It’s a sad day when sex education classes are deemed
unsuitable for children. Most people believe that sex education is an important
component in schools, but it appears that President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil disagrees.
Rousseff has banned the production and distribution of sex
education films, specifically, an education package designed to combat homophobia in schools. A report by the BBC states that Rousseff believes the footage, which
contains gay and lesbian scenes, is not suitable for children.
The
“anti-homophobia” kits were about to be
distributed to schools by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. Rousseff apparently caved under pressure from evangelical
church groups and rightwing nuts in Congress. They threatened to block any
upcoming legislation unless the president stopped the films.
It seems that Ontario Minister of Education Leona
Dombrowsky and the Ontario Catholic school boards are not alone in their
warped ideas on protecting children.
I wonder what they would have thought of the gender
diversity lesson at a California elementary school that featured single-sex
geckos, transgender clownfish and boy snakes that act “girly”?
The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the Redwood Heights Elementary School
in Oakland wanted to teach students about the diversity of families in the school, tackle issues of bullying and emphasize that not all children conform to gender
norms.
Joel Baum, director of education and training for Gender
Spectrum — an anti-bullying educational group — delivered the lessons. Baum
used toys and examples from nature to show the children how diverse gender can be.
In an interview with Fox News, he said that “Gender identity is a
spectrum where people can be girls, feel like girls, they feel like boys, they feel
like both, or they can feel like neither.”
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