RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 14: SEXUALITY EDUCATION AS A JUSTICE ISSUE
BY BY REV. COLIN BOSSEN AND REV. JULIA HAMILTON
© Copyright 2011 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 11:24:40 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The sexuality education program is about wholeness and healing. It is about justice and equity. It is about responsibility to self and to others, and it's about enhancing the meaning and value of life itself, and those are all religious pursuits. — Judith A. Frediani, quoted in the 1999 UU World article "From Liberation to Health" by Dan Kennedy
The title of this program, Resistance and Transformation, also characterizes our Unitarian Universalist journey with sexuality education. Our advocacy for comprehensive sexuality education is rooted in our quest for justice and in our resistance to social and religious pressures that seek to limit information about and acceptance of the sexual aspects of what it means to be human. The transformation of Unitarian Universalist attitudes and actions concerning comprehensive sexuality education was a process that required years of study, theological reflection, and commitment to engaging with real world questions and concerns.
For centuries, Unitarian and Universalists have wrestled with Western Christian theological concepts relating to human sexuality—for example, the notion of original sin, the condemnation of homosexuality, acceptance of the virgin birth of Jesus, and the belief that our physical self is separate from and inferior to our mind or spirit. At times, these concepts fostered oppressive social and cultural standards regarding human sexuality and sexuality education. In the latter half of the 20th century, as our tradition began to assimilate ideas from the feminist movement and the sexual revolution and come to terms with problems like HIV/AIDS and sexual abuse, Unitarian Universalists have often found themselves at the forefront of transformative justice work around the issue of sexuality.
This workshop explores what "sexual justice" means in the context of our faith, presents the recent history of our comprehensive sexuality education, and examines the broader social reaction to the Unitarian Universalists taking a religiously grounded, liberal stance on sexual justice issues.
To ensure you can help adults of all ages, stages, and learning styles participate fully in this workshop, review these sections of the program Introduction: "Accessibility Guidelines for Workshop Presenters" in the Integrating All Participants section, and "Strategies for Effective Group Facilitation" and "Strategies for Brainstorming" in the Leader Guidelines section.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | 0 |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Human Sexuality and Social Justice | 20 |
Activity 2: From About Your Sexuality to Our Whole Lives | 20 |
Activity 3: Sex and the Media | 30 |
Faith in Action: Sexuality Education and Sexual Justice Advocacy in our Congregation | |
Closing | 10 |
Alternate Activity 1: In the Public Eye | 30 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
This topic has the potential to become intensely personal for you and participants. Read the workshop carefully and take note of any moments that trigger reflection on your own experiences. Keeping in mind the boundaries you must set to lead this workshop, make a plan for how you will handle these triggers in conversation with participants. Take time to discuss with your co-facilitator how you might re-direct the conversation if a participant begins to "overshare" personal details.
Before you lead the workshop, take time to complete this sentence: "At the end of this workshop, I hope the participants leave feeling... "
WORKSHOP PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As participants enter, invite them to sign in, put on name tags, and pick up handouts. Direct their attention to the agenda for this workshop.
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite a participant to light the chalice while you lead a unison reading of Reading 449 from Singing the Living Tradition, "We hallow this time together by kindling the lamp of our heritage."
Lead the group in singing the hymn you have chosen.
Tell the group this workshop invites them to reflect: What does it mean to consider the work of fostering a healthy perspective on human sexuality a social justice issue?
Acknowledge that the topic of sexuality is intensely personal, and encourage participants to consider this issue as an object of public witness and theological reflection rather than personal disclosure. Remind participants that this workshop does not require anyone to share personal information or experiences.
Make sure that participants have their journals, and something to write with. Invite participants to engage in a journaling exercise to reflect on the difference between sexuality as a personal, private matter and sexuality as a matter of public witness and social, cultural, or religious expression. Give these directions:
Create two columns on a page in your journal. Label one column "Private" and the other "Public." Under "Private," write any aspects of sexuality you think are private and personal. Under "Public," write any aspects of sexuality you think are part of your social identity, in the public sphere, or otherwise related to society at large. You will not be asked to share this entry with the group.
Allow four or five minutes for participants to complete this journal entry.
