Ruth Institute Blog

Dr. Michael L. Brown

Caution: Contains descriptions that some may find offensive.

As outrageous as it is to hear about the new sex-ed curriculum for New York City schools, beginning with middle schools, there are some school districts for which the program does not start early enough. And so, in June 2010, the Provincetown, Massachusetts, school board voted unanimously to begin distributing condoms to elementary school children upon the student’s request, beginning in first grade and without parental knowledge or consent. (What possible use could a 6-year-old have for a condom?) Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

Canada comes out as the least inhibited country when it comes to sex education, an international survey shows. But even there, the majority of adults think that the job belongs first and foremost to parents.

Two-thirds of Canadians (69 per cent) and Britons (67 per cent) as well as four-in-five Americans (81 per cent) believe the parents or guardians should be primarily responsible for teaching sex education to children and teens. Read more…

by Dr. Michael L. Brown

Caution: Contains descriptions that some may find offensive.

Did you hear about New York City’s comprehensive drug education program for all students in middle school and high school? The teachers inform the students that abstaining from drug use is best, but since it’s impossible to stop them from doing drugs, the teachers give out cards that list the most common drugs, explaining which are the most dangerous. They also distribute needles to kids who are involved in shooting drugs to help them avoid getting contaminated needles, thereby reducing their chances of contracting or passing on communicable diseases. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

The New York Times yesterday published a preview of a weekend magazine article called “Teaching Good Sex” — a long and detailed account of how one teacher, with full support from his elite school, is promoting sexual pleasure as a goal for 17-year-olds and even younger teenagers. Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

In the public schools, parents are losing more rights with more frequency these days.

The California school system has been in the news a lot in recent months for its change in curriculum to make it not only gay-friendly, but featured. Read more…

By Carolyn Moynihan

The introduction of mandatory sex education classes for middle school pupils (10- to 12-year-olds) in New York has brought criticism from a leading US academic.

Robert P George, a professor of politics at Princeton University, and one of his doctoral students, Melissa Moschella, have had an op-ed on sex education and parental rights published in the New York Times. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

There was an uproar in New Zealand recently about sex education when a father told the NZ Herald he had pulled his son out of sex education because the teacher had told his class that anal and oral sex were alternatives to intercourse and that it was okay to play with a girl’s private parts as long as she consented. The boy was only 12. His class was also told to lie on the floor and imagine that the whole word way gay. Other parents came up with their own horror stories. Read more…

by Bob Kellogg

Beginning next spring, fifth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade students in the DC schools will take a 50-question sexual education standardized test. But Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council (FRC) says that is raising some concerns. Read more…

We’re excited to see that the author quotes our friend Dr. Miriam Grossman, who was our keynote speaker at last year’s “It Takes a Family” Conference, the Ruth Institute’s annual young adult conference.

by Greg Pfundstein

New York’s new sex education mandate excludes abstinence-only options and forces all city school children to learn about “safe sex” in the sixth and seventh grades. Read more…

By Todd Starnes

Students in New York City will be required to take sex education classes that include lessons on how to use a condom – a curriculum that the head of the school system said is long overdue.

It’s the first time in nearly two decades that middle and high school students will be forced to take the mandatory classes, according to a report first published in The New York Times.  Read more…

There will be a hearing next Wednesday, June 22, on SB 48–the bill that would require California schools to teach, not merely the accomplishments of historical figures, but their sexual preferences as well.  It would apply to students in kindergarten on up.

If you can’t attend the hearing, call your legislator.

From Bill May: Read more…

I found this news on the Women of Grace website:

LifeSiteNews.com is reporting that a proposed new law in California that recently passed out of Committee will mandate pro-gay indoctrination of all public school students by forcing the curricula to incorporate the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Known as SB 48, it was introduced by an openly homosexual state Senator, Mark Leno, and managed to pass the ten-member Education Committee last week by a 6-3 vote. The bill now moves to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it will be considered in early April.  [Update:  the full California Senate passed the bill on April 14.]

The law, which is supposed to counter discrimination of homosexual youth, contains no opt-out provision for parents or teachers. If passed, it will affect the curriculum for students as early as kindergarten…. Read more…

In an op-ed from the Boston Herald, we learn the following:

Pay attention parents! It’s spring. And before you know it, Massachusetts public schools will begin their yearly sex-ed lessons for kids as young as 5.

Of course, they won’t call it “sex ed.” They’ll call it “health.” But a rose by any other name is still a rose….

Indeed, when specifically asked why the school presents lessons on HIV in the third grade, rather than in middle school, one school administrator made this shocking admission:

“The goal is to reach kids before they absorb their parents’ values. By middle school it’s too late.” (emphasis added)

Read the whole thing.

Some German parents continue to be jailed for protecting their children’s Christian beliefs.

Five sets of parents in a German town have been punished for refusing to allow their elementary school-aged children to participate in school sex-education programs (see earlier article). “[The children are] being put through an interactive sex-education play which teaches them that if something feels good, then you should do it,” explains Roger Kiska with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). Read more…

A representative of the NEA, the US’s largest teachers union, has a different idea about the purpose of comprehensive sex ed.  She tells all to the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Comprehensive sex education is “the only way to combat heterosexism and gender conformity,”(NEA representative, Diane) Schneider proclaimed, “and we must make these issues a part of every middle and high-school student’s agenda.”  “Gender identity expression and sexual orientation are a spectrum,” she explained, and said that those opposed to homosexuality “are stuck in a binary box that religion and family create.”  (Whose kids are they, anyway?) Read more…

This is kind of nuts. I’m glad I live in the U.S.

by Carolyn Moynihan

A German mother is in prison as a result of resisting state measures to force objectionable “sexual education” on her children. Her husband has already served his 43-day sentence. The couple bring the number of Christian parents imprisoned for this reason to 10. Read more…

Who knows?

by  Becky Yeh

A new report shows that teen pregnancies in California have hit a record low — and the cause is up for debate.

A report released by the California Department of Public Health indicates that the birth rate for teenagers in the state decreased to approximately 32 births for every 1,000 girls from ages 15 to 19. Los Angeles County’s director of public health states the reduction proves teenagers are waiting longer to have sex for the first time. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

There is an interesting alignment of seemingly quite different stars in China: Christian-inspired abstinence education and official population policy.

America’s Focus on the Family has won the ear of the Yunnan provincial ministry of education and is training teachers to educate Chinese teenagers about abstaining from sex before marriage, reports the Washington Post. The Chinese government wants young people to delay marriage and having a child, but delaying sex is another matter, especially as the country becomes more urbanised and susceptible to global trends. Read more…