What's wrong with saying "NO!"

On September 16th I posted an entry on this blog about the 'No Outsiders' project being promoted here in the UK, which includes, amongst other aspects of its agenda, the following stated intention, which appears on their website:
During the course of the project, a team of primary teachers from three areas of the UK will develop ideas and resources to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own schools and their communities.

There is more news of the project in the Media today, trumpeting the fact that children as young as five will be taught the names of genitalia and taught about the basic differences between boys and girls. As they progress through their school lives the children will then be taught increasingly about sexual relationships.

Talking to my 14 year old step-son, he advises that at their High School the sex education/ relationship lessons take the form of one day a year where discussions take place, primarily focusing on contraception. When it comes to the question of saying 'No', the brief discussion centred around a situation involving a girl of about 15 who had a boyfriend aged 18 or 19 who was pressuring her to have sex with him, and in these circumstances the class were advised that the best answer is 'No'. He advises me that there is not a lot of discussion about relationships otherwise, beyond the question of whether or not the children conversed with their parents.

Nowhere do I see any indication that children might be taught that ABSTINENCE is the BEST PATH TO TAKE! I can hear some people laughing even as I write. Abstinence? Why that's an infringement of their human rights, or at least, if it is NOT then it SHOULD be!

Yet surely the best course of action if we are to teach our children anything about the subject of relationships at all, is to teach them about RESPECTING OTHERS, and RESPECTING THEMSELVES. A better world is not created by making children aware of sex at too early an age, but it is helped by teaching them MORALS, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and the fact that there are many things in this world where the best answer to the temptations offered is simply the word 'NO'.

Successive governments over the past few decades have promoted an assortment of policies regarding our children's education, particularly on the subject of sex education. Now, I agree that the better informed that ALL people are, irrespective of age to a degree, about all matters concerning that which serves to hold families together, to preserve community and foster good and responsible citizenship, then the better it is for everyone. However, when it comes to sex education I hear the figures of over 4300 abortions per year for under 16's in the UK, and I have to acknowledge that the education obviously has been misguided, and has failed in its prime purpose, which is to educate.

Why can we not have government by people who are concerned more about creating a better world than they are about amassing wealth and power for themselves?

It is so easy to talk about our children 'being the future', but the reality is that our children are 'the NOW'!

If we fail them now and behaviour continues to spiral out of control in the way that it currently is, with so many teenage pregnancies, such a great a 'knife culture' that sees, according to statistics, over 300 instances of knife-crime in the UK every day, so much 'yobbish' behaviour, drunkenness and disrespect, then we fail them, not only the 'NOW' but the 'FUTURE' as well.

Of course I am aware that much that is deemed 'bad behaviour' is displayed by only a relative minority of our young people. There are thousands of young people who do good because they are good. In general they will come from situations where they are cared about, in the home, in the school and in the community. One of the greatest means of getting respect is to give it, but it is a two-way street.