ACTIVITY 1: HUMAN SEXUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 1, Religion and the New Morality. Explain:
In June, 1967, Playboy magazine published an article called "Religion and the New Morality." The magazine convened a panel of leading liberal clergymen to debate the church's role in the sexual revolution, devoting 25 pages to this discussion. The quote in Handout 1, Religion and the New Morality, is from one of the pre-eminent Unitarian Universalist theologians of the 20th century, James Luther Adams, who was one of nine panelists.
Read the handout aloud.
Then, invite participants to respond to these questions and write their responses on newsprint:
Allow ten minutes for this part of the activity. If it does not come up, point out that this quote demonstrates both our ongoing understanding of sexuality education as a justice issue and our ever-evolving search for ways to understand human sexuality in the context of our faith.
Now, post the questions you have written on newsprint and lead a discussion.
ACTIVITY 2: FROM ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY TO OUR WHOLE LIVES (20 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 2. Explain that it is an abridged version of an article from UU World magazine and participants can read the full article online if they wish.
Give participants ample time to read the handout silently to themselves. Or, if the group prefers, have volunteers read the handout aloud. Ask participants, as they read, to underline statements they think are significant about the differences between the About Your Sexuality (AYS) and the Our Whole Lives (OWL) curricula and to note any questions they have.
Once participants have finished reading, ask: What cultural changes do you think prompted the move from AYS to OWL? Lead a group discussion.
Share this quote, from the longer version of the article:
The UCC's Gordon Svoboda ... predicts slow going within his faith group. "We are going to start small and build out," he says. "We don't have a 30-year history of active sexuality education, as the UUA does. It's something of sacred history for the UUA, and we are not in the same spot. We have a great deal of tilling the ground to do."
Ask these questions:
ACTIVITY 3: SEX AND THE MEDIA (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Read aloud this quotation from the Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh:
A long-term challenge for the Unitarian Universalist Association was the problem of keeping About Your Sexuality "in context." Materials in the curriculum, particularly the filmstrips, could be represented in sensational ways that were untrue to their role in the program. The filmstrips could be easily employed by the media for their shock value. It is likely that to the average American, the idea of showing full-color pictures of masturbation and sex to 12- to 14-year-olds would sound perverse, at best. In order to be understood, any media discussion of the filmstrips needed to be framed within the context of the curriculum and the congregation. However, this framing did not always happen to the Unitarian Universalist Association's advantage.
Tell the group the UUA has received positive as well as negative press about our sexuality education programs. For example, Oprah Winfrey's O Magazine in July, 2009 ran a very positive story which featured an adult OWL program at a Texas Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Have participants form groups of three to craft a press release about an issue or event related to the congregation's work on sexuality as a justice issue. It can be related to a real event or a hypothetical action. If people seem stuck, ask them to consider congregational public advocacy on one of these issues: comprehensive sexuality education, equal marriage, legislation against affectional orientation- or gender identity-motivated hate crimes, fair legal definitions of "family," safe access to reproductive counseling and health services, or another issue related to human sexuality.
Invite small groups to use the posted questions as they write their release.
Allow small groups to work for 15 minutes. Then, invite each group to present their press release. After every small group has shared, open the floor for discussion. Ask: If you were a member of the press, which statements would have the most impact on you? Which stories would you want to follow up?
CLOSING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Make sure each participant has their journal and something to write with. Read this excerpt from the multi-faith Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing:
Our culture needs a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent and pleasure. Grounded in respect for the body and for the vulnerability that intimacy brings, this ethic fosters physical, emotional and spiritual health. It accepts no double standards and applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status or sexual orientation.
Invite participants to reflect on the notion of "a sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts." Ask them to consider what they might do to support the development of such an ethic.
Allow eight minutes for writing in journals.
Distribute Taking It Home.
Invite a participant to come forward and extinguish the chalice as you say these words: "As we extinguish this chalice, may we let the light of our tradition kindle our hope for a better world."
FAITH IN ACTION: SEXUALITY EDUCATION AND SEXUAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY IN OUR CONGREGATION
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Before deciding to implement Our Whole Lives or the earlier About Your Sexuality programs, most congregations would engage in discussion about sexuality education in a religious context. Try to trace the history of this work in your congregation. When did the congregation first offer either About Your Sexuality or Our Whole Lives? What motivated people to begin this work? How has the congregation's sexuality education programming changed over the years?
