My name is Chris Van Loan and I have lived in Austin most of my life. Now I am a Radio-Television-Film student at the University of Texas at Austin and I believe we owe it to our young people to provide them with truthful, scientifically accurate information about sex so that they can make informed decisions.
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Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council — a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
Recently the Texas Freedom Network hosted an event here in Austin with the Live Oak Universalist Church dealing with Faith & Sex Education. I had never been in a Universalist church before but I quickly new it was a cool, friendly environment with their large poster that said, "We Are a Welcoming Congregation."
We showed a documentary which contrasts American values about sex with their attitudes in other countries and highlights the ineffectiveness of our current programs and cost to the taxpayers.
Then the Pastor Chuck Freeman (left) spoke in support of us and Garrett (right) gave a short presentation about the state of our sex education here in the state.
It was great being able to reach out to the community and talk with some young people and parents about the issue. We even had some of the High Schoolers from this event come out to the State Capital with us to speak with our representatives about demanding comprehrensive sex ed.
- Chris
Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council -- a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
I have been a fan of the internet webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for a long time now. I literally go there every day because cartoonist Zach Weiner updates it roughly 7 times a week. Over the last few years the comic has become increasingly science and technology-related (which is right up my alley) but I also love what his strips have to say about sexuality - you can tell he is progressve on a lot of issues. I always appreciate when a comic has nothing to do about race or homosexuality but the strip features an interracial couple or a gay couple.
So clearly then www.nomblog.com (the National Organization for Marriage), a group whose major function is lobbying against gay marriage was not very familiar with SMBC when they hotlinked one of his comics to their front page.
When Weiner found out he quickly changed the image to this:
You can read all about it on his blog here:
www.theweinerworks.com/
He writes, "There seems to be this idea out there that action through the Internet has no important effect. Even people I really respect, like Jon Stewart, promote this idea. Well, today, I probably got a message of equality to over 100,000 people, among them members of the other side. This generation fights in a new way, but we fight just as hard."
Thank you Zach.
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In other news my 1,000 condoms from the Great American Condom Campaign came in the mail today! Whew, this is going to be a challenge but hopefully UT's Human Sexuality professor will let me distribute them before and after his class.
I was so excited by all the colors that I arranged them into a rainbow:
In the middle that is supposed to be a pot of gold with some grass and shrubs. In my excitement I hadn't thought to use the yellow Intense Ribbed on the right there for gold! Oh well, next time.
- Chris Van Loan
Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council -- a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
I stumbled across an essay today on the internet that really spoke to me, I don't even remember how I got there!
Lisa Hymas writes for Grist.org, the most recognizable voice in environmental journalism. As someone who cares immensely about world population, articles such as: "Say it loud: I'm childfree and I'm Proud" and "8 Things You Can Do About World Population" (hint: the first one is "push to improve sex ed in your local schools") really grabbed my attention.
Here is a link to the living childfree article:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-30-gink-manifesto-say-it-loud-im-childfree-and-im-proud
As a twenty-two year old who has decided that he will never have kids I often feel like I'm in a very silent minority so I'm always attracted to people who have the bravery to speak up on the issue. Hymas brings up an important concept regarding population called "exponential population growth." This is an idea that I've had rolling around my head but I could never articulate it so clearly. Simply put, kids will continue to have more offspring forever and ever and the environmental impact is huge.
In 1960 there were about 3 Billion people on Earth. Hymas brings up an example of a 93 year old woman who died with 2,000 living descendants. The woman had 15 children, 200 grandchildren and the numbers of great- and great-great- grandchildren were, well you guessed it, exponentially higher.
Ultimately, I would just like to spread the message that living childfree is a valid option despite all the pressure from the outside.
GINKers, what would happen if we answered the kid question honestly?
Say, " "No, I'm happy with my life as is," or "A child doesn't fit into our life plans," or "Kids aren't really my thing," or "I think there are plenty of people on the planet already." "
I don't know, what do you think? Leave comments below.
Chris Van Loan
www.vanloanfilm.com
Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council -- a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
This great local story was shared with me a while back but it was too sad to blog about so close to Christmas. Despite being homeless, transgender woman Jennifer Gale was an activist and a regular speaker at City Council meetings in Austin. She was refused from a homeless shelter called The Bridge that would have made her room and shower with men but after her death on the streets of Austin they changed their policy to recognize gender identity.
Click the link to read more
http://www.dallasvoice.com/watch-homeless-transgender-woman-jennifer-gale-sings-silent-night-eve-death-1056574.html
I am happy that this change was made but the article brings up the discrimination inherent in the Salvation Army. Help your fellow man without judgment this Holiday season and all year round! Oh, and if you're feeling philanthropic just pass by the red kettle I say. There are many more open-minded charities aside from the Salvation Army.
- Chris
Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council -- a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
When I first saw that there was a new TEDTalk this year related to contraception I just knew it would be right up my alley. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design is a set of conferences in which people give short talks about ideas to change the world. All these talks are now made available for free online and it is easily my favorite site on the internet.
Without giving too much away (watch the vid!), Mr. Viravaidya began a project in Thailand in the 1970s to control the country's population and thus increase the country's quality of life. He had a lot of success.
