Canadians Protest Ontario Sex Education Classes

Protesters took to the streets in various communities in Ontario on Wednesday to show their opposition to the province's new sex education curriculum, which they says is too graphic for young children.



The demonstrations were held at the offices of Ontario provincial politicians and organized by the Canadian Families Alliance, which includes the Muslim Moms Empowerment Network, the Campaign Life Coalition and My Child My Choice, reported City News Television.



The groups want the new curriculum, which will be taught in Ontario schools when classes resume next week, repealed because of its graphic nature and the responsibility for sex education left in the hands of parents.



"It's time for the (Ontario Premier Kathleen) Wynne government to respect parent's authority as primary educators and to drop its plan to foist this unpopular, age-inappropriate and overly explicit school program on our children," Jack Fonseca of the Campaign Life Coalition said in a release.



Students in the first grade, for example, will be taught the meaning of the words penis and vagina, and six-year-olds are too young to be learning those sexual terms, opposition groups said. Other topics that students will learn up to grade 8 include masturbation, contraception, gender [removed]homosexuality, etc.) and contraception.



"Some parents feel that it's just too much, too soon," Peter Jon Mitchell, a researcher at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, told CTV News Channel.



Others feel that there should have been more consultation before the new curriculum was put in place, he said.



The demonstrations are just the latest in a series – thousands took part in protests in June.



At that time, the Canadian Council of Imams weighed in on the new sex curriculum and although the statement issued was cautious, the organization agreed that more consultation was needed.



"We believe that prior to introducing an updated sexual education curriculum, the government of Ontario should have taken on meaningful consultations with parents," the Canadian Council or Imams stated on the organization's website at the time of the June protests. The statement went on to say that consultations that were held were done in a "haphazard manner", after the substantive portions of the curriculum had already been developed.



If broader consultations had occurred, "Ministry officials would have been made aware of the diversity within the Muslim position" instead of "allying only with those segments of our community who agree with the changes", the organization stated.



The council said its statement was based on lengthy discussions over a period of months with the many Muslim communities in Ontario.



The province said parents who do not agree with the curriculum could take their children out of class during sex education classes.



But some school boards, including the Peel District School Board in Toronto, said any requests from parents or students to skip lessons about gay families or gender identities would not be permitted, CTV reported. - Kanada