Eliminate Religious Control of Sex Education in Public Schools

In May 2009, using federal “abstinence-only-until-marriage” funds, the State of Mississippi held a teen abstinence summit. According to the ACLU:

“The 2009 summit featured religious themes and overtly Christian messages, including a lengthy presentation about the Ten Commandments by Judge John N. Hudson. Judge Hudson told the audience, ‘Abstain, God says, from promiscuous sex – thou shall not commit adultery. …Why would He tell us not to do it? He's not. He's telling us that He created this great and wonderful gift for a special and unique committed relationship that is to last forever.’ The program also included several prayers and a performance to gospel songs by the Pilgrim Rest Mime Ministry.”

Religious ideology, not medical science, is being taught to many public school children across the country.

• The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "Abstinence-only programs have not demonstrated successful outcomes with regard to delayed initiation of sexual activity or use of safer sex practices... Programs that offer a discussion of HIV prevention and contraception as the best approach for adolescents who are sexually active have been shown to delay the initiation of sexual activity and increase the proportion of sexually active adolescents who reported using birth control."
•  Since 1997, the federal government has allocated more than $1 billion for abstinence-only-until marriage programs. Educational programs on sexuality for teens should protect the health and safety of children -- not promote a particular religious perspective.
• By law, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs are prohibited from providing lifesaving information about the health benefits of contraception and condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and unintended pregnancies.
• Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs contain false and misleading "medical" statements and teach religious propaganda and theologically driven gender stereotypes.
• Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs promote a conservative religious perspective over a secular science-based approach to sex education.
• Researchers studied the National Survey of Family Growth to determine the impact of sexuality education on youth sexual risk-taking for young people ages 15-19, and found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to experience pregnancy than those who received abstinence-only education.
• The following sampling of organizations is in support of medically accurate, secular sex education programs: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the Institute of Medicine.

The Secular Coalition for America believes that government-funded sex education in public schools must teach sound science. Our first priority when crafting educational programs on sexuality for teens should be protecting the health and safety of our nation's children -- not promoting and endorsing a religious perspective. Moreover, the curricula of our sex education programs must be directed by medical and education professionals, not religious leaders.

Religious Resources in Support of Sex Education, Reproductive Rights, and the Rights of GLBTQ youth

Research shows that the majority of people of faith and religious organizations support comprehensive sex education that includes messages about delaying sexual initiation and medically-accurate, age-appropriate information about contraception. The Religious Right has monopolized the conversation regarding faith and sexuality for many years, and progressive religious individuals and organizations provide a necessary perspective to strengthen and diversify advocacy work in support of sex education. It is critical to include them as allies when doing advocacy work.

The organizations listed below provide a starting point for identifying religious allies of comprehensive sex education, reproductive health, and LGBT rights. Many of these organizations provide resources on incorporating a religious perspective into sex education advocacy and/or provide opportunities for partnership. They also provide resources to people of faith who want to bring healthy conversations about sexuality into their own congregations. Additionally, the list of online communities provides information and support to anyone who is unsure about reconciling their progressive views about sex education with their religious beliefs.

Yes, Sex Education for Kindergarteners

Sex education has made it into the national campaign, but not in the way I would hope.

Last year, you may remember that I had the opportunity to debate Bill O'Reilly on whether sex education should begin in kindergarten.

I said then, and I'll repeat now, that I believe in K - 12 sex education. So do more than 150 national health, medical, religious, and youth-serving organizations.

Sex education in the early primary years sets a foundation for later, more in-depth education. It includes lessons on taking good care of your body, family roles, treating people with respect, the names of body parts, and sex abuse prevention. It helps children feel good about their bodies, their gender, their families, and gives them age-appropriate information. It teaches them "no, go, tell" about sexual abuse -- say no, get away, and tell an adult you trust what happened. It supports parent/child communication about these issues.

The Unitarian Universalist Association and United Church of Christ sex education program "Our Whole Lives" includes a model K-12 program. I wish all children received such basic, supportive programs.

The curriculum DOES NOT include discussions of sexual behaviors or contraceptive methods or other information that would not be age-appropriate for five- or six-year-olds. The ad referenced in the article is supposed to scare viewers by conjuring up images of sexually explicit material being presented to five-year-olds -- nothing could be further from the truth.

And Mr. O'Reilly, I still think that five-year-olds can be taught that babies grow in a special place inside their mother called a uterus.

Unbiased sex education is a child's right

Allowing faith schools to skew the curriculum in order to argue against homosexuality and sex before marriage is a mistake.

"No parent or school should be able to prevent a young person receiving good, high-quality sex and relationship education." Typical, some would say, of the view of humanists and others who believe that sex and relationships education should be an entitlement for all our children, and are often accused as a consequence of riding roughshod over the rights of some religious parents and the "rights" of religious schools.

But this is not the voice of your stock strident secularist, but a 16-year-old, speaking as a representative of the Youth Parliament today. Young people themselves are some of the strongest supporters  of sex and relationships education, and recognise that it will improve their ability to deal with the emotional, moral and practical difficulties of adolescent and adult life. The Youth Parliament has been a key leader in the drive for compulsory sex and relationships education, and has called not just for all state schools – including religious schools – to be legally obliged to teach it, but for parents not to be able to opt their children out of it.

It's not a surprise that young people want this education. We know that the sexual health and wellbeing of young people is improved  by sex and relationships education. We also know that teaching only abstinence in schools has no effect on the likelihood of teenagers to have sex (they are just as likely to do so – it simply means they are less able to take the proper precautions and negotiate complex relationships). Young people have a right to expect that we as a community will provide it for them – and when we say that young people have a right to such education this is in fact literally true. As Article 13 of the convention on the rights of the child says, "The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers … "

In the face of overwhelming evidence that sex and relationships education improves the lives of young people, what right do we have to deny them it? If we know that sex and relationships education of an objective sort improves young people's health and wellbeing (and we do) and if we accept that it is the right of the child to receive information of all sorts (which it is) and if we go on to conclude that the responsibility of society is therefore to ensure that all our children receive this entitlement, then why allow state-funded religious schools to do something different? Why in particular, as has been announced today, should the religious character of a school (which may or may not be shared by the school's pupils or their parents) be allowed to skew the sex and relationships education that children receive?

In PSHE, as in RE, pupils should have the opportunity to learn about and engage with a range of different perspectives on relationships. Many different views do exist in society and sex and relationships education should engage them – as it does. But above all else, we need to be honest with young people, not withhold from them knowledge of the full range of human sexuality that does exist in reality, which they will encounter and engage with in the world outside school and which they need to be prepared for.

In sex and relationships education, more than in any other area, we must place the child – not our own prejudices – firmly at the centre of our thinking. Young people want this education, they need it, it is their right to have it, and if we withhold it from them on grounds of our own ideologies, we will only be doing harm.