MASON — As part of an effort to get Mason teens to embrace sexual abstinence until marriage, one group now offers sex education classes to Mason parents.

        The Mason Community for Abstinence Reinforcement and Encouragement, run by the Abstinence Educators' Network Inc., has taught abstinence for six years through mentoring, an after school club and Mason school health class support. This year, funded by wellness grants, M-CARE offers six one-hour community abstinence sessions for parents.

        Tim Keeton, a Mason High School assistant administrator who taught Mason's abstinence-based health classes for 13 years, is the parent session presenter.

        “Kids basically think that if they practice safer sex, they will be safe, and that's not true,” Mr. Keeton said. “Most parents do not know about HPV (Human papillomavirus), that it is our fastest growing STD (sexually transmitted disease), or that condoms do not protect against it.”

        Mason junior Beth Conn, 17, is president of the 25-member Mason High School Abstinence Club. She said that though an abstinence message is more effective if delivered by a peer, parents have a strong role in teen sexual abstinence.

        “My parents have always been very open with me and so it's always been clear as day why I would want to make that decision (abstinence) over the other,” she said.

        Abstinence has been a hot topic since George W. Bush announced a $33 million funding increase for abstinence education, according to M-CARE coordinator Melanie Howell. She said that President Bush's support of abstinence education would help further the abstinence cause.

        “You see that even the government is beginning to realize that children don't prosper when they have sex,” she said.

        The next M-CARE session will be in April. For more information, call 398-9801.

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