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Father loses fight to stop sex ed at St. Augustine 

Defend Life webmaster Jon Shoemaker waged a one-man battle in April against the installation of the controversial sex education program, Growing In Love, at his children’s school in Elkridge.

The battle climaxed at an April 26 meeting at St. Augustine School to introduce parents to the program, when Fr. Gerald Bowen, pastor of St. Augustine, launched into an angry tirade against Shoemaker, eliciting a loud round of applause from the parents and effectively silencing him.

Prior to the meeting, Shoemaker, who manages Defend Life’s website (www.defendlife.org), contacted St. Augustine School Principal Patricia Schratz, explaining his objections to Growing In Love and sending her information supporting his criticisms.

When he failed to dissuade Ms. Schratz from going ahead with the program, he sent an e-mail to every parent listed in the school directory, informing them of Growing In Love’s deeply flawed content.

“This program has received numerous scathing reviews and has been partially or outright banned in two North American dioceses,” Shoemaker wrote.

“Catholic parents and organizations throughout the country have been fighting to keep this program out of their schools.”

One critique of Growing In Love, he noted, found that:

Homosexuality is often presented in a way that makes it appear “normal” and “acceptable.”

A superabundance of sexually explicit material is presented that is age-inappropriate.

This program would destroy the latency period of many children and entice them to premature sexual curiosity and experimentation.

There is repeated failure to clearly define the grave immorality of homosexual acts and other sexual sin.

There is a failure to caution against sexually explicit class discussions.

Many Catholic doctrines are watered down, for example, the Eucharist, the Mass, Papal infallibility, and the Mystical Body and its relevance to chastity.

Shoemaker also referred parents to a webpage he had set up (www.defendlife.org/no2grow) containing other critiques of GIL and information on the church’s opposition to sex education in the classroom.

About 100 parents attended the April 26 meeting, which featured a 17-minute video introducing Growing In Love.

In the video GIL’s three chief consultants, James Deboy, Rev. Richard Sparks and Dr. Toinette Eugene, assured parents that although the family was the primary unit for teaching sexuality, the parish needed to help parents in this important task.

Information on sexuality is pervasive in society, said Dr. Deboy:  “If they’re normal kids, they’re going to hear about it.  But are they hearing about it with a Catholic faith perspective?  They need to get it through their parish, so they don’t think it's ‘just my family.’”

Strangely, Dr. Eugene spoke of “the reality of reproductive rights and responsibilities.”  “Reproductive rights” is the pro-abortionists’ code phrase for abortion rights.

After the video, Ms. Schratz said that boys and girls would be taught together, except for one of the sessions in grades 4-6, when the children would be taught about sexual intercourse.

Parents could opt their children out of the entire program, or opt them out only on the day when sexual intercourse was taught, she said.

“The jury’s out” on whether to separate boys and girls in the seventh and eighth grade classes, she said.  “The seventh and eighth grade kids are acting very comfortable, and they think they know all the basics of intercourse and puberty,” said Schratz.

After a few other parents had asked some mild questions, Shoemaker said, “I have serious problems with this, and so does the Church.  The teaching [on sexuality] is supposed to be moral, not biological.”

Shoemaker asked Ms. Schratz if she had read the Pontifical Council for the Family’s document, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, which recommends that children be taught individually about sex by their parents in the home, not in the classroom.

The document is subtitled, “Guidelines for Education Within the Family.”

The principal replied that she had, and that she thought GIL was “in line with that document.”

She added that the Benziger Family Life program, formerly used by St. Augustine School and used by many schools in the Baltimore Archdiocese, was “a little heavier on the biology.”

Apparently referring to the fact that the Baltimore Archdiocese has mandated that all of its schools have sex education programs, she noted that “The Church is not giving us an option on whether to have a course on human sexuality.”

“What church is that?” Shoemaker asked pointedly.  “Why don’t you do what the document says--teach the parents how to teach their children?”

He quoted from paragraph 145 of The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, which says, in part, “It is clear that the assistance of others [on teaching sexuality] must be given first and foremost to parents rather than to their children.”

At that point, Father Bowen rose and, in an angry voice said, “There’s a basic question of trust here.  I can’t imagine that any parents would send their kids to schools where they don’t trust the teachers.”

Without naming him, Bowen lambasted Shoemaker for sending out letters to the parents.  Referring to TMHS, he began to quote from paragraph 84 (which says that parents have the duty to correct immoral or erroneous information received by their children), then  broke off and said,  “That document does not equate that no education [on sexuality] should take place in schools.”

He called websites critical of Catholic sex education “fringe websites.”

“It’s a slap in the face that anyone would think that anyone here would do anything to corrupt the children.  I think it’s incredible that anyone would say, ‘What  church is that?’

“In most cases our parents said nothing to us [about sex].  This document says we can’t do that any longer.”

After Father Bowen received a resounding round of applause from most of the parents, the meeting broke up.

“I didn’t think I would get anywhere,” Shoemaker admitted quietly after the meeting.

He said that he and his wife would opt their children out of the program.