Catholics are not afraid of sex

Recently the Ontario government reversed its decision to introduce a new sex-education curriculum in the province’s schools. Whether it will succeed in re-designing the proposals remains to be seen but we can only hope that the whole process will crawl back into the closet, so to speak. Predictably, the snobs and the cynics immediately condemned the government for surrendering to hysterical parents and religious fanatics and claimed that the curriculum itself was moderate and conciliatory.

Not true of course, on either count. Governments seldom change policies because of organized opposition, particularly if it comes from parents and faith communities. And in this case the opposition was not organized, had no financial backing and only lasted a few days.

What actually happened was that it became obvious just how extreme the proposals were, even to some particularly dim politicians. Leading to the second error about it all being so mainstream. In that the existing curriculum was itself pretty acceptable, how could the alternative be anything other than non-mainstream? Simple logic. The changes introduced far more discussion of gender-identity and homosexuality and at a far earlier age. They had a specific purpose in mind and it wasn’t the legitimization of mom, dad and family.

The same snobs and cynics who saw angry moms and mad ministers round every corner began to misquote the discarded guidelines and, of course, make fun of everybody who was allegedly offended by talk of homosexuality, masturbation and sex in general. So it came down to the kind, progressive and sophisticated against the scared, primitive and hateful. Just as it always does in the eyes of the chattering classes. Interestingly enough, some of the angriest critics of the government’s retreat were people with no children and others who for all sorts of reasons were unlikely ever to have any.

What has always baffled me is how we Catholics with our large families are somehow supposed to be frightened and intimidated by sex while the aggressively childless or 1.2-kids brigade are the sexual experts. Good Lord, we’re always at it! We love it, celebrate it, revel in it, rejoice in its fecundity and fertility, positively dance in the joy and sweetness that is God’s gift of sexual intimacy within a love and romance-filled marriage. We’re not scared of sex but our neurotic, sexually confused opponents are obviously scared of us.

When it comes to sex education the Church believes the parent is the primary educator because Church teaching is an extension of natural law and natural law, obviously, assumes that the person who gave life to a child has the right, duty and ability to instruct that young person in the fundamentals of life. Years of fatuous movies and television have indoctrinated us that parents are too clumsy and absurd to teach their children about birds, bees and bodies so the state had to take over. Better a public health nurse than a mom, better an embarrassed teacher than a dad.

One columnist in a national newspaper, a homosexual man with no children, wrote during all of this that the nasty critics of sex education didn’t seem to realize that kids were aware of sexual issues because of the Internet. Wow, who knew? No parent ever had any idea before this banal fellow told us the news that our children saw things, read things. Of course we are aware of this — we’re aware because we’re not fools and because they’re our children.

Surprising as it may be to our new social masters, the human race has continued to procreate and people have been taught about sex for a rather long time. Indeed since the introduction of state-based sex education the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, so-called unwanted pregnancies, pornography-addicted teens and sex-linked depression has steadily increased. There is no evidence at all that young people are more responsible and happy if they receive school rather than family-based sex education but increasing proof that public sex education policy is tendentious and agenda-driven.

The campaign won’t stop now and won’t be confined to one province or one country. Be aware of the social engineers and their devious and destructive ways. And never forget we’re the sexy ones.