I watched TV's Frasier last evening - a sitcom that I particularly enjoy. But last night's episode went over the line. There was too much focusing on sex: Frasier and "his woman" falling on the bed several times, wrapping themselves in sheets, groping for one another with not much left to the imagination.

Such is fair game these days for TV "entertainment." Therefore, when the US government's policy underlines abstinence-only education for contemporary youths, it's a policy swimming against hard currents. Then the government's policy is faulted by moral relativists for not working that well. Not fair.

So with the Episcopal Church of America concluding to endorse practicing homosexual alliances - even homosexual unions and "marriages," at least one segment of Christendom has gone the way of the world when it comes to sex-as-you-like-it. It was once that one could turn to the church and find a biblical morality still in place. Obviously, that is so in some cases, but not in all cases.

Further, it used to be that in public schools there was a semblance of morality endorsement. But today the way of least existence appears to be an easy mode to construct. When I was on staff in the school system, it was nothing for a fellow teacher to stop in at Planned Parenthood offices. Why? To pick up a pocketful of condoms. For whom? The students waiting outside in the school van. Upon returning to the classroom, was there any presentation focusing on abstinence? I never heard it. The teacher one day said to me, "I never was into talking about abstinence. Just hand them the condoms."

Of course, when listening to the students in their informal conversations throughout the day, there was nonchalant exchange about condoms being a nuisance or condom use treated as a joke. Condoms were for someone else.

This morning, Reuters' Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent, headlines with "Half of young Americans to get sex diseases."

"Half of all young Americans will get a sexually transmitted disease by the age of 25 . .The reports, issued on Tuesday publicized by two non-profit sexual and youth health groups, said there were 9 million new cases of STD among teens and young adults aged 15 to 24 in 2000.

"It said three diseases - human papillomavirus or genital wart virus, a parasitic infection called trichomoniasis and chlamydia -- accounted for 88 percent of all new cases of STDs in 15- to 24-year-olds. Wart virus is the major cause of cervical cancer while chlamydia can cause infertility."

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Read: http://jgrantswankjr.blogspot.com/