Why deny your children information that will keep them safe and healthy?

It's not a question of keeping them safe and healthy, it's a question of getting them into heaven. For a very long time, poverty was dismissed as irrelevant because this world didn't matter, accepting your lot in life with a proper spirit was, because you were laying up treasure in heaven and you would receive your due there.

Can I quote that?

Be my guest. Except, it's not what I meant to say.

If you don't admit you're vulnerable, maybe the world won't notice.

So if that's the quote you need, it's all yours.

Their souls are more important than their bodies?

To a lot of people, yes. Bodies die, souls are forever.

Oh, I can't find a link right now... but there's this disease that condoms cannot prevent (I forget what). Anyway, scientists have developed a vaccine for it. Now some Christian groups are saying that the vaccine should not be released, because if it is then that's sending a message that it's OK to have sex....

For a very long time, poverty was dismissed as irrelevant because this world didn't matter

It's a wonderful way to keep people complacent, docile.

I just don't understand why they would do this when the lie is hurting their children.

Because then you have "facts" to support favoring programs that will score points with the Christian Right and allow you to dismiss objections from opponents who might want to point out weaknesses with the programs. The actual truth isn't really the point.

It's a wonderful way to keep people complacent, docile.

It was a useful side effect of the theory, yes.

Shouldn't it be called a meta-analysis, if it was only a re-analysis of somebody else's data?

A meta-analysis is when you combine the results of many previous studies together. So, for instance, you find the correlation between x and y reported in each of 30 previous studies and then are able to conclude that this correlation is higher under some conditions (the conditions present in some studies) than under others. Meta-analysis is a good way to find out how variables like age or sex or race or socioeconomic status affect treatment, because no individual study will have enough variation on those characteristics to answer the question. But if you combine across studies you can ask new and interesting questions.

Both the original Virginity Pledge study and this fake one were based on the same publicly available data set. Any researcher can get the data and check the results, which is why this new 'study' provides such a good example of conservative propaganda.

Anyway, scientists have developed a vaccine for it.

I think it is cervical cancer.

Oh, I can't find a link right now... but there's this disease that condoms cannot prevent (I forget what). Anyway, scientists have developed a vaccine for it. Now some Christian groups are saying that the vaccine should not be released, because if it is then that's sending a message that it's OK to have sex....

I think it is cervical cancer.

HPV, which is a risk factor for some forms of cervical cancer.