The true story is less sensational

Like many I was outraged when I read in the MSM:

A Christchurch school principal is defending contentious material given to pupils labelling women in de facto relationships “cheap prostitutes” and male partners “cowards” for not proposing marriage.

The literature has drawn criticism from the Ministry of Education which says it does not fit with the sexuality education curriculum, while Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins says it should be withdrawn completely.

The text titled ‘Safe Sex’, produced by the American-based Bible Baptist Publications, came to light after Papanui High School parent Lydia Clark complained to the school when her 15-year-old daughter brought it home from a Year 11 health class.

It included strong Christian views, branding unmarried couples who live together “habitual and irresponsible fornicators”, while “death and hell” awaited those having gay sex.

“She thinks he’s a wonderful man, yet he’s such a coward he can’t even ask her to be his wife. He thinks she’s a fine lady, yet she’s nothing more than a cheap prostitute who allows herself to be used for his sexual gratification in exchange for what seems to be a stable and secure home life,” the material said.

“Either you are married or you are not married. If you are not married, yet you have sexual relations, then you are a wicked fornicator.”

My first reaction was that the school must have rocks in their heads to think this is appropriate, but the full story of how this happened is on Gaynz.com:

After discussion with the school, the mum who complained, Lydia Clark, says the school has since explained the pamphlet was only used in a section on ‘views on sexuality’.

“It was used because the sex ed teacher found it underneath her car window wiper at the local mall car park, and as it was something obviously being pushed in the school’s community she wanted to show it to the children as an extreme view of religious opinion,” she says in a post clarifying the situation on Secular Education Network’s Facebook page.

“Unfortunately where this all went wrong, was she had a planned discussion/critical evaluation to take place as part of this lesson which would have presented this a lot differently than how it came across to my daughter, but she was sick on the day of the lesson and left the pamphlet and ten questions with the reliever teacher, who didn’t do the discussion part. If the discussion had taken place immediately following, I think this would have mitigated the situation a lot.”

This makes a lot of sense. The teacher just using the pamphlet as an example of extreme views, as it was left on her car. It wasn’t the teacher promoting this in school as a legitimate view – just to show what views are out there.

It’s a pity that one has to go to non MSM sites to get the full story.

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