---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993                   TAG: 9303220389
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

---

STATE SENDS WRONG SIGNAL

WHY PICK on a preacher and a child's parents for contributing to the delinquency of a minor? Planned Parenthood and the state health department do the same thing on a wholesale basis, daily. Both groups give out contraceptives to minors every day with no parental involvement or knowledge.

Doesn't the state encourage behavior in children that its own laws prohibit? We need to encourage chaste behavior, not sodomy or fornication. Maybe our teen pregnancy problem is not with the teens, but with the adult "experts" who promote the wrong values and behaviors in our teen-agers. JOHN D. STEC COVINGTON

---