This video got me to thinking that maybe condoms should be free in America? This sounds like a very anti-capitalist liberal idea to subsidize yet another industry but it makes a lot of sense to me given that our government spends 9 billion dollars a year on supporting teenage mothers.
Mr. Condom had a campaign in this video called "Coffee & Condoms" in which anyone could get free prophylactics at the coffee shop. What if we went to Starbucks and there was a large bowl for anyone to take? Not as a brief marketing campaign to raise awareness, but as a permanent way of life, something we all become used to. Maybe for some people that would be too much, but to me it would be a welcome change over the current belief system in many countries which often seems to believe that condoms are worse than AIDS.
Chris Van Loan is a senior at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong Austin native, Chris is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council – a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.
Just as quickly as my Great American Condom Campaign begun it has come to a swift end.
I got my 500 Trojan condoms in the mail and quickly started distributing them on campus the same week. I'm in a course called Human Sexuality so I figured what better place could there be to hand out free condoms as well as get people to sign my Education Works petition for comprehensive sex-ed?? This college course has a lot of great information I think many of the students wish they had when they were in public high schools themselves.
Brownstein teaches the course 3 times in a row back-to-back in the same room and since I am in the second one it was easy for me to show up early and stay late and have access to at least 300 students.
It was going so well and I had already given out 200 condoms and gotten over 40 petitions for comprehensive sex ed signed when I left my cardboard box unattended in a bathroom for a few minutes. I came back and it was all gone! I asked random strangers what they had seen, I talked with two lost and found offices on campus and the janitorial staff. Eventually I just had to accept that all of the petitions that I had worked for were gone and some greedy kid ran off with 300 Trojan condoms.
The Pros:
- I did distribute over 200 condoms to students at UT
- I got to talk with a lot of students and raise awareness on the subject, informing them that 94% of school districts in Texas have abstinence only education.
- Hopefully my condom bandit will continue distributing the Trojans to his friends, doling out handfuls to people in need.
Bummed out,
Chris Van Loan
A while back I went into a urologist's office to get a vasectomy.
Now if you don't know already, a vasectomy is a minor surgery
which severs the vasa deferentia (vas deferens x2) of a man to prevent sperm
from entering the semen as a permanent form of birth control. It is considered
far safer and more effect than tubal ligation in women.
After I sat down and had a talk with my parents about my decision it probably
took me another month to get up the courage to really make that call and
schedule an appointment. I think it was probably a disappointment for my mother to
hear that she would never have any biological grandchildren from me, but I believe
that she respected my choice. So you can imagine my disappointment when the
doctor told me that he was unwilling to perform the surgery because I was too
young, unmarried and had no kids.
This was frustrating and it has raised a lot of questions in my mind. It's my body
and I am an adult, shouldn't I have the right to responsibly seek out sterilization?
Was he right? In a world that will reach a population of 9 Billion in my lifetime should
this procedure become more common? Isn't it unethical to send me off into
the world and into the hands of a less qualified surgeon where I might see serious
lifelong injury?
In overpopulated countries like China and India men are offered incentives for
vasectomy. Meanwhile many other countries use vasectomy as a more frequent
form of birth control than the US - a survey showed that in 2002 some 18% of men in the
United Kingdom between 16 and 69 had had a vasectomy. I was very surprised to see that that statistic even included 16 year olds!
Now here I am today, about to receive my Bachelor's degree soon and thinking
about making another request. However, I worry that I will get myself all psyched
up again just to be rejected a second time - and then what? Do I start calling up
all of the urologists in my city? In my state? Am I going to have to cross the border
for the simple procedure?
I had read several news stories about the new 2010 Texas Republican Party Platform and heard a few friends buzzing about it - so I decided to read it for myself.
First of all I was surprised by just how conservative the platform is but I have to commend how terse and straight-forward the twenty five page document is.
I feel like so many young people have completely lost interest in politics. I have always said that a one or two-page paper with bullet points outlining what different parties stand for could clear things up. For anyone wondering who they should vote for or even seeking confirmation for what they already believe in, I say go to the source!
Read it for yourself here
There it is, in the most concrete terms possible. Now, I don't approve the of the platform's stance against homosexual marriage or their belief that, "homosexual behavior
is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans," but I cannot say that I am honestly surprised. What really does surprise me is that the Republican Party would like to re-criminalize sodomy. The decision of granting certain legal rights to citizens is one which obviously falls within the bounds of a political organization, but even the most conservative people I have met in my life generally say, "what happens behind closed doors is none of my business," or something to that effect.
Next, on page fourteen you can read, "We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until heterosexual marriage." To me, that doesn't sound much like education at all but rather indoctrination. It reads more like they want a very specific moral belief system to be taught in the public schools, without any factual basis. But that's just me. Is abstinence-only education really even "education"? Comment below and tell me your opinion.
Living in Austin, Texas I often forget that the politics in this state are truly dominated by the Republican Party. So I think that makes reading and understanding this document fairly important. The Republican Party of Texas has been in control of the state for some time now and may continue to be in power for a while now.
- Chris Van Loan
