Premier Dalton McGuinty is scrapping Ontario’s controversial new sex education curriculum just two days after some religious leaders and parents objected to children being taught about masturbation and homosexuality.

While McGuinty denied Thursday he was bowing to pressure from the faith community with the climb-down, he conceded “it’s become pretty obvious to us that we should give this a serious re-think.”

In future, parents will have more input into any changes to the 12-year-old sex education guidelines, he said.

Evangelist Charles McVety, who led the charge against the revisions, told the Star “we’re very happy and we thank God that the premier came to his senses and withdrew this.”

McVety’s announcement Tuesday morning of an anti-curriculum demonstration to be held in Toronto next month sparked a firestorm of protest, and led to the premier’s policy shift just 54 hours later.

“It is a spectacular turnaround,” McVety said.

Critics accused the premier of over-reacting to the concerns of a vocal minority and questioned the speed with which McGuinty dropped the proposed curriculum.

NDP MPP Rosario Marchese (Trinity Spadina), an educator who backed many of the changes, said the U-turn “clearly says to me this government doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

“I’m worried about the fact that yesterday the premier said we’re forging ahead because we think we’re doing the right thing, and a day later he’s saying we made a mistake, we should have consulted better,” said Marchese.

However, the Canada Christian College president said the proposed curriculum pandered to “a special interest group” because homosexuality would have been discussed in Grade 3, masturbation in Grade 6, and oral and anal sex in Grade 7.

Lou Piovesan, general secretary of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, said the bishops were concerned about the curriculum changes and were “puzzled” that the government had claimed the bishops were onside on Tuesday.

“This is a very positive response on behalf of the government,” Piovesan said of McGuinty’s announcement Thursday. “The bishops had serious concerns about certain content and Catholic schools do have denominational rights,” he said, referring to protections in the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

McGuinty, who had insisted Tuesday and Wednesday the teaching plan needed to be updated for the Internet age, said at a London school “we spent a good 24 to 48 hours listening to parents.”

The premier admitted the Liberals failed to take into account multicultural sensibilities with the proposals – first quietly posted on the ministry of education website in January – but did not specify which were most contentious.

“I’m not sure there’s one thing in particular. I think it came out of nowhere,” he said, adding “the net that was cast in terms of consulting was too narrow.”

“We’ve got to take some responsibility in government for that. If we’re going to put forward that kind of a proposal we need to make sure that people are aware that it’s coming … I don’t think much of that happened, frankly, in this case.”

Sources say McGuinty “made the call” himself Thursday after hearing parents’ outrage over the past few days.

With an election looming in October 2011, it’s unclear when any revamped curriculum would be unveiled.

The debacle erupted as the Liberal government battles with pharmacists over prescription drug prices and braces for a summer of consumer discontent with the July 1 launch of the new 13-per-cent harmonized sales tax.

McGuinty’s surprise move came just three hours after his ministers defended the scheme at Queen’s Park.

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During the morning question period, debate turned nasty with Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who was education minister until January and oversaw the new curriculum development, calling the Progressive Conservatives “despicable” for opposing it.

“You’re aligning yourselves with homophobes,” a visibly angry Wynne shouted at the Tories. Wynne is the first openly lesbian cabinet minister in Ontario history.

After the Liberal flip-flop, Tory MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa) said the government was “scrambling – they’re making it up as they go along and they got caught flat out by us calling them out on it and by parents.”

“All of us have been receiving emails and calls into our constituency office by people who are really upset about this,” said Elliott, whose party opposed the new curriculum.

Annie Kidder of advocacy group People for Education said McGuinty has over-reacted to a vocal minority.

“It’s very important that when we’re thinking about public policy and thinking about education in particular, that we have to be careful and measured in our responses to various voices,” including her own, said Kidder. “I really and truly think that this was not a reaction by a mass amount of parents to this new curriculum.”

Children’s health experts also urge that parents be “clear, and open, and call things by the right names” as the curriculum proposed for Grade 1 students, she noted.

Toronto Trustee Sheila Ward said parents do need to have a say.

“(McGuinty) has had lots of great ideas, and I know he wants to be known as the education premier,” said Ward. “But he may fall short of the mark because of haste, just because of the lack of consultation.”

Paula Peroni, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, said her organization has been unable to find any parents who were consulted on the changes.

“Sex ed is something that’s been taught in our curriculum forever, and we teach it in alignment and accordance with our Catholic faith,” she said.

The physical health and education curriculum overhaul, the first since 1998, began in 2007 and involved a year of research and consultation with public and Catholic boards, universities, faculties of education, health groups, public health units, among others.

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