You know, I find it vastly entertaining that a seeming debate over the existence of God has broken out on your letters page. Moreso because it’s broken out on two fronts (Phelps’ column and the validity of abstinence education). Not every campus has such a nice blend of left and right to sustain such a fun, but ultimately irrelevant debacle. Keep up the good (?) work…

Jim McFarlaneVermillion

I’m a big dumb devil’s advocate. That said, on with the fun… To speak of abstinence amongst the clergy is awkward on several counts. First and foremost on the collective consciousness are the multitudes of child molestation allegations. Not to imply that that is a widespread pracitce. Far from it. But it does serve my purpose of proving the infallibility of clerical abstinence. To be less insensitive, consider the married clergy of every religion that splintered off Catholocism. While I do agree that the best way to avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancy is abstinence, I find it illogical to assume that people would, especially college students (with all of their stress, raging hormones yadda yadda) naturally gravitate towards abstinence. Also, if people are going to assert that the statement, “People are going to have sex whether they are told they should abstain or not” is false, they need to examine their own logic. Just because some people will inherently choose abstinence does not mean all will. People will have sex. Look at history. The word ‘bastard’ isn’t a new one. Gonorrhea didn’t spontaneously develop after a roll in the hay last week. Teach abstinence as an option, by all means. Just not as the only one. Jim McFarlaneContemporary Media and JournalismUniversity of South DakotaVermillion, SD