Dalton McGuinty finds himself in distinguished company, having flip-flopped on changes to Ontario’s sex-ed program faster than Stephen Harper could throw Helena Guergis under the bus.
The product of several years of consultation with experts in the field and parents’ groups, Ontario’s new sex-ed program was released back in January. No one paid any attention until this past week when some Christian conservative groups found out about the changes and threatened to protest.
Of course the media didn’t help either, with their, some would say unnatural, obsession with “masturbation”, “vaginal lubrication”, and “anal intercourse”. Reporters and news anchors couldn’t wait to say those words on air as they excitedly informed the great unwashed who apparently all managed to survive into intolerant and ignorant adulthood without having to learn all that nasty stuff in school.
These changes are not only timely, but necessary because while some parents are conscientious and teach their children the facts of life at an appropriate time, most children’s sex education occurs in the schoolyard or from watching porn videos on the cable channel or the internet. And presumably not even the incensed Christian lobby groups would agree that’s appropriate. (Although they would defer such education until well after the time it was needed by the kids, and eliminate most of the stuff they don’t agree with, absurdly rendering the whole exercise pretty much useless.)
Sadly this episode also shows Dalton McGuinty for what he is, an opportunist for whom principles are merely trial balloons to be floated to see which way the wind blows. This was not his finest hour. Instead of showing courage and doing what’s right, he ran.
But the highlight of this news item for me was when Sister Joan Cronin of the Institute for Catholic Education said, presumably with a straight (and very pinched) face, “The church disapproves of masturbation on any level”. Apparently it is even lower on the Roman Catholic acceptance scale than some other sexual practices that have recently (again) been in the news. To which I would suggest better sex education and a little (or a lot) of masturbation might be just what the Catholic Church needs.
3 comments:
Arr!
that's the Rub!
Or..thousands like me who are not Christian church goers made a phone call and told Mr McGuinty to let me parent, and, keep your socialistic views to yourself. I know its hard for some people to understand, but, the vast majority of us parents became parents to raise our own children, and, to feed them and teach them about sex and religion ourselves. Mr McGuinty didnt cave to the religious right...he caved to normal middle! billg
Anon - One of the big problems is that many (maybe most) parents do an abysmal job of teaching their kids about sex. They either don't do it at all, or it's done in a way that propagates the parents' own biases, whether they relate to homosexuality or masturbation or any of a number of other social and/or sexual practices.
And if being supportive of a complete and quality education covering all aspects of the human condition makes one a "socialist", then count me in.
Finally, McGuinty could care less about the middle - he's been screwing us all for years. He caved to the special interest religious right. And that was a mistake.
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