Unpublished letter submitted to the Toronto Star

Re: Sex-ed protest empties school – Front Page, September 09, 2015.

The Star’s sensationalist front page headline was completely unwarranted, misleading and unnecessary. It made a small single protest appear as though it was a provincial issue. It served only to give inflated credence to a non-issue and prolong the misguided efforts of a minuscule number of unrepresentative ethnic minority parents to argue their case in the media for accommodations to the province’s new sex-ed curriculum, based on their archaic religious beliefs regarding the teaching of sexual education to their children. Religious intolerance and sexual obsession have been the hallmark of all religions throughout history – most often to disastrous effect. The prudery of organized religion towards sex and its discussion is directly related to the control of all major religious traditions by patriarchal male values and their dominance of women and sexuality in society.

In our western democracies, these individuals are perfectly entitled to practice their faiths and employ their own approach to the issue in their own lives but they are not permitted to demand it in the publicly funded education system of the province. In reality, the rights that these parents are arguing for is the right not to educate their children in sexual matters at all based on religious belief because that is in fact the approach many religions take to sexual education. As a teacher and principal for 37 years in Ontario schools I have witnessed all kinds of objections from parents about sexual education with the primary argument being that parents know best how and when to educate their own children on these matters. From my experience the reality most often is that parents are misinformed and uncomfortable talking to their children about sex and in the vast majority of cases blindly ignore the issue with their children or provide minimal information until it is too late. As with smoking or any other social taboo, kids are miles ahead of their parents on these issues. Parents should seriously consider arguing for limitations on cellphone use rather than protesting sex-ed. Both children and their parents are far more comfortable and better served by having an objective and neutral and professional third party (a teacher) deliver a carefully constructed curriculum to their students in a public setting where every child gets the same information without additional biases – whether experiential, religious or personal. They also don’t get their information from hearsay and informal sources and get the wrong ideas either. As in most things in life it is better to know than not. Knowledge is power and makes one autonomous and independent – something most religions resist.

The other important point about this issue is that these concerns being expressed apply primarily to women and not men in these societies and indeed all societies around the world. The reality is that in many Middle-Eastern, Muslim and other faiths little or no sexual education is provided by parents to children and young adults based on religious restrictions or taboos or simple parental discomfort discussing such issues with their children (primarily girls). In many traditional ethnic faiths in developing countries women are subjected to grotesque and barbaric religiously based medical procedures such as FGM (female genital mutilation) to reduce their sex-drive that the World Health Organization estimates has been performed on over 100 million women around the world and the even more primitive practice of sewing the labia closed to prevent intercourse before marriage. Virginity is prized by all faiths and many young girls in developing countries enter pre-arranged marriages with no sexual knowledge or experience leading to traumatic results. Adultery or sex before marriage is still punishable by death in many countries around the world. We cannot fall victim to religiously based ignorance masquerading as democratic rights. This can hardly be a model for Ontario youth.

The Ontario curriculum has been exhaustively vetted by more than 70 healthcare and social organizations and hundreds more and reflects the best practices of our current expert knowledge regarding appropriate sexual education of children and young adults. Parents and concerned groups have had more than enough time to provide input and parents still can exempt their children from sex-ed classes. The approach taken by the province to sex-ed reflects the views of the majority in our advanced western society at this time. In contrast to the few traditionalist parents the overwhelming silent majority of all parents (including many immigrant and ethnic minority families) agree with and support the changes to the curriculum as demonstrated by their lack of opposition to the program.  In a democracy this is how decisions are made and devised – not through pressure tactics and histrionics. The reality is that if we are not providing accurate, age-appropriate sexual information to our children they are gathering it themselves online or from friends. Better a well-developed, comprehensive school curriculum than random facts and misinformation or no information at all.