AIDS obsession (AIDS educaton in Catholic schools).

Since 1989 schools have developed an obsession with AIDS. Only a few hundred Canadians a year die from AIDS compared, for example, to some 13,500 women who die from lung and breast cancer each year. Yet, all emphasis falls on AIDS which students are told is not a homosexual disease.

Yet "the cumulative incidence of HIV/AIDS among homosexual men in Canada" writes one doctor, "is more than 1,000 (one thousand) times higher than among non-homosexuals."

Defending the homosexual lifestyle has become part of their AIDS programs. In BC, the Teachers' Federation wants "a program to combat homophobia and heterosexism." In Calgary, the Board of Education has been working on an "action plan" for homosexual-affirming literature to combat "serious harassment" of which they have no record of happening!! And in Whitby, ON., a local parent opposing the existing program is described in an editorial as "a case of reactionary zeal masquerading as religious conviction." (New Advertiser, Dec. 20, '96)

If the program described below put out by the Institute of Catholic Education is accepted, Catholics should reconsider support for their schools.

Beginning in the spring of this year, the Dufferin-Peel Separate School Board of Toronto will be piloting a new kindergarten-to-grade-12 program entitled AIDS: a Catholic Educational Approach to HIV. The course has received the warm endorsement of Bishop James L. Doyle of Peterborough (Chairman of the Ontario Catholic Conference of Bishops (O.C.C.B.) Education Commission), and Thomas C. Kelly, Archbishop of Louisville, Kentucky. It ignores recent Church directives on how sexuality is to be presented, and while describing homosexual acts as immoral, is nonjudgmental if not supportive of homosexuality itself.

On the positive side, the teacher's manual clearly teaches that expression of sexuality must be confined to marriage, and the falsehood of presenting condoms as a viable safeguard against sexually transmitted diseases.

Students are introduced to the word "AIDS" at the grade 3 level; dirty needles as a cause at grade 4; AIDS activism and transmission through sexual intercourse at grade 6; the homosexual connection at grade 7; AIDS and condom failure at grade 8; transmission by oral and anal sex at the grade 10 level. The materials are accompanied by statements on homosexuality and AIDS from the Pope, Cardinals Hume and Bernardin, the O.C.C.B., and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).

The program was designed by the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) in Washington D.C., and the Toronto-based Institute for Catholic Education (ICE) whose Executive Director is Sister Joan Cronin (g.s.i.c). The three-lessons-per-grade course of study is intended to supplement the controversial Fully Alive sex-ed program.

An AIDS course in Catholic schools is nothing new for Ontario. In 1987, under the direction of Msgr. Dennis Murphy, ICE prepared a controversial AIDS program for grades 7 to 10, claiming that the Catholic system had to obey the Ontario government's order that AIDS education be provided in provincial schools.

Why the focus on AIDS?

The most important question Catholic parents should ask is why such a strong and specific focus. The teacher's manual describes AIDS as "a profound social, moral, and medical crisis in virtually every facet of society". This exaggerated, if not hysterical response, is what one has found consistently in the mainstream media. Ironically, it also appears contradictory to the CCCB's statement "Beyond Fear" (included in the teacher's manual) that warns that "fear about AIDS" is "sometimes overblown".

In North America AIDS is a rare disease that can be described as a crisis only amongst IV-drug abusers and homosexuals, the latter of whom make up approximately 1 per cent of the population (not possibly 10 per cent as the course indicates). Through the highest incidence years of 1990 to 1993 in Ontario, only 6 to 7 persons in every 100,000 were reported to have AIDS. Compare that to 1 in every 100 persons in Canada suffering from schizophrenia.

In 1993 there were only 609 cases of AIDS in the entire province of Ontario. Again, compare this to the approximately one million people in Canada who are currently estimated to be infected with chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease that causes sterility.

Up to 1995 only 116 Canadian children had ever been infected with AIDS, while the figure in the United States is only 1,768 cases amongst teenagers as of March, 1995 (again compare this to 7,000 children diagnosed with rare cancers every year in the U.S. and approximately 17,500 young people with swelling of the lymph nodes due to cat scratches.)

The teacher's manual states that "homosexuality as such is not the source of the AIDS epidemic". It also states that the "percentage of newly reported cases of HIV infection is dropping in the homosexual community" (thereby begging the question of the program's strong emphasis on homosexuality).

