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SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Father worries over son’s exposure to Rainbow Youth Inc. “alternative sexuality education package”

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Rainbow Youth Inc. – [a registered charity that received $105,931 in government grants/contracts in the last financial year] – has delivered an “alternative sexuality education … package” to 14 and 15-year old school students promoting “gay marriage”, that worries the father of a school boy (his son) who attended it. Two presenters identified themselves as lesbians and said that they were attracted to “transexual girls”. (Fairfax NZ News Story 8 July 2012 below).

A father is concerned his son attended alternative sexuality education classes at school that explored ideas like transsexuality without his knowledge or permission.

However the Rainbow Youth organisation’s education coordinator stands by the presentations, sayings its education package has been evaluated and is backed up by research.

Earlier this year Rainbow Youth presented two one-hour sessions to the 15-year-old’s class. Auckland-based Rainbow Youth provides “support, information, advocacy and education for queer young people” and has been delivering education workshops for more than 10 years.

One presentation was about gender and sexual identity and the other addressed issues such as homophobia and bullying.

The teenage boy said two of the presenters introduced themselves to the class as lesbians, one who was attracted to transsexual girls, while the third said he had been a woman attracted to women but became a man “with a vagina”.

The teenager said the first lesson was “OK” and the message was that there were multiple gender identities. But he felt the second lesson was “quite weird”. It looked at homophobia and how society treated people labelled as “other”.

The class heard two of the presenters’ coming-out stories, including how one had grappled with discrimination and deciding if they were male or female. “[The transsexual speaker] was saying things like, ‘it’s legal to have a physical relationship with your cousin but it’s illegal to have gay marriage’. And things like, if you’re really homophobic you usually turn out gay.

“I think they were trying to say that being gay is all good but to me and quite a few of the people in my class, it came across like they were saying ‘it’s great and you guys should follow on with it’.”

His father assumed, “rightly or wrongly”, that sex education would be more generic and mainstream not “the weird and wonderful of the world’s sexuality”.

“I don’t think that is the right thing to be exposing 14 and 15-year-old kids to.”

Rainbow Youth’s education coordinator Priscilla Penniket said the organisation went into schools by invitation, and demand for presentations were at capacity.

She estimated they were involved with 30 of Auckland’s almost 200 high schools. The idea behind the presentations wasn’t to challenge students she said, but to follow three teaching frameworks: critical thinking, self reflection and the coming-out narratives that personalised a theoretical idea.

Asked if students ever reacted badly she said, “Depending on the high school there’s varying levels of homophobia which can sometimes be really [emotionally] unsafe for the volunteers coming out who are telling their story.”

She denied volunteers were encouraging homosexuality, or saying homophobics were gay. Penniket said research had proven that when people were overly homophobic it was often because they were hiding something such as their sexual identity or the identity of someone they knew.

Source: Stuff.co.nz

Fairfax NZ News Story – ‘Rainbow’ class worries father. By Imogen Neal

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7242226/Rainbow-class-worries-father

Note:

Rainbow Youth Inc. was registered as a charity (Reg. No. CC24284) with the Charities Commission on 13 May 2008. In an average week it has two employees working full-time and one part-time. A total of 110 hours of paid work is engaged in by its three employees on average, each week. Its total gross income for the financial year ended 31 March 2012 was $137,873 and it spent $138,012 on wages over this same period. Its deficit for 2010/11 was $137,873. (Source: www.charities.govt.nz)

Family Life International – a registered charity – explains what’s wrong with pornography

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Family Life International, a charity registered by the New Zealand Charities Commission, has published a clear response to the question “What’s wrong with pornography?”

It is noteworthy that the Charities Commission, headed by Mr Trevor Garrett, has stringent policies in place outlawing the dissemination, viewing, transmission and possession of “pornography” in the work place by its employees, including such activities involving workplace computers. The SPCS commends the management of the Commission for putting such policies in place and ensuring that employees in breach of these policies are dismissed and/or severely sanctioned.

