Morality,
Modesty, Marriage
A response
to the Scottish Executive's public
consultation on new arrangements for Sex Education
©2000
The Christian Institute
Contents
Introduction
Morality
Modesty
Marriage
References
Introduction
What is happening
The Executive is consulting the public on the new arrangements for
sex education. We believe the Executive will accept responses up
to 10 January 2001.
We are encouraging as many people as possible to complete a copy
of the questionnaire
and post it to:
Learning and Teaching Scotland,
Gardyne Road,
Broughty Ferry,
Dundee,
DD5 1NY.
You can always respond in a personal capacity, but you may represent
a church or an organisation. If you have such a position, please
state it on the form.
It is particularly important that teachers, school board members,
church leaders and parents respond.
Why it is important
Against the wishes of the vast majority of parents, the Executive
has decided to repeal Section 28 (Section 2A). In another move,
much reported in the press, the Executive has backed more explicit
sex education. This consultation covers all aspects of sex education,
not just homosexuality.
Many Scottish Schools deal with sex education in a sensible and
sensitive way, but we believe the Executive's proposals will make
this more difficult. The proposals pave the way for a new kind of
explicit sex education based on a 'safer sex' message. This is why
it is important that people put their views through the questionnaire.
We are concerned about the sidelining of
·Morality;
·Modesty; and
·Marriage.
The Executive's Proposals
The Executive has put its proposals in four documents. These proposals
will replace Section 28 from February 2001 and provide a new blueprint
for sex education in Scottish schools.
The proposals involve a large amount of paperwork.
If you want to read the Executive's documents they may be found
on the internet at www.ltscotland.com
The four documents are:
- Guidance
for Schools and Local Authorities on Effective Consultation with
Parents and Carers
- A
Guide for Parents and Carers
- Summary
of National Advice
- Circular
on the Conduct of Sex Education
Each
section of the questionnaire covers one document.
Morality
Sex education is a controversial subject because of the moral issues
involved.
The Executive says that 'Sex education should be non-discriminatory'
and that pupils should avoid 'prejudice and discrimination'.(1)
The problem is that all moral views involve pre-judgements and discrimination
between what is right and wrong.
For Christians, hatred of people is always wrong. Christians should
'love the sinner and hate the sin'.
But sexual morality cannot be fudged. Christians believe sex outside
of marriage is always wrong, including sex before marriage.
The Scottish population are not so liberal on sex as some people
claim. The largest academic study of its kind found that 85% of
Scottish men viewed adultery as wrong and 70% viewed homosexual
sex as wrong.(2)
Parents do not want the school to undermine the values of the home.
Yet that is precisely what will happen with value-free sex education
which pretends that any sexual activity is just the same as any
other.
The age of consent is fixed at 16. The law says that sex is for
adults, not children. But the Executive has adopted a 'harm reduction'
approach which tells under age school children how to have sex more
safely.
A thoughtful editorial in The Herald made another suggestion:
'Although sex education guidelines for children and young people
place emphasis on the value of stable family life (including the
responsibilities of parenthood and marriage) there is perhaps a
case for the importance of self-respect, encouraging youngsters
to say no to sex, being stressed.'(3)
Schools should promote sexual abstinence. They should teach young
people to say no to sex. This approach has been widely adopted in
the United States. So popular has it become that in 1996 President
Clinton signed into law a Bill which guarantees $250 million for
school abstinence programmes.(4)
The US teen pregnancy rate has been falling steadily since 1991.
In August, the US Government announced that birth rates for teenage
girls continued to decline, dropping to 49.6 per 1,000 girls aged
15-19. This is the lowest rate since recording began sixty years
ago. (5)
The Executive's approach to sex education is in stark contrast to
its approach to smoking. The Executive wants youngsters to stop.
The White Paper on Health has targets to reduce smoking by 12-15
year olds from 14% to 11% by 2010.(6)
Figures from The Health Education Board for Scotland(7)
suggest that in 1998 one third of 15 year olds will have had sex,
up from one quarter in 1990. Between 1990 and 1994 the number of
sexually experienced 15 year olds rose from 26% to 37%.(8)
Such activity carries health risks.
Surely it is time to encourage young people to say no to underage
sex, just as we encourage them to say no to smoking?
Modesty
Modesty is a virtue. Yet the Executive's plans for sex education
pay little tribute to it. Many sex education gurus seem to believe
that no subject should be 'taboo'.
The Strathclyde University Teachers' resource, recommended by the
Executive in its circular, would make many parents blush, let alone
their children.
