Brookhaven Middle School, one of our local, public schools, has enlisted an organization called "Free To Be" to teach abstinence education to 7th and 8th grade students. My son is one of those students. The curriculum consists of three consecutive daily "science" classes of discussion and advocacy around "abstinence until marriage". This organization's website www.free-to-be.net (https://www.free-to-be.net/) claims that they have lectured on their particular idealogy at 41 local northcoast schools in the past year. This statistic has been confirmed, by me, through the Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools' (Carl Wong) office. FTB claims on their website, and to the schools, that they are secular and multi-denominatonal but have identified themselves as a Christian group to Brookhaven students. Free To Be is a project of Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities is the same organization that has contractual responsibility for sheltering and feeding much of Sonoma County's homeless population with public funds. It is reported by the homeless population (to me personally) that Catholic Charities often requires hungry, shelterless people to attend sermons and prayers in order to obtain services and food.
I am wondering if other people in the community are aware of this organization's work in the public schools and what your thoughts are on this. I don't think that teaching abstinence as an option is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think that a religious group who adheres to a specific ideology has any business indoctrinating our kids in our public institiutions in which we instill our trust. I also don't believe that an ideology which excludes people who choose not to marry or people who are forbidden by law to ever marry belongs in the classroom. State law SB71 also seems to agree with me on this point. I welcome and encourage discussion on this topic.
Sudie
05-30-2006, 09:05 PM
Brookhaven Middle School, one of our local, public schools, has enlisted an organization called "Free To Be" to teach abstinence education to 7th and 8th grade students. My son is one of those students. The curriculum consists of three consecutive daily "science" classes of discussion and advocacy around "abstinence until marriage". This organization's website www.free-to-be.net (https://www.free-to-be.net/) claims that they have lectured on their particular idealogy at 41 local northcoast schools in the past year. This statistic has been confirmed, by me, through the Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools' (Carl Wong) office. FTB claims on their website, and to the schools, that they are secular and multi-denominatonal but have identified themselves as a Christian group to Brookhaven students. Free To Be is a project of Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities is the same organization that has contractual responsibility for sheltering and feeding much of Sonoma County's homeless population with public funds. It is reported by the homeless population (to me personally) that Catholic Charities often requires hungry, shelterless people to attend sermons and prayers in order to obtain services and food.
I am wondering if other people in the community are aware of this organization's work in the public schools and what your thoughts are on this. I don't think that teaching abstinence as an option is necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think that a religious group who adheres to a specific ideology has any business indoctrinating our kids in our public institiutions in which we instill our trust. I also don't believe that an ideology which excludes people who choose not to marry or people who are forbidden by law to ever marry belongs in the classroom. State law SB71 also seems to agree with me on this point. I welcome and encourage discussion on this topic.
I work for Catholic Charities, and you have your information wrong. It is the Redwood Gospel Mission that 'requires' their clients to hear sermons and prayers before meals and shelter.The RGM has a men's shelter at the dining facility and a separate womens shelter at another site. I work for the Family Support Center under the direction of CC and we have thirty rooms available for families only, be they married or single parents, or even same gender parents. We do not require anyone to listen to sermons or attend church. CC is a very large organization with many sub orgs. I am not all that familiar with Free to Be, but they do help alot of teens and in this day and age, abstinence is a healthy choice. Agreed? You should do more research before pointing fingers and condemning tactics. Clearly, the homeless people you 'interviewed' had their support systems mixed up.
79paul
05-30-2006, 09:33 PM
I work for Catholic Charities, and you have your information wrong. It is the Redwood Gospel Mission that 'requires' their clients to hear sermons and prayers before meals and shelter.The RGM has a men's shelter at the dining facility and a separate womens shelter at another site. I work for the Family Support Center under the direction of CC and we have thirty rooms available for families only, be they married or single parents, or even same gender parents. We do not require anyone to listen to sermons or attend church. CC is a very large organization with many sub orgs. I am not all that familiar with Free to Be, but they do help alot of teens and in this day and age, abstinence is a healthy choice. Agreed? You should do more research before pointing fingers and condemning tactics. Clearly, the homeless people you 'interviewed' had their support systems mixed up.
I think we on the left often have a knee-jerk reaction to anything labelled "Christian". If it was a Buddhist organization doing the same seminar, would we object?? Probably not..
Our kids are bombarded by media images encouraging sex at earlier ages, so I don't think a few days of seeing that abstaining from sex is an option would unfairly taint their young minds.
Dixon
05-31-2006, 01:18 AM
First of all, in response to Sudie's comment: Go easy on the person from Free Mind Media. They didn't claim that Catholic Charities was making people listen to sermons; they simply reported that homeless people had told them that, and invited discussion, part of which discussion was your correcting that impression.
