Page 10
Opinion
The Lion’s Eye
Ed
» April 23, 2002
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Sex, religion and society
By SHAWN D. MANDERSON
Staff Writer
Arguably, sex and religion are two topics that we
as people are in a constant struggle with. We are in a
moral tug of war between the divine nature of religion and
the instinctive desires of the flesh. According to most reli-
gions we are supposed to wait until after we marry some-
one special before engaging in that lustful, salacious, and
passionate act. If there is one thing we've learned, it's that
not everyone can suppress the inner beast of lust.
SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education
of the United took t
ites) took the largest
study of adult sexu-
1 that only 6.9 percent of men and 21
al behavior
>t had sexual intercourse. This means
»-80 percent of twenty years olds are having sex
arriage. So what is it that make people forget
about all that is right and wrong when it comes to sex?
Is it our human nature to find as many mates as
possible (before we expire) and procreate? Why deny
nature? Or should we control those inner urges of sex
within us and be monogamous? It is hard for guys to
resist looking at a "hot chick" in a sexual manner and the
same applies for girls who see a really "hot guy." Well, we
all certainly think about sex a lot, on an average day, the
average male thinks about sex every 2 minutes, and the
average female thinks about sex about every 3 and 2 min-
utes. Shouldn't we do what feels natural when it comes to
sex?
Is sex before marriage wrong? Surprisingly 65
percent of teens between the age of 13-19, say sex before
marriage is wrong, and their main influence is because of
Was President Bush's visit
BY SHAWN PETTIT
Assistant editor
Editor’s Note: This commentary does not necessarily
reflect the opinion of the Lion's Eye staff.
Before I start my usual rant, I'd like to say that
the President's visit to our campus was...special. I can't
say it was an honor because the only time I saw him was
when he felt like he had to be gracious and wave to the
people standing outside the Main Building. That's not an
honor. It's a disgrace.
I know it's not every day that a U.S. president,
current or former, visits a small campus like ours.
However, for the majority of Penn State Delco students,
Tuesday, April 2, was a horrible mess of figuring out
where to park and trying to get to their classes. It's bad
enough on a normal day. It was one hundred times worse
that day.
A total of not even one hundred people affiliated
with Penn State were allowed to witness the speech that
day. Out of all the people that did see the speech, only one
sixth of the crowd were Penn Staters. This makes me sick.
Not only are we tuition paying students, we are taxpayers
and I'm sure a large amount of the students and faculty are
registered members of the Republican Party. Yet we are
not good enough to see the official that we voted into
office.
What disgusts me even more is the fact that it
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writing for the campus newspaper. Email aacl36@psu.edu for
religion. Also, most young people begin having sex in
their mid-to-late teens have sex about 8 years before they
marry, this is according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute
which is an organization that report annual statistics on
teen sex and pregnancy in the United States.
If sex is natural, and it feels good, then why is it
frowned upon if it is committed before marriage? Sex is
more accepted today in our society then it was (twenty,
thirty, or even forty)iyears
ago. Even though people today
are more comfortable when the topic of sex is brought up;
it still seems that the morals of the past are still with us.
I'he Alan Guttmacher Institute says that sex bef
ore mar-
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comes to sex. Iwo, mayoe the tear ractor of 1 nl and
the ideals that were instilled in us from our parents are not
as strong because we are allowed to make our own deci-
sions. But here is an interesting fact about 1 in 5 young
people do not have intercourse while they are teenagers. I
could go on forever with this topic, but let's see what our
people poll said.
Statistics provide by:
Jie: Alan Guttmacher Institute, Sex and America's
Teenagers (New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute,
1994), p. 19.
2 Sexuality Information and Education Council of
the United States (SIECUS), Fact Sheets,
http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact (New York: SIECUS
1996)
an honor or a catastrophe?
took a U.S. president to get the president of our universi-
ty to set foot on our campus for the first time in a few
years. Even if we had a serious problem on our campus
(i.e. our recent bomb threats), Dr. Spanier seems like the
type of guy that just wouldn't care. This visit was meant
for publicity purposes only, and Spanier seemed to leap at
the opportunity to get some airtime. :
I stood outside, witnessing the reactions of the
"unfortunate" students like myself that didn't get to see the
speech, not only because they weren't invited, but because
a certain TV news network (I won't mention any names)
decided they needed our TV feed so we didn’t even get to
watch the speech on TV on the campus. No one was
happy.
Many students referred to this visit as a disaster.
It was unorganized and everything about it was poorly
executed. I agree completely. The consideration of the
faculty, staff, and students that didn't get to see the speech
was not even looked upon. We were expected to smile and
be cheerful that the President came to see our campus.
How can we be cheerful when all it did for us is make
things inconvenient? We can't.
As for President Bush, next time he decides to
visit a college, he should at least make a real appearance
for all the students, not just a select few. The rest of us
might even vote Democrat in the next race because of the
inconsiderate fashion of his visit. But hey, he's a politi-
cian. We can't expect him to make the right decision all
the time. That would be foolish.
Are you a cartoonist? Consider
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People Poll
Thoughts on President
Bush's speech:
- "His speech was relevant and meaningful to not only
education students but all students who care about
America's future- our youth"
-Jennifer Tallon, Sophomore
- "President Bush's speech was very interesting. You can
tell that he really cared for what he was talking about.”
-Mike Van Wyk, Sophomore :
- "It is nice to see the focus start to shift away from inter-
national business and turn towards something which is
very important - education.”
-Rob Thorum, Sophomore
- "I though it was really good. He had a lot of insightful
information."
-Tovi Nguyen, Sophomore
By SARAH GALLATIG
Staff Writer