Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah I Don't Want You to Spend Tax Payer's Money on NOT Teaching

The 12-11 vote by the Senate Finance Committee came over objections from its chairman, Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.

Two Democrats - Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas - joined all 10 committee Republicans in voting "yes" on the measure by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.

The measure would still have to pass the full House and Senate. Hatch said abstinence education had been shown to work, though Baucus disagreed. Obama had proposed in his 2010 budget to direct money spent on abstinence-only education to broader teen pregnancy-reduction programs.

As a resident of Utah and a feminist I am so disappointed. I'm sick of Republicans telling me how anti-government spending they are, how concerned they are about government programs and then turning around and supporting government spending on a program that teaches morality NOT science or safety in sex. In fact, it doesn't really teach at all. I'm not saying the Democrats are these frugal, infallible, politicians with all the answers, but at least some of them are actually bothering to look for some answers instead of give cash prizes to supposed health teachers that just finger-wag and have us color in pictures of male/female genitalia with Crayons. I'm not even kidding. That is what I did my very first day of school in Utah. The education I got in California was slightly better in that I heard what lesbians were, had heard of masturbation, and saw somewhere what condoms did even though I had not idea what a condom looked like or what really went on in masturbation, except that I thought it was something lesbians might do. I wouldn't have even heard of condoms for years and certainly not from an adult if it hadn't been for my 6th grade CA sex ed. class. I even, gasp, saw what the phases of pregnancy entailed. Provided, even in California, a supposedly progressive state, a male marriage counselor came in to tell our class how having sex with a woman before marriage gives boys a free ticket to disrespecting his wife. (I even got to play the wife who had foolishly given her husband "permission" to disrespect her by having sex with him.)

I'm going to go punch some glass now.