The Iona Institute » US archbishop urges Catholics to fight sex-ed bill

People in the State of Colorado are being rallied by a local Catholic Archbishop to fight a bill ^[1] to require all public and charter schools to use a comprehensive sex-ed curriculum that both “contradicts human nature and is inconsistent with Christian values.” ^[2] Last week the Oireachtas Education Committee said that religious ethos must not be allowed to ‘interfere’ with the delivery of RSE programmes that include abortion information and gender theory.

Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila said. “We know that God made us male and female, in his image and likeness, but the comprehensive curriculum route which most schools will likely adopt teaches innocent children this is not true.”

He continued: “Specifically, public schools would have to promote abortion as an equal option to life, and parents wouldn’t be notified before lessons were presented on gender-identity and sexual orientation,” he added. “Each of us must do our part to fight this legislation.”The bill would clarify content requirements for sex education. Specifically, the bill “prohibits instruction from explicitly or implicitly teaching or endorsing religious ideology or sectarian tenets or doctrines, using shame-based or stigmatizing language or instructional tools, employing gender norms or gender stereotypes, or excluding the relational or sexual experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals.”

A similar kind of bill died a death in Argentina late last year ^[3] when it was rejected as an imposition of gender ideology. Thousands marched in cities in opposition to the bill under the motto “Don’t mess with my children,” [Con mis hijos no te metas], a non-confessional movement born in Peru as a way to fend off what the Church, and Pope Francis himself, has long dubbed “gender ideology.”