Imagine your 15-year-old daughter arrives home from school, clutching a brochure she was supposed to study for health class.
Imagine glancing at the pages your child has been told to study, then seeing the words “wicked fornicators” and “death and hell” jump out at you.
Imagine your distress at complaining to the school — only to have them defend the material.
That’s what’s just happened to families in Christchurch, New Zealand, after Papanui High School handed out a religious pamphlet to year 11 health studies students, the New Zealand Herald reports.
The ‘Safe Sex‘ pamphlet, which was disseminated to students at the co-ed school last week, referred to women in de facto relationships as “cheap prostitutes”.
It also branded de facto male partners “cowards” for not proposing marriage, dismissed those having pre-marital sex as “wicked fornicators,” and branded gay students sinners who would end up in hell.
“A couple who lives together without marriage is a couple who has become habitual and irresponsible fornicators. She thinks he’s a wonderful man, yet he’s such a coward he can’t even ask her to be his wife,” the pamplet reads. “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.”
In a complaint letter posted on the Secular Education Network Facebook page and sent to the school principal, school mother Linda Clark cast doubt over the appropriateness of the material.
“While my daughter has married parents at home, she is not heterosexual and having to read, as part of school work, ‘God’s word is very clear and simple. The ONLY sexual activity which God accepts is that between a MAN AND HIS WIFE. Anything else is known as fornication, adultery, sodomy or bestiality, all of which are sins in the sight of God’ is potentially damaging to her self-esteem,” Clark said, according to GayNZ.com.
“(I)t’s this kind of rubbish that destroys anything good (ie social justice) that Christianity attempts to achieve.”
The Minister for Education has clarified that the materials were not consistent with the sexuality education curriculum, while Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins also said it should be withdrawn completely.
Principal Jeff Smith defended the use of the literature, saying it was used to help encourage students to make “informed” relationship decisions.
“The intent of their lesson is to enable students to see there is a range of material available and that students need to make informed decisions based on that,” he said, according to the New Zealand Herald.
Clark herself says the school has since explained in a meeting that 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 Facebook post clarifying the situation.
The pamphlet was created by the American-based Bible Baptist Publications, founded by radical pastor James Melton.
The ministry writes on its website: ” Political correctness is a tool of communism, socialism, liberalism, and globalism, and it has no place in the life of a true Christian.
“We do not seek to offend any person, but most of all we do not want to offend God by compromising Bible truth. If you are offended by something on this (web)site, you probably need to repent, not complain.”
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Top Comments
“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 Facebook post clarifying the situation.
I saw so much outrage about this on my facebook feed yesterday but did anyone see beyond the headline? I forget what newspaper it was from the headline was so misleading. It implied that the New Zealand school was agreeing with the pamphlet which as you can see from the clarification above, it was the exact opposite. Gah, this too-much-nformation age does my head in sometimes..people are just way too ready to be outraged and judge before knowing the full story!
Oh my god, all you can do is laugh.