Good news from Texas and Oregon

by David Safier

A brief break from "Ain't it awful!" news to relate a couple of positive items.

1. From Texas: Abstinence only education is on the wane. "In a state that has long encouraged an abstinence-only approach to sex education, the number of Texas school districts teaching students about contraception along with abstinence has surged in the last three years." The number of Texas districts teaching "abstinence-plus" has gone from 3.6% three years ago to more than 25% of districts today.
2. From Oregon: "Gov. John Kitzhaber has imposed a moratorium on the death penalty for the remainder of his term, saying he's morally opposed to the capital punishment and has long regretted allowing two men to be executed in the 1990s."