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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)

Call from Family First NZ – A Registered Charity – For De-Funding of Sex Ed Programmes run by three charities

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MEDIA RELEASE: Family First NZ, [a registered charity – in a media release issued 1 July 2012], is calling for the government to withdraw funding of the Family Planning and Rainbow Youth’s sex education programmes, resources and websites which fail to tell the full facts and which compromise the concerns and wishes of parents, and the safety of young people. [Both the Family Planning Association and Rainbow Youth Inc. are lobby groups regularly involved in “political advocacy” and are also registered charities].

“Despite groups like Family Planning and Rainbow Youth being challenged by US psychiatrist Dr Miriam Grossman to a debate last week to defend their websites and pamphlets targeted at young people, they ran for cover. They also appeared to take down one of the offending websites during Dr Grossman’s visit,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

Family First is especially concerned about websites such as curious.org.nz, theword.org.nz, getiton.co.nz and a number of Family Planning pamphlets.

“The current approach in NZ sows confusion about right and wrong and says the moral absolute is – use condoms. The government should fund evidence-based education resources which are approved by parents rather than saying one thing to parents and another to their children. Family Planning receives more than $11m from the government of which $2.6m is for education.”

A nationwide poll in January 2012 of 600 young people aged 15-21 found that only 19% supported just the ‘safe sex’ message currently being taught in schools, with one in three (34%) wanting ‘values, abstinence, and consequences such as pregnancy’ taught instead, and a further 42% asking for a combination of both – especially amongst older teens. A poll of parents in 2010 found that three out of four parents of young children want the abstinence message taught in sex education – with 69% of kiwis overall supporting the ‘wait’ message.

“This is a direct rebuke from young people to the ‘use a condom’ and ‘everyone’s doing it’ messages being pushed by groups like Family Planning, AIDS Foundation and Rainbow Youth,” says Mr McCoskrie.

“Many parents were rightly horrified last year when details of what was being taught in schools under the guise of ‘sex education’ surfaced. Judging by the results of the current approach – which is a good place to start – sex education has been an utter failure. New Zealand has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the OECD, our STD rates are out of control, and the number of teenage girls having abortions is tragically high.”

“For those youth who are sexually active, they are not being told the truth. Groups like the Family Planning Association and the AIDS Foundation are perpetuating the myth that as long as you use a condom, you can pretty well do what you like in terms of promiscuity, experimentation, and fringe behaviours – with little or no information on the physical or emotional ramifications or prevention of disease.”

In one example, a mixed class of boys and girls were asked by the AIDS Foundation [a government funded registered charity] if they had masturbated lately and were given condoms and strawberry-flavoured lubricant. They were also given a leaflet featuring graphic pictures, terms including “co*k” and “wa*k”, and advice on the best condoms. Reports last year highlighted that children as young as 12 are being taught about oral sex and told it’s acceptable to play with a girl’s private parts as long as “she’s okay with it”. In other cases, 14-year-old girls are being taught how to put condoms on plastic penises, and one female teacher imitated the noises she made during orgasm to her class of 15-year-olds. One concerned father took his 12-year-old son out of a sex education class at his all-boy school after he came home upset about what had happened during one of the lessons. It included a question-and-answer session that focused on, “I have learned that my girlfriend has a thing called a clitoris. I really want to play with it. Is that okay?” The answer was: “Yes, if you ask her and she’s okay with it.”

“A government-funded organization should be willing and able to defend their ideology and services which the taxpayer funds. It is time the government held them accountable,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

Family First NZ website: www.familyfirst.org.nz

Teens Conservative on Sex & Abortion Issues – Poll Results

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  • Family First NZ, a registered charity with the Charities Commission headed by Chief Executive Trevor Garrett, has today released the results of a Curia Market Research poll it commissioned into moral issues involving a survey of 600 15-21 year olds nationwide. In its media release, based on an analysis of the poll results, it attacks the views promulgated by three registered charities – Family Planning Association, and the two “gay” lobby groups Rainbow Youth and the NZ Aids Foundation. It also makes another call to the government to effect a law change that gives an unborn child the same human rights as any other human being.

Family First NZ states:

TEENS REJECT ‘SAFE SEX’ EDUCATION

SUPPORT PARENTAL NOTIFICATION AND ‘RIGHT TO LIFE’

A nationwide poll of 600 young people aged 15-21 poll has found that they hold conservative values on sex issues – which are significantly similar to the views of parents.

 SEX EDUCATION

When asked “Do you think sex education in schools should teach values, abstinence and consequences such as pregnancy, or just teach safe sex?” only 19% supported just the ‘safe sex’ message currently being taught in schools, with one in three (34%) wanting ‘values, abstinence, and consequences such as pregnancy’ taught instead, and a further 42% asking for a combination of both – especially amongst older teens. The support for just the ‘safe sex’ message dropped even lower for the older teens.

 “This is a direct rebuke from young people to the ‘use a condom’ and ‘everyone’s doing it’ messages being pushed by groups like Family Planning, AIDS Foundation and Rainbow Youth,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

 “Many parents were rightly horrified last year when details of what was being taught in schools under the guise of ‘sex education’ surfaced. Judging by the results of the current approach – which is a good place to start – sex education has been an utter failure. New Zealand has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the OECD, our STD rates are out of control and the number of teenage girls having abortions continues to rise.”

 “For those youth who are sexually active, they are not being told the truth. Groups like the Family Planning Association and the AIDS Foundation are perpetuating the myth that as long as you use a condom, you can pretty well do what you like in terms of promiscuity, experimentation, and fringe behaviours – with little or no information on the physical or emotional ramifications or prevention of disease.”

In one example, a mixed class of boys and girls were asked by the AIDS Foundation if they had masturbated lately and were given condoms and strawberry-flavoured lubricant. They were also given a leaflet featuring graphic pictures, terms including “cock” and “wank”, and advice on the best condoms. Reports last year highlighted that children as young as 12 are being taught about oral sex and told it’s acceptable to play with a girl’s private parts as long as “she’s okay with it”. In other cases, 14-year-old girls are being taught how to put condoms on plastic penises, and one female teacher imitated the noises she made during orgasm to her class of 15-year-olds. One concerned father took his 12-year-old son out of a sex education class at his all-boy school after he came home upset about what had happened during one of the lessons. It included a question-and-answer session that focused on, “I have learned that my girlfriend has a thing called a clitoris. I really want to play with it. Is that okay?” The answer was: “Yes, if you ask her and she’s okay with it.”

 A poll of parents in 2010 found that three out of four parents of young children want the abstinence message taught in sex education – with 69% of kiwis overall supporting the ‘wait’ message. [Read more…]