Irish Schools’ sexophobia prompts student homophobia?

Sex education is not taught in most Irish secondary schools, as about 90% of them are owned by the Catholic Church. Students are taught about condoms, the reproductive system et al in biology, but they’re not encouraged to use contraception, and there’s usually a mention in the textbook that the Catholic Church promote natural contraception and forbid artificial contraception.

I think Sex ed would be better taught at home. It’s certainly unfair to ask Catholic schools to promote what they perceive to be mortal sin. You have Catholic mothers that would be in uproar if they found out that wee Johnnie was learning about ‘protestant’ sex.

I have a huge problem with these posters. They are funded and promoted by the vehemently anti-Catholic “Equality Authority”. It’s a state body we’re forced to fund, and it’s headed by Neil Crowley, an idiot basically making a career out of bashing the Catholic Church. Most students know that homosexuality is considered a sin by the Church, and he’s telling them that they being “gay” is ok. This shows complete contempt for Christian teachings. Liberal government bodies have repeatedly likened “homophobes”(a term they use to describe anyone who objects to homosexuality) to racists, or Nazis or fascists. I’m a Catholic, and I uphold the Church’s teachings on sexual morality. I believe homosexuality is a sin, just like I believe all forms of sex outside marriage is sinful. I don’t want to be indoctrinated with secualarist propaganda from Crowley telling me a sin is okay, and anyone who opposes it is a bigot.

I don’t know anything about Neil Crowley and his agenda, but these flyers strike me as surpassingly odd - I can’t get my head around their existence.

Obviously, (especially for Christians, I might add) antagonism and bullying are not acceptable - regardless of why it’s occurring. We hear stories all the time about extreme bullying in Irish schools (even resulting in student suicides), but I’ve yet to hear anything about an increased number of gay bashing incidents that would lead to the bankroll that would let someone blanket the town (at least here in Athlone) with flyers like these. Why haven’t we seen something on this scale to address the general bullying issue?

Furthermore, I’m astonished this flyer is coming from the same government that sets the sex ed agenda - such a frankly sexual pamphlet isn’t really in line with the way Irish schools have approached the rest of their sex ed.

Regardless of one’s moral position on premarital or homosexual sex (it could be argued that the second is just a variation on the first), how can a government use the church to do one thing (determine sex ed curriculum) and then sponsor some third party rights-for-fringe-members-of-society group to do something in complete contradiction?

I have been asking around and it would seem that while biological reproduction was taught in Irish school science classes, at least as of 2002 it would appear that reproduction as it applied directly to students themselves in the throes of puberty was not. Seriously, even basic sanitary things like teaching girls about menstruation or boys about needing to shower more with the onset of puberty.

Having been raised in a place where there is a separation of church and state, this completely confuses me. If Irish school curriculum is being decided by the state, it needs to be consistent, regardless of who is administering its policies. If there is a bullying problem in schools, the government’s money should be put into addressing that. In the face of what is being taught in Irish schools about sex, these flyers are absurd.

Hrm, I went to a community college, so whilst not being a Catholic school, it still had a small chapel in it

Ever so slightly more on topic, the young ladies in our class, we’re indeed taken out of the class at one stage to be given a talk on those basis sanitary things like menstruation, the fellas didn’t get anything if my memory serves…although I did miss a fair bit of school so it’s possible I missed it.

There was sex education, but it took place in the religion classes, most of which I missed, although one memorable instance served as a pretty good example of why you should never ask a class of mostly male teenagers for non-scientific names of the various important parts of the female anatomy.

One disturbing sex ED class was the one where the horrors of Female genital cutting came up, which unfortunately meant that I knew exactly what had happened anytime I heard cases of it happening in Ireland on the radio, the fact that FGC happens anywhere let alone Ireland sickens me :-/

On a final note, in third year, a volunteer from Cura(www.cura.ie) spent an hour with every class in our year, talking about teenage and unplanned pregnancies, she worked/works on their helpline, and wowza did she ever have some stories to tell.

I think that’s about it…and seeing as the suns starting to come up, I should probably head off to bed

My friend is one of the guys in the poster. Hes not gay, and he and all of us were totally cool with him doing it. We’re more open minded than we’re given credit for.

This looks rather interesting. I am deeply impressed with Ireland and would love to come live there some day, but religiousness and intolerance (specifically homophobia and racism, in that specifically antisemitism) might change my mind.