Overview [of FLI article]: Thanks to the focused and concentrated efforts of pornography moguls like Playboy magazine’s Hugh Hefner, pornography has now become mainstream fare on television, film and in literature. In fact it has become so prolific that those who express their disdain for pornography are looked down upon with suspicion and ridicule.

Magazines like Playboy which were once considered gross obscenity are now touted as a cultural rite of passage, or even a form of modern art. The most frightening aspect of pornography is that it is so widely accepted while the research regarding its true effects on society and the human person is almost completely ignored.

For full article see: http://www.fli.org.nz/Home/Pornography/tabid/2031/Default.aspx

Does sex education belong in schools? – TV One Close Up

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Does sex education belong in schools? – TV One Close Up

On TV One’s Close Up on 25 June 2012, host presenter Mark Sainsbury talked to American psychiatrist Dr Miriam Grossman and Auckland sex education specialist, Dr Katie Fitzpatrick. Dr Grossman has been brought to New Zealand by Family First NZ, a registered charity with the Charities Commission, to speak at its Conference on Thursday 28 June, in Auckland.

Dr Grossman was highly critical of the approach taken to sex education in our schools by the New Zealand Family Planning Association Inc. (FPA), another charity and lobby group like Family First NZ, registered with the Charities Commission. She referred to FPA material which she said failed to point young people towards the “ideals”of abstinence before marriage, fidelity and faithfulness within marriage, and the true nature of marriage as a life-long loving commitment of a man and a woman – providing a secure structure in which children can be raised and nurtured in an stable, safe and supportive loving environment – one that is sanctioned by the state.

She accused FPA of (1) focusing on the mere mechanics of sex and condom use in particular, (2) failing to highlight the “ideal” goal for young people to pursue of establishing a life-long commitment to a loving relationship where sexual intimacy can be expressed as nature intended, (3) disseminating misinformation about the ‘safety’/effectiveness level of condoms as a safeguard against STI transmission, and (4) accepting as a given that sexual promiscuity is so widespread among young persons that little can be done to address the problems of unwanted pregnancies and STDs, other than handing out free condoms and informing young pregnant girls about how they can secure an abortion.

Dr Katie Fitzpatrick disagreed and vigorously defended FPA’s policies and practice, stressing that instruction in the nature of human relationships within which sexual intercourse is appropriate is in fact taught by FPA. However, the evidence cited by Grossman from FPA website and printed content, indicated that it is largely devoid of any messages encouraging teenagers to abstain from sex prior  to marriage (as an alternative to casual sex) and certainly provides few if any with reasons for doing so.

Grossman feels that FPA has failed to inform young people of the seriousness of the consequences of engaging in promiscuous casual sex. FBA material such as “Get it On” and content on its “theword” website (www.theword.org.nz) came in for attack.

The New Zealand Family Planning Association Inc. (“Family Planning”) was registered as a charity with the Charities Commission on 13 September 2007 (Reg. No. CC11104). In the financial year ended 30 June 2011 FPA received income made up of $11,362,189 (government grants/contracts), $859,746 (other grants), $2,039,486 (income from service), $2,779 (membership fees) and $11,089 (donations). Its total gross income was $15,071,008, the bulk of it sourced from NZ taxpayers.

FPA’s total expenditure for 2010/11 was $14,624,562 with $10,014,371 alone spent on salaries and wages. It employed 62 people full-time and 214 people part-time. In an average week 6500 hours of paid work was carried out, the vast bulk of it funded by the NZ taxpayer.