Who spread AIDS?

Although no group can be blamed for being the origin of the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) that causes AIDS, there is no question that the disease was spread in North America overwhelmingly by homosexuals and is still rampant among them today.

In his 1995 book Homosexuality and the Truth (Reviewed in C.I., Nov. '96, p. 24) Dr. Jeffrey Satinover notes that "medical literature still speaks of homosexuality as the major risk factor for AIDS." He further states that "gay male anal intercourse and promiscuity created the American reservoir for HIV (the pathogen that causes AIDS) - and continues to preserve it." According to the American Psychiatric Association Press reports cited by Satinover, "30 percent of all 20-year-old gay men will be HIV positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are age 30".

Although the rate of AIDS infection in Canada is dropping slightly overall, the homosexual component of those infected with AIDS has not significantly diminished over the past several years from the approximate seventy-percent range. (73.5 per cent of AIDS cases are among men who have sex with men). Any drop in AIDS figures amongst homosexuals could logically be attributed to so many of them dying.

Church's position distorted

The teacher's manual seems intended to give Catholic students a sympathetic view not just of sick or dying homosexuals, but of homosexuality itself. In grade 8, they are instructed that The Catechism of The Catholic Church teaches that "discrimination in all forms is immoral and impermissible", when in reference to homosexuality the catechism refers only to "unjust discrimination" (#2358).

The teacher's manual says "in all areas of human rights Christians must be careful to safeguard the rights of homosexual persons and to eliminate discrimination." In 1996, Catholic Justice Minister Allan Rock used much the same line when he quoted selectively from the Catechism to support inclusion of "sexual orientation" in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

At the grade 8 level, the AIDS teacher's manual asks the instructor to prepare students for understanding "homophobia" (a term used regularly by homosexual activists for everyone who opposes the homosexual lifestyle) by "reviewing familiar stereotypes (i.e., sexism, racism, etc.)." In his 1992 letter to the American bishops, however, Cardinal Ratzinger stated that there can be valid grounds for discrimination against homosexuals, such as in the hiring of teachers. He specifically stated that sexual orientation "does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect to non-discrimination." He added that "unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern." None of this is in the manual.

The manual quotes the 1986 Vatican document On Pastoral Care of Homosexuals correctly as stating "it is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action." It omits, however, the following important passage:

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

The manual clouds the Church's view of homosexuality by concentrating only on the immorality of homosexual acts:

"A clear distinction should be made between homosexual orientation and homosexual genital acts. The Church, reflecting Scripture and its moral tradition, clearly states that the moral norm for conjugal union is between husband and wife - a union that is self-giving and life-giving. According to that norm, homosexual acts - gay and lesbian - lack an essential finality and therefore are morally unacceptable."

No respect for latency period

Another serious question that arises with the teacher's manual, from a Catholic teaching standpoint, is the timing regarding when children are to be introduced to certain aspects of sexuality. The Pontifical Council for the Family's published guideline for education and the family,The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality (1995), is clear on such matters. The Vatican states that "homosexuality should not be discussed before adolescence unless a specific serious problem has arisen in a particular situation."

The AIDS program teacher's manual informs the instructor as early as grade 3 that "information related to sexual transmission of AIDS should be used only if needed to answer specific questions."

At the beginning of the manual, it is said that teachers, clergy, and parent representatives "can best judge the most appropriate grade level for each learning objective and any needed adaptation within the materials." The teacher is told that, at the grade 6 level, when children are about 11 years old, the subject of homosexuality will likely come up. The teacher is then instructed on how to discuss it with "early adolescent students," while communicating the idea that chastity is important. At the grade 7 level, homosexuality is definitely brought in, through the "Story of Stephen," a description of a young homosexual dying of AIDS written by Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago.

The Vatican 1995 document states: "Another abuse occurs whenever sex education is given to children by teaching them all the intimate details of genital relationships, even in a graphic way," and further on, "Today this is often motivated by wanting to provide education for `safe sex', above all the relation to the spread of AIDS". Yet, in this manual children are taught at the grade 6 level that the HIV virus is contracted through sexual intercourse. Oral and anal sex are introduced and discussed at the grade 10 level, when most students are 15 years of age, (although some could be younger.) Ironically the AIDS teacher's manual itself states that at 15 students "seek relief from boredom by testing new kinds of behaviour such as drinking, vandalism etc." The manual further states that 15-year-olds "may experience substantial peer pressure related to sexual experimentation" and are "reckless in behaviour".