Ever increasing explicitness is all the more dangerous for young
people in our highly sexualised popular culture where males and
females alike are encouraged to be sexually 'adventurous' and unrestrained.
This is wrong.
If modesty is a virtue then sex education should encourage it. Everyone,
especially the vulnerable, is protected by modesty. It requires
that discussions of sex and reference to body parts should be respectful
and restrained.
The proposed Circular from the Executive requires that pupils be
given 'accurate and relevant information' about sex. But surely
this needs to be qualified. Graphic pictures of intercourse or detailed
descriptions of sexual perversions may well be very 'accurate' but
they are highly unsuitable for children.
The Executive also urges that pupils should be given access to 'agencies
and services providing support and advice to young people'. But
there have been highly publicised examples where some of these agencies
have proved themselves untrustworthy. In at least one case pornographic
materials are used in a youth group.(9)
The Circular should require much more restraint on the part of schools
and outside agencies. They should be told to use only materials
which describe sex in terms which are factual, not erotic, and which
parents would not find offensive. Photographs of sexual activity
or genitalia are unnecessary: scientific diagrams will suffice.
Marriage
It is still true that most people marry and most marriages last
for life.(10) In Scotland today 57%
of adults are married, 8% are divorced or separated and 9% are widowed.
Only 6% are cohabiting.(11)
Despite all this, 'marriage' is the word that is most notable by
its absence in many of the Executive's proposals on sex education.
Marriage is the norm for Scottish children: 68.5% of children live
in married households, with only 7.9% in cohabiting households.
(12) The remaining 23.6% of children
live in single parent households.
A 1996 Gallup poll found that 75% of people believed that 'children
should be taught in school that marriage is a good thing.' (13)
It is sometimes argued that schools should not promote marriage
because they have children from broken homes or single parent households.
But society should still hold out the ideal of marriage to young
people. If we do not do this the cycle of deprivation will continue.
Children from broken homes are at much greater risk themselves of
growing up to become divorced or have transient relationships. Surely
teachers should not pretend to children that all relationships are
equivalent. Children who do have feckless fathers know only too
well about adult irresponsibility. Schools should encourage young
people to be responsible adults when they grow up.
The Westminster Government has rightly stated that marriage is 'the
surest foundation for raising children'.(14)
The evidence supports this. It shows that children from broken homes
are more likely to have poorer health, to do worse at school, to
commit crime, to be unemployed and to die earlier than children
who live with married parents.(15)
It is in the family that children grow up in an atmosphere of love
and acceptance. Where they learn to be unselfish and to relate to
others; where they first learn to care for other people; where they
learn to respect those with more experience; where they acquire
self-respect, self-discipline and the moral values which will take
them through life.
Children need stability. They benefit from having parents who love
each other as much as they love them. Marriage should be promoted
in sex education.
References:
1
Draft Circular Conduct of Sex Education
in Scottish Schools, Scottish Executive, September 2000
2 Johnson A et al Sexual Attitudes
and Lifestyles, Blackwell Scientific, 1994, pages 471, 475
3 The Herald, 14 November 2000
4 The Times 16 December 1999
5 Loc cit and see Press Release New CDC
Birth Report Shows Teen Birth Rates Continue to Drop 8 August 2000,
National Centre for Health Statistics, U.S. Department for Health
and Human Services. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/00news/newbirth.htm
6 See Scottish Executive Press Release
SE 1605/1999 and Towards a Healthier Scotland - A White Paper on
Health, The Scottish Office, February 2000, Chapter 4
7 Teenage Sexuality in Scotland
HEBS Research Centre, Health Education Board for Scotland, 2000.
Available from http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/
8 See Press Release Love is all around
1 December 1997 Health Education Board for Scotland available from
www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/news/loveall.htm
9 See The Case for Keeping Section 28,
The Christian Institute, 2000
10 In England and Wales 59% of marriages
are projected to be lifelong. In Scotland the figure will be higher
since the divorce rate is lower. See Population Trends 83, Spring
1996, ONS, page 25, 36
11 Scotland's People (Results
from the 1999 Scottish Household Survey), The Scottish Executive,
2000, Table 1.9
12 Table extracted by the Central
Research Unit, The Scottish Executive from the Scottish Household
Survey, 1999
13The Sunday Telegraph 5 November 1996
14 Supporting Families - A Consultation
Document, Home Office, 1998, page 4, para 8
15 Halsey A H Quoted in Dennis N
& Erdos G Families without Fatherhood, IEA, 1993, page xii