Dr Miriam Grossman – US Psychiatrist Who Called Foul on Sex Educators – Visits NZ

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Press Release: Family First Lobby (25 June). Family First NZ, a charity registered with the Charities Commission, has brought a  “US Psychiatrist Who Called Foul on Sex Educators” to speak at its “Forum on the Family” on Thursday 28 June, in Auckland……

Dr Miriam Grossman is coming to New Zealand as a guest of Family First NZ and will undertake an extensive tour and media campaign. She will also be a keynote speaker at the annual Forum on the Family on Thursday 28 June. www.forumonthefamily.org.nz and is speaking to Auckland school principals and trustees at a public meeting http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Trustee-meeting.pdf
Miriam Grossman, M.D., is a board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. She attended New York University Medical School and completed her residency in psychiatry, followed by a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, through Cornell University. She writes and speaks internationally to parents, students, educators, legislators and health professionals internationally on the dangers of political correctness in her profession. She is the author of You’re Teaching My Child WHAT? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and how they harm your child (2009) and Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student (2006)

Miriam Grossman, MD, psychiatrist, author, and whistle-blower has lectured at the UN Commission on the Status of Women and in Britain’s House of Lords. Dr. Grossman’s mission is to highlight the dangers of last century’s anything-goes, condom-based approach to sexual health. With examples from cutting edge research, she proves that sex is a serious matter, and can never be “casual,” especially for girls. Her politically-incorrect books and lectures provide parents with urgently needed ammunition to counter the hazardous messages that bombard young people, some of which come from trusted sources.

Instead of teaching our children biological truths, sex educators are lying to them, ignoring science in favor of radical and dangerous social agendas. Dr. Miriam Grossman will rip back the curtain on sex education today, exposing a sordid scam. She has treated more than 2,000 students at one of America’s most prestigious universities, and she’s seen how the anything-goes, women-are-just-like-men, “safer-sex” agenda is actually making our sons and daughters sick.

Ends

Source: Scoop News: US Psychiatrist Who Called Foul on Sex Educators – Visits NZ

Monday, 25 June 2012, 8:51 am
Press Release: Family First Lobby.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1206/S00340/us-psychiatrist-who-called-foul-on-sex-educators-visits-nz.htm

Sex education failing Kiwi teens says US psychiatrist Dr Miriam Grossman

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NZ Herald Story: Teenagers are being let down by sex education that doesn’t tell them it’s best to wait until you’re an adult and have one sexual partner for life, a visiting physician says.

But Family Planning disputes United States psychiatrist Dr Miriam Grossman’s characterisation of New Zealand’s sex education. She has been brought here by the conservative lobby group Family First to speak at a conference in Auckland on Thursday.

Dr Grossman said she took up writing and speaking on the “harms” of sex education after her experiences as a campus psychiatrist at the University of California.

She saw many female students who were panicking about having, or possibly having, a sexually transmitted infection (STI), being pregnant, having had an abortion, or being confused about their emotional attachment to a man who had no intention of becoming emotionally attached to them.

“They didn’t understand we are wired, both men and women, but especially women, to become emotionally attached to people we are intimate with.”

She said this was omitted from the range of sex education materials produced in New Zealand that she had viewed.

Dr Grossman said sex education, like other public-health initiatives, should present the “ideal”, such as in nutrition.

In sexuality – “and I’m not talking about morality, I’m a physician” – the ideal was one sexual partnership for life, delayed until adulthood.

“People that are able to achieve that – not that this is so easy – never have to worry about these myriad health issues.”

Health issues included STIs and human papilloma virus (HPV), which is a key factor in cervical cancers.

Dr Grossman cited a Family Planning website, theword.org.nz, and pamphlet, both aimed at young people, which encouraged those considering becoming sexually active to make sure they were ready and to talk with their partner about contraception, but did not tell them to talk to a responsible adult.

And she said sex education materials in New Zealand dangerously overstated the degree of protection people could expect from condoms, even when correctly used.

Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond said, “We support telling people to have loving, caring relationships and young people to delay having sexual onset.

“We don’t aspire to talking about the ideal of one sexual relationship. We are pragmatic – and we are dealing with young people.”

Family Planning referred to condoms as providing “safer” sex, not “safe” sex.

“You can get HPV through genital contact; condoms don’t necessarily protect against that.”

Source NZ Herald. 25 June 2012. Story by Martin Johnston

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10815278