Shhh... Don't Talk About S-x
The line of demarcation between when to talk about sex and when not to seems to be a growing debate lately. It seems to follow the swell of teacher-student sex crimes in the news lately. When we consider the homosexual agenda that attempts to implement the normalization of homosexuality in the culture through the schools, I wonder if the sexual revolution has come home to roost. The thinking tends to be consistent on both sides with the respect that liberals want sex to be talked about and conservatives don't.
One example is going on at a San Francisco Bay area school. The superintendent has issued a policy requiring pro-homosexual posters to be hung in the classrooms. Ostensibly, it's to make the homosexual students feel safe. In reality, she's trying to teach kids that homosexuality is not wrong. Isn't morality a religious thing? Therefore, to promote homosexuality is a religious agenda.
Another example has recently graced the agenda of the school board of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, Indiana. A local student paper published an article about oral sex that promoted abstinence. Local parents called for more accountability and proposed that articles be subject to review by the district superintendent before being published. (The article doesn't mention if the superintendent would have approved of the article although the principle of the school and the faculty advisor both do.) The principle offered by the parents is that sex should be taught solely by the parents. Interestingly, the faculty advisor for the paper declared that she would resign if the measure was passed. (I guess she has no say in what the students print, because if she did then what she objects to is that the power of censorship would be taken out of her hands and given to someone else.)
The parents above were described as "Christian" in an article by WorldNetDaily, an internet news source friendly to Christians. Normally, when people are identified with a group in the media, it is an indication of the bias of that publication. For example, if a minority commits a crime, a liberal news source will not typically publish the ethnicity of the criminal. However, when an SUV is in an accident, the same news source will go out of its way to vilify it as the culprit. But one of parents made the comment that sex education should not even be presented to children by the pastor of their church. This raises my next question: to what extent should sex be openly discussed at church?
One record label, "Book 22 Inc.", is trying to put some pretty erotic music into the hands of Christians. "The Original Love Song" is a CD based on the Old Testament book, "Song of Solomon". Any Christian familiar with the book knows how erotic it is. Dr. Norman Geisler, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, recommends it for Christian couples. However, distributors are balking at the recording.
Even the Pope is getting in on the action. His first encyclical deals with erotic love. He encourages godly sex in a marriage, but warns that without unconditional love, men and women are nothing but merchandise.
But where we should draw the line is less clear. Personally, I don't want anyone teaching my kids about sex if I don't have a say in it. I think that churches should take up the task of teaching godly sex and take a rightful stand against sexual immorality. In the schools, reproduction is a natural topic for the biology classroom. However, sex is a deeply spiritual thing and should not be coldly objectified as mere reproduction. This is one reason I advocate home schooling. Public schools are not in a position to teach sexual reproduction objectively and offer students the spiritual direction necessary to adequately apprehend their place in the process. Without spiritual apprehension, reproductive education is as damaging as the teacher-student sex that we are hearing about with alarmingly increasing frequency.
The fact is that whether or not sex is discussed in the schools, kids will discuss it among themselves. And this discussion will center around what they saw on TV, what they discovered in their dad's bureau drawer, what they heard about so-and-so doing with so-and-so and what they claim they did with so-and-so. From my conservative Christian perspective, adulterous and homosexual sex should not be normalized for our kids. Kids should be spiritually prepared to handle their hormones as well as deal with the discussions about sex they will inevitably face. It is not a public service to offer sex education in public schools for this reason. A healthy marriage between a mother and a father is the best preparation for their children's sexual education and when it is time to discuss it, the responsibility should not be shirked by their parents or delegated to someone else. Also, it is helpful for Christians if their church reinforces the parents' teaching.
One example is going on at a San Francisco Bay area school. The superintendent has issued a policy requiring pro-homosexual posters to be hung in the classrooms. Ostensibly, it's to make the homosexual students feel safe. In reality, she's trying to teach kids that homosexuality is not wrong. Isn't morality a religious thing? Therefore, to promote homosexuality is a religious agenda.
Another example has recently graced the agenda of the school board of the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, Indiana. A local student paper published an article about oral sex that promoted abstinence. Local parents called for more accountability and proposed that articles be subject to review by the district superintendent before being published. (The article doesn't mention if the superintendent would have approved of the article although the principle of the school and the faculty advisor both do.) The principle offered by the parents is that sex should be taught solely by the parents. Interestingly, the faculty advisor for the paper declared that she would resign if the measure was passed. (I guess she has no say in what the students print, because if she did then what she objects to is that the power of censorship would be taken out of her hands and given to someone else.)
The parents above were described as "Christian" in an article by WorldNetDaily, an internet news source friendly to Christians. Normally, when people are identified with a group in the media, it is an indication of the bias of that publication. For example, if a minority commits a crime, a liberal news source will not typically publish the ethnicity of the criminal. However, when an SUV is in an accident, the same news source will go out of its way to vilify it as the culprit. But one of parents made the comment that sex education should not even be presented to children by the pastor of their church. This raises my next question: to what extent should sex be openly discussed at church?
One record label, "Book 22 Inc.", is trying to put some pretty erotic music into the hands of Christians. "The Original Love Song" is a CD based on the Old Testament book, "Song of Solomon". Any Christian familiar with the book knows how erotic it is. Dr. Norman Geisler, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, recommends it for Christian couples. However, distributors are balking at the recording.
Even the Pope is getting in on the action. His first encyclical deals with erotic love. He encourages godly sex in a marriage, but warns that without unconditional love, men and women are nothing but merchandise.
But where we should draw the line is less clear. Personally, I don't want anyone teaching my kids about sex if I don't have a say in it. I think that churches should take up the task of teaching godly sex and take a rightful stand against sexual immorality. In the schools, reproduction is a natural topic for the biology classroom. However, sex is a deeply spiritual thing and should not be coldly objectified as mere reproduction. This is one reason I advocate home schooling. Public schools are not in a position to teach sexual reproduction objectively and offer students the spiritual direction necessary to adequately apprehend their place in the process. Without spiritual apprehension, reproductive education is as damaging as the teacher-student sex that we are hearing about with alarmingly increasing frequency.
The fact is that whether or not sex is discussed in the schools, kids will discuss it among themselves. And this discussion will center around what they saw on TV, what they discovered in their dad's bureau drawer, what they heard about so-and-so doing with so-and-so and what they claim they did with so-and-so. From my conservative Christian perspective, adulterous and homosexual sex should not be normalized for our kids. Kids should be spiritually prepared to handle their hormones as well as deal with the discussions about sex they will inevitably face. It is not a public service to offer sex education in public schools for this reason. A healthy marriage between a mother and a father is the best preparation for their children's sexual education and when it is time to discuss it, the responsibility should not be shirked by their parents or delegated to someone else. Also, it is helpful for Christians if their church reinforces the parents' teaching.
posted by Jim Pemberton at 2:49 PM
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