A high school ‘safe-sex’ display has led to parental calls for an abstinence-based sex-education curriculum. Janice Morris said she and other parents in the Grey County school district were motivated to speak out when they discovered the contents of a ‘Sexuality Fair’ that was touring local schools.
“When we looked at the fair and discovered what sort of things they were teaching,” commented Mrs. Morris, “we discovered that it was sort of a how-to protect yourself when you are sexually active rather than teaching students how to remain virgins or to abstain or get out of a sexual involvement.”
The parents responded by forming the Committee of Concerned Citizens (CCC). The CCC’s goal is to educate the local school board, other parents, and the general public about the dangers of ‘safe-sex’ and to encourage the use of abstinence-based programs.
The new group began by persuading the local school boards to bring in a pro-abstinence speaker.
Beverley Hadland of Straight Talk Youth Counselling had a clear message to impart: “You cannot teach sex in a moral vacuum. Either you’re giving a value that it’s ok to have sex before marriage or you’re giving a value that you should wait until marriage.”
The Owen Sound and Grey County school board’s response to the CCC’s lobbying has been to form a committee to investigate the whole area of sex education – especially the issue of condom machines in the schools.