Also, she says that Free to Be helps a lot of teens. How do they help them? Is giving them just one side of a complicated issue "helping" them? Pushing any one path (in this case abstinence) is not education; it's indoctrination. It produces citizens who are mindless swallowers of prevailing dogma rather than critical thinkers, and that's a major reason our world is so fucked up. Real education (and real helping) would involve presenting the pros and cons of all options and training students in critical thinking so they can make responsible decisions (and not necessarily the decisions that their parents would approve of).
I've gotta laugh when I see that this program is called "Free to Be". Free to be what--prudish heterosexual conservatives? Certainly not free to be gays, lesbians, or just plain bachelors like me. Or maybe free to be us, as long as we go our entire lives without sex. The implications of this teaching appear to be bigoted. Our schools are supported with tax dollars by many of us who honor peoples' right to choose sexual mores other than abstinence. For my tax dollars to be used to program teens with only one "acceptable" option is intolerable.
I don't care if they're Christian, Buddhist, Satanist, or devotees of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Their religion isn't the issue. One-sidedly indoctrinating kids with only one option--and an option that may have bigoted implications at that--in a public institution that's supported by everyone's tax dollars, is the issue. A proper presentation would include rational discussion of every choice from abstinence to gay, lesbian, unmarried, polyamorous etc. relationships, and presenters would represent different groups, not just one group, Christian or otherwise.
Those of you parents who think your children are empty vessels to be filled with your own beliefs, values and prejudices need to stop for a second and try harder to see them as rational human beings who deserve respect and education, not one-sided indoctrination.
Dixon
I think we on the left often have a knee-jerk reaction to anything labelled "Christian". If it was a Buddhist organization doing the same seminar, would we object?? Probably not..
Our kids are bombarded by media images encouraging sex at earlier ages, so I don't think a few days of seeing that abstaining from sex is an option would unfairly taint their young minds.
Free Mind Media
05-31-2006, 04:18 PM
Dixon, you are my hero...
In fairness to the Brookhaven staff though, they have listened steadfastly to my discontented rambling and have been very conscientious about making their program balanced. J.T. O'Niell, the awesome guidance counselor there is doing some work to interpret feelings and attitudes and counter or undo any implied bias or discrimination that may have been felt by students in the wake of last weeks classes. Thay have aslo agreed to work with Face to Face, Sonoma County AIDS Network to broaden their sex, HIV/AIDS, and abstinence program for next year
Sudie,
My intention is not to point fingers or condemn. I'll leave that for the Church. I am not entirely against everything that Catholic Charities is doing to help people. I understand that much of what Catholic Charities does, is offered in a straight forward and secular manner. In fact, it is my understanding that it's programs are often quite progressive in nature and not what people might expect. They are often condemned and finger wagged by mainstream conservative pundits for apparently going against the teachings of the church. I have done quite a bit of research on this actually. I haven't "interviewed" any homeless people about this though. What I have done is work for Food Not Bombs regularly and I have conversations with people every week who are living on the street and are all too familiar with the homeless services industry in SoCo. It may be that some of these people have their support systems mixed up but we hear these claims repeated over and over again and they are not confined to Sonoma County. CC is a multi-million (or billion maybe?) dollar, publicly- funded, faith-based, national, lobbying organization with strong ties to the church and to the state. I think my concerns about faith-based organizations serving under represented populations with public funds bears continued vigilance. I apologize to you personally if I have misrepresented or mischaracterized the good work that you do to help our fellow humans.
I agree that abstinence can be a healthy choice for teens and adults alike. Abstinence is one of many choices that a teen or adult can make in regards to their sexuality and their health. Abstinence need not be linked to a morally centered, judeo-christian, religious or idealogical ethic of heterosexual marriage in order for it to be a healthy choice. Abstinence until a person is mentally, emotionally and physically prepared to engage in their chosen sexual practices would seem to be a healthy road to travel; one that I wish I had given more thought to at times in my own life. Heterosexual marriage has not ever been a guarantee that a person has reached those physiological states of preparedness. On a more personal note; I would never enter into a lifelong commitment with a partner(s) without first having assessed our sexual compatibility.
Paul,
In regards to my "knee jerk reaction to anything labeled Christian", that may be more accurate than I would care to admit and I also happen to be a Buddhist. However, I would still object to any religious instruction in a public school, even if it were being presented by my chosen faith. It seems especially innapropriate that the school's are choosing to present an abstinence program as science in a science class. I'm sure that a lot more people would be flipping out if similiar instruction were being offered by a "secular" Islamic group or a "secular" Hindu group. Might be interesting to see how far that boat would float?