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Along with resuscitating the usual attacks against the new curriculum, the ad solicited howls of taxpayer indignation about using provincial dollars to fund another pointless political advertisement. And normally, I’d be on board with that complaint, except in this case I square the blame entirely with the parents who have wasted everyone’s time by pulling their children out of school in protest of the curriculum. With the threat of more protests this coming school year, how could the province not respond?

Ever since it was unveiled back in February, I have heard dozens of arguments against Ontario’s new sex ed curriculum, and precisely zero good ones. Much of the problem seems to be that many detractors haven’t actually read the curriculum, instead relying on hyperbolic characterizations by people yelling at each other on Facebook. For that reason, and for that fact that this curriculum is going ahead, whether parents like it or not, it is worth taking a moment to go over (and debunk) the most frequently aired objections in order to try to put this exhausting debate to bed, finally.

Objection 1: The curriculum introduces students to inappropriate concepts such as anal sex, oral sex, etc.

Wrong. Categorically wrong. False.

Unless a child is being raised without television and the Internet — and without friends with access to television and the Internet — he or she already knows about these things, and probably much earlier than parents think. Watch one awful Nicki Minaj music video, and that becomes abundantly clear. Seriously, read the lyrics to “Freaky Girl,” and shudder with disappointment, as I do.