Interim special
The First Annual Guelph Conference on Family and Morality was the response of local pro-life family groups who believe the chastity message for young people has been lost in the rush to embrace secular values and contraception.
Held July 17-18, the event competed head-on with the 18th annual Guelph Conference and Training Institute on Sexuality. The latter event embraces “sex education” as a means of promoting birth control, condoms, and related secular, humanist values.
Excluded
The family and morality gathering was formed by groups who have been officially excluded from participating in the sexuality conference. Organizers wanted to make sure an alternative forum was available to young people, many of whom are confused by society’s emphasis on promiscuity and casual sex.
“The betrayal of our children can no longer be ignored,” said Jakki Jeffs of Alliance for Life, one of the key organizers of the conference. “It is time for the government to get out of our teenagers’ bedrooms and stop interfering with their right to grow up and mature at their own pace. Regarding our children as a market for the chemical or rubber industry seeking outlets is intolerable. Parents must protect their children.”
Jeffs wondered why so many parents are kept in the dark about what their children are being taught under the guise of “comprehensive sex education.” She said no government should have the right to mandate sexual health education which is offensive to parents.
“It’s time for a cultural change in how we allow our school boards to educate our children towards sexual health,” she said. “We are concerned with trying to alter the present fashion among the young of unhealthy, illegal and totally unnecessary sexual activity.”
Jeffs said too many parents seem to have abandoned their children to the notion that they have a right to be sexually active as long as they are responsible. Responsibility in this case translates to the use of condoms or other contraceptives.
The two keynote speakers at the Conference on Family and Morality were William Gairdner, author of Assault on the Family, and chastity educator Marilyn Bergeron.
