Atikokan District High School students applauded Premier David Peterson for what the Toronto Star called “an enlightened lesson in sex education.” Practice safe sex was the advice the Premier gave to 420 children ages 12 to 17.
Peterson was responding to questions about the Ontario Government’s funding for research into treatment for AIDS. But since no cure for the disease has been found, he said, “my advice is: don’t get it. It is a preventable disease…if you catch it, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.”
A student asked: “Are you saying, don’t have sex?” Peterson, grinning broadly, replied: “No, not at all – I’m the last guy to say that. I’m the father of three children.” He concluded by advising, “practice safe sex, and that means…condoms must be used.”
In the space of a few words the Premier missed an ideal opportunity to encourage his young listeners to seek the peace and freedom of abstinence; presumed that a teenager’s sexual appetite had to be satisfied: legitimized the sexual experimentation of children by comparing it to the marriage act; and tragically misled his impressionable audience about the reliability of condoms.
Except for one Separate School Board trustee, no one has risen publicly to hold David Peterson accountable for his immoral (and dangerous) sex lesson.
