To the Editor:

We write concerning the November 3 Half Marathon that took place here in Princeton and in response to Dr. Elizabeth Casparian’s letter to the editor from November 13. The marathon benefitted Ms. Casparian’s organization, HiTOPS. Thanking all those who supported the marathon, she writes: “This event highlighting adolescent wellness truly involved the entire community of residents, merchants, police, churches, schools, organizations, sponsors, runners and their families.” We are members of the clergy in our community, and we must say that the type of adolescent “wellness” that HiTOPS, through its TeenPEP sex ed curriculum, fosters is based on a far different type of morality than the one we try to share with young people in our community. This curriculum is highly questionable from a scientific vantage point and does not assist teens to achieve wellness and virtue as we understand those concepts.

Readers should not be deceived by innocent sounding labels and rhetoric. Anyone who imagines that the TeenPEP curriculum is merely about health and pushes no values agenda should ask to see the materials and evaluate them for themselves. We have personally looked at the curriculum and are reluctant even to mention some of the types of practices that our kids are being exposed to in the name of “adolescent wellness.” One of the methods of the TeenPEP curriculum, for example, is to promote “outercourse” as a way to prevent “intercourse” (Teen PEP Course Curriculum and Workshops, Unit 3, p. 8). The idea is that by encouraging teens to, for example, shower together or cuddle naked, then they would be less likely to engage in sexual intercourse. Does this make sense to you? It doesn’t to us.

In the Teen PEP curriculum, sex is reduced to a self-satisfying act without consequences; and access to family planning clinics that offer contraception and abortion provide the means to this end (Unit 5, p. 50-1; Unit 6, p. 65-7).

We believe that the entire approach known as “sexual risk reduction” exposes our teens to both physical suffering such as STI’s as well as emotional and spiritual pain. This is not our idea of adolescent wellness. While we believe that healing and mercy are available to us no matter what mistakes we may have made, we also believe that it is best not to encourage teens to engage in practices that cause needless suffering. We believe that a sexual risk avoidance approach to sexual education, of the type offered at least as an option in many other communities, is a far superior approach to ensuring the health and true wellbeing of our teens, and a curriculum based on this approach should be offered to parents as an option for their kids.

Rev. Michael T. McClane

Parochial Vicar, St. Paul Parish

V. Rev. John Cassar

Rector, Mother of God Orthodox Church