Don't Be Surprised, Be Active

This week, Texas governor Rick Perry bypassed legislature and numerous groups and made an executive order that all 6th grade girls must get the HPV vaccination. Needless to say, thousands of people are upset about this, while at the same time, thousands of people are very happy with the decision from the governor. Now I won’t get into the groups that are and aren’t happy just yet. I want to know more of the whole story before I start speaking for groups and for people. But I do want to get into the discussion of where this all came from, and where this is going.
Honestly, are we really surprised that HPV vaccinations are going to become mandatory? Let’s see here…I hear no up-roar about certain clothing companies making bikinis and 2-piece swim suits for 9 year olds. I hear no up-roar about parents who let their little girls dress like they are Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. I hear no up-roar about the disgusting nature of college-campuses and how much promiscuity goes on there. How come those issues aren’t mainstream? No, that can’t be right to make those issues controversies. We can’t tell 9 year olds how to dress because it might be infringing on their right to express their own style, and college kids are college kids, so how can we tell them what to do? So, we think HPV-vaccinations are bad? I can’t wait to hear the “up-roar” when in the future, there is going to be vaccinations for many STD’s. Then what? Well, the big question right now is all about morality and is this the right thing to do? On one hand, you have those that say of course this is a good thing. If we can prevent a girl from getting an STD before she is sexually active by giving her a vaccine, then of course it should be mandatory. Then you will have those on the other side saying this infringes on a parent’s right to choose what they want for their child. But I think there is a bigger message about all of this, and it is speaking strongly about the world we live in. My question is, why is this even an ISSUE for 13-year old girls!? Not 20 year olds in college…not even 18 year olds who have the right to make that decision of whether to be sexually active or not…this is about subjecting 13-year old girls to a vaccination based on STD’s.
Now, I can already hear the pro-vaccine people’s voices yelling at me. I know, they’ll raise arguments about how this just prevents them from getting the disease later on when they do become sexually active, so why would you be upset about this? I hear the argument of how parent’s are just going to be protecting their child from harm later, and I hear the argument of well they will know about it all soon enough, so why not just give them the vaccination now. I’m sure there will be others that come up in the news and in the public over the next few months as this debate will rage on. And you know what, that’s fine. I am never going to tell people to not question, to not bring up the debates. That’s how we get better as a society. We grow, we shape and form what our values are by going through debate. But, I hope that what I have to say here will at least be a part of the argument.
Anytime you go into a mall, you are going to be surrounded by teenagers. It’s the home-away-from-home for many of them. Really, there are worse places that teenagers could be hanging out and worse things they could be doing. If you are a parent and you know where your child is at, then that’s a good thing, so I don’t know that I am totally against letting your child go to a mall. My objection is what is what is in the mall. We live in a commercially driven society. The problem is becoming more and more obvious…that the commercial industry is driven by sexuality. You know, there is so much protest over the war in Iraq, over union-issues, over breast-feeding on planes…now-a-days there is just about a protest for everything. Here’s my thing…how come I don’t hear any protests about what television stations are allowed to put on TV? How come you don’t see protesters walking outside of Abercrombie and Fitch stores, demanding they take down the open-to-the-public displays of their models advertising their clothing product…WITHOUT any clothes on! How come there is this desensitization of sexuality throughout America, and there are no protests over these things?
Many of you know that I lead a Junior High youth group at the church I go to. The last couple weeks, there has been a big “drama” if you will in the youth group. No it isn’t about boys and girls breaking up or who said what about who and who they said it to. No…it was a bunch of the girls in the group are scared to go to bed at night and are all excited about a certain series of movies. Any guesses? Perhaps you’ve heard of or have had the misfortune of seeing the movies Saw, Saw 2, and Saw 3. Well, if you were in the junior high last week, you would have heard about every part of the movie, so you wouldn’t have had to have seen it to know the details. And so, as an adult voice, you try to convince them otherwise…that the movie is just sick and those kinds of things shouldn’t be as big as they are because they glorify death and sickening events that unfortunately occur in our world. But that wasn’t even a thought for them. You know what the biggest issue was? Who’s parents could they get to take them to see Saw 4 when it comes out. What is GOING on? Why is this the status-quo? What is wrong with us? There is a huge morality movement going on in the United States, and it is headed in the very, very wrong direction. 9 and 10 year olds wearing bikinis…junior highers watching movies that glorify horrific deaths, blood and gore…governors issuing mandatory vaccinations for 13-year olds, vaccinations for STD’s. Why not make it an “option” at 16? Why not make it an option at 18? But it is mandatory for 13 year old girls! Has it really come to that? We have to make it so 13 year olds have to know first hand the dangers of sex, and are going to be getting vaccinations for an STD? I understand that curiosity comes just about that age, for both boys and girls. I understand that questions are going to be there, and that answers need to be available. But they should be available from parents…not from fashion magazines, not from celebrities who want to give their input, not from schools that are publicly funded, and 100% not from our government having to issue a mandatory STD-vaccination to 13-year old girls. Have we become so jaded as a society to not see just how far down the wrong path this is all going? I don’t think half of you know what goes on in high schools and colleges. I wish there was a way to get you to see just how insane it has gotten. I hear the stories, I see it first hand. I don’t know if it’s a choosing of people to not see what is going on, or if our morals and values are really slipping that far downward.
So that raises the last few questions I have right now…where are the parents? What are they telling their kids? Why are bikinis being bought for 9 and 10 year olds, why are glorified murder-movies being allowed to watch by 7th and 8th graders, and why is an STD-vaccination mandatory for children? What happened to the days of yes, 13-year olds have a choice…listen to your parents or get grounded. There NEEDS to be a bigger awareness to these things, and I hope hope hope, that if you are reading this, you will do something about it. Write the companies that sell that disgusting apparel…write the movie companies that make these disgusting movies. Don’t shop at places where they sell both these things. And don’t take NO for an answer. Don’t let them push your children into an age where STD-vaccinations are mandatory, where Saw 1,2,3 and 4 become “classics”, and don’t be your kids friend. BE A PARENT. Be a voice of reason and do what you can to bring morality back to where it should be. I wish I had more time and more space and more energy to go on even longer about how I really feel about all of this, and I wish I had the resources and availability to news-outlets to have a voice to tell people just how bad its getting, but CellPhoneJabber will have to do for now. - AJW