Sexuality Education

As people of faith, we are concerned about the disturbing realities of HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, a high rate of suicide among gay and lesbian teens, and date rape.

We want to help youth become responsible, healthy, whole persons. The challenge of guiding youth into sexually healthy adulthood is complex and requires the involvement of parents, faith communities, and schools.

In recent years, hundreds of millions of federal dollars have been poured into unproven abstinence-only education for teens. While most sex education programs teach the value of abstinence, abstinence-only education does not provide basic information on reproductive health such as methods of preventing sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. Advocates of abstinence-only education oppose reproductive choice and women’s equality and seek to make narrow religious beliefs the law of the land. Make no mistake—they don’t represent most people of faith, who overwhelmingly support providing accurate information about sexuality.

We support:

• efforts to educate parents and strengthen parent-child communication
• encouraging congregations to implement faith-based comprehensive sexuality education programs
• improvement of sexuality education in public schools, ensuring that all information is accurate and medically-based, and that information on abstinence, contraception and STD prevention is included.

Many faith groups support comprehensive sexuality education! Read IRCRC's new brochure "Religious Communities and Sexuality Education"