Short presentation on interesting angle concerning sex ed

[scott75]

Did a short presentation at my college, concerning sex ed and an even more controversial subject that I believe is related to it. As is clear to anyone who's in the same province, I live in Ontario, Canada. Thought I'd share it here...

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On April 21st this year, I read that our premier Dalton Mcguinty had decided that Sex ed should become more detailed <24 hour newspaper>. I read that his plan was that in Grade 3, students would learn things such as gender identity and sexual orientation. One person who was particulary upset about this was Dr. Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College <http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/798150--mcguinty-wants-sex-ed-to-start-in-grade-3>. He stated:
“Now, most adults do not question their gender identity. But we’re now going to teach little Johnny to say, ‘Well, I’m male on the outside but maybe I’m a girl on the inside’. This is unconscionable to confuse an eight year old’s mind with this type of indoctrination of a special-interest agenda”.

McVety doesn’t object to sex education as a whole. Rather, he favours the declining abstinence only education method.

I also learned that his new sex ed program would also give teachers the freedom to talk about things such as same sex parents and masturbation in Grade 6 . Again, however, some conservative groups, self describing themselves as “family focused”, were not impressed. They accused the government of “corrupting young minds with sexually explicit material”. McGuinty’s counter was that kids would learn about such topics anyway and that it would be better for them to learn these things in school rather than from questionable sources. The conservative groups were undeterred. The material was “bordering on the criminal”, they stated.

I’m curious to know what people such as McVety would think of an article I read on the internet recently <http://www.humanismbyjoe.com/clerical_celibacy_and_pedophilic.htm>. It talks of a specific group of christians, the Catholic Church. Specifically, it addresses the issue of priests sexually molesting children. He points out that the Church has acknowledged that 13,000 credible accusations of sexual abuse have been made against Catholic clerics since 1950. He then goes into why this might be. The author explains that there is strong evidence that this widespread problem is caused, at least in part, by the Catholic Church's clerical celibacy requirement and its other sexually repressive doctrines. In fact, statements by Dr. Jay Feierman support a link between sexual repression and pedophilia. As a psychiatrist who has met with hundreds of pedophilic priests at a Catholic treatment center in New Mexico, and who edited the book “Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions” <http://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/90_feierman.htm>, Feierman is in a position to recognize this connection.

The author of the article further states that people who are concerned about the problem should therefore urge Catholic leaders to reexamine and modify their teachings about sex. Personally, I don’t think we should limit ourselves to catholics; after all, they’re certainly not the only christian group to be sexual repressive, nor is sexual repression something that is exclusive to Christianity. Given this fact, I think that McGuinty is on the right track.

I think that McGuinty realized that his drive to change things was done too soon. A few days after his announcement that the sex ed curriculum would be changed, the liberals decided to go back to the drawing board concerning the revision of the sex ed curriculum <http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ericmang/2010/04/christian-right-and-ontarios-new-sex-ed-guidelines>. I’m fine with that. I just hope that the issue isn’t left on the back burner, because of the enormity of what’s at stake by keeping young people in the dark concerning sexual education.
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