Section 28

On the 21st of June 2000 the Ethical Standards in Public Life Bill was passed into law by the Scottish Executive. 99 MSPs voted for; 17 MSPs voted against; 2 MSPs abstained.
To refresh your memory this bill was to repeal Section 28 that prohibited the promotion of homosexuality by local councils.
Even though there was much opposition to this repeal the Executive continued on blindly. They did however concede slightly and added Clause 26 which “places a duty on councils as a whole, and not just in a purely education sense, to have regard to the value of stable family life in a child’s development”. They will also issue legally-enforceable guidance to education authorities on sex education. This guidance is to include the term ‘marriage’ - this being to appease those who felt the term ‘stable family life’ was not strong enough.
As a Trust we are not happy with the outcome and would rather have Section 28 back in force.
South of the border, I am happy to say, section 28 is still on the statute books thanks to the Grace of God and the hard work of Baroness Young and her supporters.
Let us hope that this whole debacle will open the eyes of Christians and non-Christians alike to the problems concerning the state and their children's education.

Sex Education

Staying on the subject of our state and sex education I read in the Daily Telegraph of 22nd August the column of a Dr James Le Fanu.
What I read confirmed what we already knew, sex education does not equip young girls to say no to sex or even to have ‘safe sex’. In fact a report by Journalist Mary Kenny shows that after interviewing “22 teenage mothers only two said they had been unaware of the facts of life at the time they became pregnant”. The rest of the girls interviewed said that they “perfectly understood that unprotected sexual intercourse could always lead to pregnancy”.
The argument that teenage pregnancies are due to lack of education holds no water. The columnist goes on to point out that we are always told to “Look at Holland...where the lower pregnancy rates are attributed to greater openness about sex generally. But it is not so . Dutch teenagers actually receive less formal sex education than those in Britain”.
When are we going to realise that what we need to enforce is the idea that sex outside of marriage is wrong? Until we teach teenagers that complete abstinence is the only way we will continue to see teenage pregnancies rise.

Wizards, devils and demons

There has been much in the press recently of the auditions to find the boy who would play the character Harry Potter on the big screen. It seems that Harry Potter fever has infected many people, not least the adult population. In fact we should be very careful what we allow our children to read. Here are a couple of quotes from the book.

“I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses….. I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.” The Potions Master
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, page 137

“You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory no... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just-exist. As an empty shell.”
The Prisoner of Azkaban, page 247

You will understand now why Carol Rookwood, head of St Mary’s Island Church of England Aided School in Kent has banned it, and also why its use has been challenged in 13 states of America.
This is not just a fun children’s book. This book deals with the occult, plain and simple. This is not a book that adults should be reading, let alone our impressionable children.
Be very careful what the world offers your children to read!

Wake up from your slumber, Christian parent! The world will say ‘Let us teach your children every thing they need to know’ - when really they will teach them everything that they should not know.
They will teach them how to use a contraceptive and say ‘It’s OK to have sex outside marriage; just use a condom’.
They will say, ‘Read this children’s book; it’s just a bit of fun’ - When really they are reading about the occult.
They will say, ‘Follow any emotions that you feel, even if that means going against the natural use of the body’.
Is this the kind of teaching you will allow your children to come under?

“Train a child up in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6