velvetpage (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
velvetpage) wrote2008-06-06 01:51 pm
velvetpage) wrote2008-06-06 01:51 pm
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Article for my local newspaper (PoAC)
Every time i stand up, I see stars - but I can still think and type! Comments welcome - I haven't sent it to the newspaper yet, but I'm going to. It's about the right length for an article on the Opinion page, though far too long for a letter.
Two seemingly disparate issues have rocked local school boards and the pages of this newspaper in recent days. One is a public health concern, a vaccine to help prevent a carcinogenic virus. The other is an equity policy to support the well-being of members of the LGBT community.
Yet the connections between the two issues run deep. Both, at their heart, are about how we view the nascent sexuality of young people, and how different groups choose to embrace or restrict it. They're about the roles of sexual discourse in society and the contradictions that exist there. Most of all, they're about fear.
Groups who encourage sexual abstinence for teens cite many reasons. They start by pointing out that the bond between a man and a woman can be a beautiful, life-giving thing. Then they look at the world and see all the places where that beauty is tarnished. They see disease, "broken" families of many stripes, abuse, and poverty, and they lay the blame for these at the door of sexual liberation. If people were to save sex for marriage and lead virtuous lives, they reason, all of these fearsome troubles would pass them by.
This view neglects to take into consideration several elements of human behaviour. One is that an individual is in control of her own behaviour and no one else's. What happens when those virtuous, unvaccinated Catholic girls get raped? What happens if they marry someone whose past life is less virtuous than their own? They may not sin themselves, but they are still at risk. Another neglected element of human behaviour is the tendency to make mistakes. Are we really prepared to tell young women who have contracted a dangerous strand of HPV that their illness is an example of the wages of sin being death? There is no leeway in the Halton Catholic Board's policy to protect from the forseeable and preventable results of sin - their own, or others'. That doesn't seem like the loving and forgiving religion that Christianity is supposed to be. It seems like a reaction of fear - fear that these young girls will wrest control of their lives away from the priests and parents who seek to repress their God-given sexuality.
In the case of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board's same-sex equity policy, the fear is even more insidious. Opponents seem to feel that a primary student learning about families with two mommies will blight their morals forever. This fear is based in the myth that homosexuality is a choice. God wouldn't condemn something inborn as sinful, or perhaps he wouldn't put on someone a cross so large as to exclude a normal part of being human from ever being within his plan for a life, so in order for their interpretation of the Bible to be true, homosexuality must be a choice. This reasoning allows them to rest secure in the knowledge that they are not discriminating against people; rather they are condemning a behaviour. But that brings with it a problem. A student who grows up thinking that having two mommies is normal is therefore more likely to choose the sin of homosexuality for themselves - since it is, after all, a clear-cut choice. So they're afraid of anything that makes homosexuality seem normal and acceptable. But accepting homosexuality as innate means reviewing beliefs about the Bible, thereby opening up a slippery slope to its complete rejection. It's quite true that we argue most vehemently against viewpoints we fear may be correct.
We have created a society where childhood and sexuality are completely divorced from each other in the public domain. We have also lengthened the definition of childhood far beyond where biology would place it. The result is several years when adolescents exist in a no-man's-land of sexual contradictions - hormonally, if not physically or emotionally, ready for sex, yet forbidden by legal, parental, and religious pressure to have it, while simultaneously receiving conflicting messages about how wonderful and how dangerous it is. Is it any wonder so many can't keep it all straight enough to be responsible about it?
Studies show that responsibility in teens is increased when parents and teachers are open about the issues, and respectful of their teens' right to make choices regarding their bodies. Fear doesn't keep young people from having sex. Good information and strong adult relationships do. We need to support our children's emergence into a mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes, sexually healthy adulthood. A culture of fear undermines that goal.
Two seemingly disparate issues have rocked local school boards and the pages of this newspaper in recent days. One is a public health concern, a vaccine to help prevent a carcinogenic virus. The other is an equity policy to support the well-being of members of the LGBT community.
Yet the connections between the two issues run deep. Both, at their heart, are about how we view the nascent sexuality of young people, and how different groups choose to embrace or restrict it. They're about the roles of sexual discourse in society and the contradictions that exist there. Most of all, they're about fear.
Groups who encourage sexual abstinence for teens cite many reasons. They start by pointing out that the bond between a man and a woman can be a beautiful, life-giving thing. Then they look at the world and see all the places where that beauty is tarnished. They see disease, "broken" families of many stripes, abuse, and poverty, and they lay the blame for these at the door of sexual liberation. If people were to save sex for marriage and lead virtuous lives, they reason, all of these fearsome troubles would pass them by.
This view neglects to take into consideration several elements of human behaviour. One is that an individual is in control of her own behaviour and no one else's. What happens when those virtuous, unvaccinated Catholic girls get raped? What happens if they marry someone whose past life is less virtuous than their own? They may not sin themselves, but they are still at risk. Another neglected element of human behaviour is the tendency to make mistakes. Are we really prepared to tell young women who have contracted a dangerous strand of HPV that their illness is an example of the wages of sin being death? There is no leeway in the Halton Catholic Board's policy to protect from the forseeable and preventable results of sin - their own, or others'. That doesn't seem like the loving and forgiving religion that Christianity is supposed to be. It seems like a reaction of fear - fear that these young girls will wrest control of their lives away from the priests and parents who seek to repress their God-given sexuality.
In the case of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board's same-sex equity policy, the fear is even more insidious. Opponents seem to feel that a primary student learning about families with two mommies will blight their morals forever. This fear is based in the myth that homosexuality is a choice. God wouldn't condemn something inborn as sinful, or perhaps he wouldn't put on someone a cross so large as to exclude a normal part of being human from ever being within his plan for a life, so in order for their interpretation of the Bible to be true, homosexuality must be a choice. This reasoning allows them to rest secure in the knowledge that they are not discriminating against people; rather they are condemning a behaviour. But that brings with it a problem. A student who grows up thinking that having two mommies is normal is therefore more likely to choose the sin of homosexuality for themselves - since it is, after all, a clear-cut choice. So they're afraid of anything that makes homosexuality seem normal and acceptable. But accepting homosexuality as innate means reviewing beliefs about the Bible, thereby opening up a slippery slope to its complete rejection. It's quite true that we argue most vehemently against viewpoints we fear may be correct.
We have created a society where childhood and sexuality are completely divorced from each other in the public domain. We have also lengthened the definition of childhood far beyond where biology would place it. The result is several years when adolescents exist in a no-man's-land of sexual contradictions - hormonally, if not physically or emotionally, ready for sex, yet forbidden by legal, parental, and religious pressure to have it, while simultaneously receiving conflicting messages about how wonderful and how dangerous it is. Is it any wonder so many can't keep it all straight enough to be responsible about it?
Studies show that responsibility in teens is increased when parents and teachers are open about the issues, and respectful of their teens' right to make choices regarding their bodies. Fear doesn't keep young people from having sex. Good information and strong adult relationships do. We need to support our children's emergence into a mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes, sexually healthy adulthood. A culture of fear undermines that goal.