Guns, Smoking, Drinking, and Sex
An interesting quote from The Federalist Patriot (a conservative journal):
"[N]o big deal. By definition, that's what a 'major social norm' is: no big deal. But in fact it is a big deal—whether the grown-ups in their lives are prepared to say so or not—when kids too young to lawfully buy a pack of cigarettes are routinely engaging in sexual activity that most of them don't yet have the maturity or understanding to handle. In its potential to inflict internal damage or cause lasting pain, sex far surpasses tobacco. But while kids are warned repeatedly and stridently about the dangers of smoking, school-age sex is widely regarded as inevitable. The same people who enforce 'zero-tolerance' strictures when it comes to guns and knives push a very different message when it comes to sex: Keep it 'safe' and legal, and you'll hear no complaints from us... Shouldn't those charged with the education of teenagers be pushing back against the relentless sexualization of the culture instead of knuckling under to it? With sex bombarding them everywhere they turn, don't kids need more than ever to be taught that sex is for grown-ups?... There is something awfully sad and strange about a culture in which teenage sex is condoned so long as it is 'safe,' while teenage smoking is denounced as categorically wrong. Sex has become a mere issue of health and the law, while morality is reserved for tobacco." —Jeff Jacoby
Does he have a point? If not, why not?
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