Since the 1990s, pro-life educator Scott Phelps has followed in the footsteps of Phyllis Schlafly and her trusted Eagle leader, Kathleen Sullivan, in promoting authentic abstinence program materials for teens. Authentic abstinence means education focused on marriage as the ultimate goal rather than on “risk avoidance,” of which Phelps contends abstinence programs today typically consist.

Education Reporter visited with Phelps recently to find out more about The Success Sequence, his organization’s program offerings that spread the positive message he and his predecessors so enthusiastically supported. Phelps worked with Kathleen Sullivan, and has authored and distributed authentic abstinence until marriage materials through his company, Abstinence and Marriage Education Resources (A&M) for the past two decades.

Sullivan’s group was using Phelps’ materials in Florida under the program title CCAP (Collier County Abstinence Program). For many years, she was successful in getting a number of the county’s government schools to include the program in their health education curricula.

While CCAP is no longer active, Phelps’ organization has taken up the slack, staying in touch with Sullivan and working to continue her abstinence program in Florida.

“We supply the materials to government schools, charter schools, private schools, Catholic schools, churches, Christian schools; you name it,” he relates. “We have five programs, four of which are specifically designed for government schools, and one that is designed for religious schools and churches. (See Abstinence Until Marriage Materials Explained, this issue, for more information.)

Throughout its history, A&M’s abstinence programs have reached more than two million students. As with CCAP, Phelps’ programs are designed to be included in schools’ health-education curricula, although he admits he has another goal in mind.

“We exist to supplant sex education programs,” he says. “We believe sex education is corrosive and should be abolished completely. Sex education is the codification of the sexual revolution; it’s the sexual revolution brought into our classrooms and force-fed to kids all over the country. What we do is not a form of sex education; it is completely the opposite. We contradict sex education.

“We are called Abstinence and Marriage Education Resources because we’re teaching abstinence as primarily preparation for future marriage,” he continues. “Marriage is the cornerstone of culture, and if we’re going to restore marriage as the cornerstone of culture and fundamental to our communities and society, we have to help young people understand what marriage is, why it matters, and why sexual activity is best reserved for that context.”

Phelps emphasizes that his programs are not intended as tools for promoting pregnancy prevention. “We are prolife, we are pro-pregnancy, we are pro-baby,” he explains. “We don’t want young people to view pregnancy as a bad thing to be prevented, but as a beautiful thing to be cherished in the context of a loving marriage relationship.”

Abstinence education as ‘risk prevention’

He further points out that the problem is not with pregnancy but with unwed pregnancy. He explains that “typically, too many programs purport to teach the abstinence message but essentially say things like ‘you really shouldn’t be having sex because bad things can happen like pregnancy and disease.’ He says these programs unfortunately equate pregnancy with disease.

“Fertility rates are on the decline,” he adds. “We have done way too much to lower the fertility rate with abortion and contraception, and that’s not good for our society.”

Phelps maintains that abstinence education, if taught at all, is rarely taught well, and is almost exclusively about avoiding problems, without a clear message about future marriage. He adds that it’s taught as an option to the primary message, which is contraception. “They’ve actually changed the language to ‘sexual risk avoidance,’” he says. “Even pregnancy care centers use the term, and it is a very common moniker now instead of abstinence until marriage. But for A&M,” he notes, “marriage is not part of our message, it’s the heart of our message. It’s the centerpiece of everything we want to teach. When marriage is front and center, everything else falls into place.”

Phelps says the problem is never the kids caught in the sex education quagmire, but “the geniuses who get between us and the kids. The kids embrace our message,” he asserts. “They are hungry for it.”

As for the future, A&M will continue to work to create awareness of its programs, looking for new opportunities to promote the materials. Phelps has written several op-ed pieces that have been published in the Chicago Sun Times in recent years, including data showing that abortion and STDs occur overwhelmingly outside of marriage. “There’s a clear correlation between decreasing marriage rates and increasing rates of STDs,” he notes.

He’s currently working on an article that challenges the current strategy of emphasizing contraception rather than marriage, which he says came through during the Republican presidential candidate debates last fall. “That’s a really bad plan; that’s the sex education agenda,” Phelps notes. “The problem isn’t access to contraception, it’s lack of marriage. So that’s the point of the article.”

Phelps says that every day the work of A&M becomes more difficult but also more necessary. “The darker the night, the brighter the light,” he believes. “Our message is so beautiful because it’s true, and kids see that. All truth is God’s truth.”

He vows to continue to spread the message that he credits Phyllis Schlafly and Kathleen Sullivan with starting. “They worked with (former Rear Admiral, POW, and U.S. Senator from Alabama) Jeremiah Denton and really launched the whole thing,” he recalls. Now, he says his organization represents “the last man standing” in terms of a clear abstinence-until-marriage message.

“There really isn’t any other national organization promoting this message. Virtually everyone has modified their language to be more in step with the culture of today. Let’s don’t say ‘abstinence,’ let’s just say ‘here’s how to avoid your sexual risk.’” He cites the other part of the message promulgated by current abstinence programs as “it’s really important to help kids learn to delay sexual activity; we really need to help them wait until they’re older or until they’re in a long-term committed relationship. But all of that is vague, ambiguous, and unhelpful. Marriage needs to be talked about, promoted, and lifted up in a very clear and concise way, which is what our programs do.”

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