Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jul 8, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The news agency Notivida is denouncing a controversial sex-ed curriculum written by the extremist Gay and Lesbian Society for Integration in Argentina and which will soon be under consideration by the Education Committee of the Buenos Aires local government.
According to Notivida, the sex-ed material is openly “hedonistic and pro-gay” and includes references to sexual orientation, using the word “gender” instead of “sex,” the promotion of gays, lesbians, transvestites and bisexuals as minorities, and the portrayal of masturbation and sexual relations between three or more individuals as normal “sexual conduct.”
Notivida warned that if approved, the material would be distributed by the Secretary for Education of the city of Buenos Aires and would be obligatory “for all students at all levels of the educational system.”
Moreover, the material would be distributed “in all teaching institutions in the city of Buenos Aires, whether they are public or private,” and “parents would not be able to exempt their children from the sex-ed classes.”
Notivida said it was alarming that the material was based on the conclusions of a meeting in May of 2000 in Guatemala, organized by the Pan American Organization of Health and the World Association of Sexology.
At that meeting plans were made to introduce legal changes at the international level, and it defined “sexual rights” as “fundamental and universal human rights with precedence over cultural values.”
The “sexual rights” the Pan American Organization of Health wishes to spread in the region include “the right to sexual freedom,” the “right to sexual equality,” the outlawing of discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation, “the right to sexual pleasure,” including masturbation, the “right to free sexual association,” including the right to marry or not, to get divorced and to establish other types of sexual relationships between persons of the same sex, and the “right to make free and responsible reproductive decisions,” including recourse to abortion.