When I watched an episode of Last Week Tonight on Sexual Education, I mostly agreed with John Oliver despite being a conservative Christian. Sex-Ed in public schools should not shame teens into abstinence.

I have committed myself to living a Christian life. This decision has countless implications for my life, one of them being my views on sexuality. I believe it to be a good and beautiful gift of God within The Holy Mystery of Marriage.

But despite my conservative morality, I don’t want public schools teaching kids abstinence only and shaming those who have sex (watch after the 12 minute mark of the John Oliver piece to understand what I mean). The secular world does not believe sex to be sacred nor does it have the language of forgiveness and renewal found in Christianity.

If and when I fail as a Christian, there is Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and the shepherd of my soul. As St. Isaac the Syrian says, “Do not fall into despair because of stumbling…There is, indeed, a Healer for the man who has stumbled.” Also, there is the Mystery of Baptism where Christ makes me a member of His Body. There is the Mystery of Confession where I speak of the sins that oppress my mind and damage my relationship with God to my priest and he forgives me in the stead of Christ and prescribes me with practices that might help me going forward.

Churches may tell its members that sexual promiscuity makes them unclean and separates them from God, but hopefully they will always tell their members that God cleanses us of our sins and draws us back into His presence.

Icon of the Prodigal Son

The secular world has none of this. Those girls made to feel like over-used sneakers are left to wallow in their shame. If you have no good news to give these women, then why try to shame them at all? In fact, why should government-funded public schools hold anyone to a sexual morality that they did not sign up for? St. Paul held Christians to high standards, but the men and women in those churches chose to follow Christ; outsiders and non-believers had not. In Acts, we don’t see St. Paul telling the Greeks to stop sleeping around, but to learn about the Messiah of Israel who is the Savior of the Nations.

So I want public schools to teach kids how to use birth control. I don’t want a health teacher to preach abstinence because that cannot be done in even a entire semester worth of classes. That takes years to build and is built first in the home. Christian parents can make sure their children understand why they ought to be abstinent. Unbelievers can do what they want, and they should be safe about doing what they want.

~Charles P.