Matt Yglesias, in the course of arguing (correctly) that the recent study on religious belief and social dysfunction doesn't mean what a lot of people take it to mean, poses a similar (bogus) correlation one might observe:
To take an example, if you looked at international rates of SUV ownership and international teen pregnancy rates, you'd almost certainly find a correlation between SUVs and teen pregnancy.
But is this correlation really all that bogus? After all, where do teens get pregnant, but in automobiles? And wouldn't it be a whole lot comfier to get pregnant in a SUV than in (say) a Cooper Mini?
Groups like Focus on the Family argue that anything other than 'abstinence' education encourages kids to have sex; that only by making sex unpleasant, uncomfortable, and dangerous can we prevent it from happening. The logic is dubious, but why stop there? Millions of SUV-owning moms and dads are practically ordering their kids to have sex by providing them with the next best thing to a motel room key.
What we need is a coordinated campaign by groups like Focus on the Family to get parents to replace their SUVs with VW bugs, Ford Fiestas, GEO Metros--anything that would make teen sex extremely awkward and uncomfortable (permanent spinal damage being a huge plus). If successful, such a campaign could make millions of early sexual experiences so traumatic that the kids would forever think of sex as something sordid and unpleasant.
And after all, isn't that what those people are after?
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