AIDS activism is encouraged

Reading through the text from the early grades, the AIDS teacher's manual reflects the view that AIDS is not just a disease, but a cause to be supported by compassionate Catholics. At grade 5 the children are taught that "many people" in our country who are "very much alone, very sick and very frightened" are suffering from AIDS, which, as we have seen, is not true. In the "call to action" box for grade 6, the teacher is asked to instruct students to create posters for AIDS Awareness Week and World AIDS Awareness Day and possibly participate in "community organized events" planned for these dates. Now many of these events are attended by homosexual activists, if not organized and operated by them.

There is worse to come. "A counsellor of an AIDS support group" is to be invited into the school at the grade 7 level and, as a member of a panel in grade 9, "a person who has HIV/AIDS". The grade 8 "call to action" suggests that representatives of Parents of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG) be asked to speak to the students about "their acceptance of their gay or lesbian family member." The emphasis for the PFLAG visit "should be given to the personal struggle of coming to terms with the idea that homosexuals and heterosexuals are more similar than different."

PFLAG is advertised in the "support" section of Xtra!, a filthy large-distribution homosexual tabloid that among other things has published the pro-pedophilia views of the notorious Toronto journalist and prostitute, Gerald Hannon. Again, this is not all.

Opponents are said to be ignorant

Grade 8 students and their teacher are presented with materials that suggest that homosexuality is worthy of respect, and those who oppose it are ignorant or perhaps unChristian. In the "reflection and discussion" part of the lesson, the manual states: "The Church calls us to work against homophobia in whatever form it manifests itself."

No official Church document has ever used the common homosexual activist slang term "homophobia". Although it also appears in the teacher's manual glossary, no official Catholic source has ever used "heterosexism", another homosexual slang expression which condemns so-called "intolerance" of all but normal sexual relationships. For the purpose of the AIDS course, however, "homophobia" is transformed into any supposed ignorance or unChristian attitude regarding homosexuality.

The idea that homosexuality is to be accepted in others, is further reinforced through the use of the widely-distributed For Better or Worse cartoons of Canadian cartoonist Lynn Johnston who aroused considerable controversy when she introduced a sympathetic homosexual character to her strip in 1992. The students are presented with cartoons in which a 17-year-old boy declares that he will never marry because he has "fallen in love" with another male. He describes this as "just the way I am" and "not a decision I've consciously made". The character states that "everyone else is confused" but him about his homosexuality. In another cartoon included in the background reading for the teacher, the homosexual character states that aboriginal peoples considered homosexuals "mystics" or "two-spirited" because they were "blessed with both male and female spirits."

More propaganda

In preparing for the lesson, the teacher is asked to read "The Great Divide", an article written by Marcia Kaye that appeared in Canadian Living Magazine in November, 1993. The article portrays cartoonist Johnston as a heroic defender against ignorance and intolerance. The traditional family is called into question and compared on equal terms to the "family" of "a formerly married, gay single father of two girls.". The article states that experts agree "that teenagers often have homosexual thoughts, and that people's sexuality cannot be put in rigid boxes labelled homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual, but ranges along a continuum and can sometimes shift." The article also quotes Toronto's Christos Metropolitan Community Church which wrongly argues that the biblical references condemning homosexuality should be translated as pederasty and male prostitution.

At the grade 6 level, the teacher's manual also uses a highly-questionable source in quoting an obscure definition of chastity. It is taken from the book The Sexual Language written by the late Father Andre Guindon, a Canadian theologian who received a formal note from the Vatican condemning his open support of homosexuality.

Although the new AIDS program for Catholic schools is only being presented in pilot mode in Ontario for the time being, it could very well be accepted across the country by next September. It should be remembered that the old AIDS programme introduced in 1987 was strongly criticized by some Catholics who alleged it was too explicit in its description of types of sexual intercourse, downplayed the homosexual element in the spread of AIDS, and wrongly portrayed homosexuality as innate. Despite the criticisms, however, Cardinal Emmett Carter and his adjudicator at the time, Archbishop Aloysius Ambrozic, approved of the programme as did most dioceses across the province.

Robert Eady is a widely-published Catholic commentator and writer.