Rigid views of US religious right toward sexual behavior are being noticed worldwide.

madfloridian

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Sat Sep-19-09 11:43 PM
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Rigid views of US religious right toward sexual behavior are being noticed worldwide.

Edited on Sat Sep-19-09 11:52 PM by madfloridian

In a write-up from News 24 quoting an article with a dateline from Paris....they point out that our religious right groups oppose the new UN guidelines..."International Guidelines on Sexual Education intended for discussion among experts in the coming months before a final version is sent to national authorities."

Actually they are quite sensible, but the Concerned Women of America are jumping all over the parts about birth control and masturbation.

The guidelines are meant as a "global template" of ideas to help young people make safe and responsible sexual choices, avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy and escape prostitution or other abuses. But one section of the draft in particular appears to have caught the eye of American headline writers. "UN report advocates teaching masturbation to five-year-olds," ran one story on the Fox News website.

The Fox report and many more like it from mainly right-wing US media and internet outlets, focused on the Unesco report's suggested syllabus for school children aged between five and eight years old.

US says UN promoting masturbation.

Here is what the "suggested" program states...certainly not mandated.

This states: "It is natural to explore and touch parts of one's own body. Bodies can feel good when touched. Touching and rubbing one's genitals is called masturbating. Some people masturbate and some do not.

"Masturbation is not harmful, but should be done in private," it adds.

By the age of nine, children following the programme will learn what their local laws on abortion are and that "legal abortion performed under sterile conditions by medically trained personnel is safe.

Common sense, clear, not mandated. But according to right wing groups here not even up for discussion.

Unesco reports that "American authors have received e-mail threats since the draft's publication, according to UN officials."

"Excluding parents from the process keeps them from being aware of how frequently 'sexuality education' indoctrinates against traditional values," complains Janice Shaw Crouse, writing for the American Thinker. Crouse, who works for the Concerned Women of America conservative Christian pressure group, accuses Unesco of seeking to "establish a bureaucracy to teach masturbation and contraception".

This is just plain embarrassing.

Trouble is these groups that oppose abortion and birth control are well-funded and powerful. They have an organized way of getting their messages out. They are formidable opponents.

So formidable in fact that often our party will decide it is easier not to fight them so hard and to let women's rights become expendable.

Nineteen House members sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating that they will not vote for health care reform legislation “unless it explicitly excludes abortion funding from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.”

"We believe that a government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan, should not be used to fund abortion.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care. The health care reform package produced by Congress will be landmark, and with legislation as important as this, abortion must be addressed clearly in the bill text.

We know that measures to ensure birth control is accessible for women are not priorities right now. Even though preventing women from having contraception available is a fringe position...there does not appear to be a strong stance in our party about it.

We should be pointing out that the leading candidate for governor in Florida supported an amendment that would have banned birth control.

McCollum, frontrunner GOP candidate for governor, took no stand last week when asked about the "personhood" question that anti-abortion activists are trying to place on Florida's ballot. The proposed amendment to the state Constitution would establish a human being's "personhood" at the start of biological development, which its sponsors define as fertilization.

That would outlaw abortion and, critics fear, might also lead to bans on oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices, because they can prevent a fertilized egg from developing,

...."But history draws a connection between McCollum and the "personhood" initiative, since he co-sponsored similar legislation in Congress in 1988. Then-U.S. Rep. McCollum signed on to California Rep. Bob Dornan's House Joint Resolution 529, which would have assigned to "preborn" persons the protections of the Fifth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments governing rights to due process, citizenship and freedom from slavery.

From the first link to News 24...things are so bad that the panel who formulated the sex education guidelines...sensible ones, is having to be defensive against our religious right.

"This work was carried out at the request of member states and UN organisations, and consists of putting on the table a compilation of what is known about the subject, without taboos," she said.

"All options are discussed, from abstinence to abortion... each government will make of it what it likes, adapt it to different cultural contexts."

In my opinion this kind of mindset by our religious extremists demands our Democrats get out in front on the issue and quickly.