, is suing the school board of Jacksonville, Florida, for their use of the junior-high "Me, My World, My Future," abstinence-only curriculum developed by Teen-Aid. According to an internal ...