If your congregation does not offer Our Whole Lives, is it under consideration? Has the congregation been involved with issues of sexual justice—for example, abortion rights, access to birth control, or family planning information?
Find a way to make this history visible, via a newsletter or website article, a display table during coffee hour, or as part of a worship service.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Take a few moments right after the workshop to ask each other:
Review the next workshop. Are there any questions to research or logistics to arrange between workshops? Make a list of who is responsible for which preparations and materials.
TAKING IT HOME
The sexuality education program is about wholeness and healing. It is about justice and equity. It is about responsibility to self and to others, and it's about enhancing the meaning and value of life itself, and those are all religious pursuits. — Judith A. Frediani, quoted in the 1999 UU World article "From Liberation to Health" by Dan Kennedy
Because attitudes about sex and sexuality change over time, speaking with someone from a different generation may reveal a perspective different from yours. Identify a friend or family member from a different generation, either older or younger, with whom you would feel comfortable discussing social attitudes toward sexuality. Seek them out for a conversation, sharing some of your thoughts from this workshop. Ask them to share some of their experiences and understandings of sexuality as it relates to religious, social, or cultural expectations. Did they feel oppressed, challenged, or liberated by their experiences?
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: IN THE PUBLIC EYE (30 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
This activity tells some of the history of our sexuality education program and describes one congregation's interaction with the media around this topic. It is a good way to extend themes from Activities 2 and 3.
Distribute Handout 4, Loving Our Whole Lives, and invite the volunteer to read it aloud. Then, ask the group to consider three different spheres of engagement with sexuality education materials such as Our Whole Lives: personal, congregational, and public.
Indicate the newsprint labeled "Personal Response," and invite participants to identify ways an individual might respond to the sexuality education material in Our Whole Lives. These responses might be positive or negative. For example: A parent might come to an OWL leader with concerns about their child's reaction to the material; a parent might come to thank an OWL leader for their commitment to giving youth information and guidance. Allow five or six minutes for brainstorming, recording contributions on newsprint. Remind participants that when brainstorming, the group agrees to simply record ideas and not evaluate. The time to evaluate will come later.
Next, indicate the newsprint labeled "Congregational Response." Ask participants to identify ways, positive and negative, that a congregation might respond to a proposal to offer Our Whole Lives or to expand the offerings to a new age group, such as Kindergarten-First Grade or young adults. What committees or groups might have the formal authority to make this decision? Who might have the power to support or block it—for example, the governing board, the finance committee, the religious educator? Allow five or six minutes for brainstorming, recording contributions on newsprint.
Now turn to the newsprint labeled "Public Response." Invite participants to identify ways the congregation might interact with the larger community about a decision to implement or expand Our Whole Lives offerings in the congregation. For example, parents in your community who are not connected to the congregation might hear about this program and want to enroll their youth; someone might write a letter to the local newspaper critical of the program. Allow five or six minutes for brainstorming, recording contributions on newsprint.
After completing all three brainstorming lists, return to them one at a time, asking the group to consider the imagined situations. In each case, who is responsible for responding (the congregation's professional staff, lay leadership, a group or committee, the entire congregation)? What should they do? As the discussion unfolds, challenge participants to connect the responses they suggest with their understanding of sexual justice. As participants suggest actions, guide them to root their ideas in Unitarian Universalist theology and principles.
RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION: WORKSHOP 14:
HANDOUT 1: RELIGION AND THE NEW MORALITY
James Luther Adams, quoted in the June, 1967 Playboy magazine article "Panel on Religion and the New Morality."
A significant number of college students are already developing what I would call a new ethos. They want to find a heterosexual relationship that involves a maximum knowledge both of the other person and themselves, in the context of authentic fellowship. They are making a serious effort to deepen the character of the boy-girl relationship and to broaden their range of perception and sensitivity. Some of these students stress only an intensity of interpersonal involvement, with little attention to consequence or durability. Others broaden the definition of involvement. They want to connect sex and love with concern for civil rights and other social-institutional issues. This second group doesn't confine itself to concern for merely interpersonal relationships; it is concerned with cultural criticism and with the institutional obligations of citizenship. This group represents a new trend in our youth culture, the trend away from an apolitical to a political orientation... We may have to wait a decade before we can know what this adds up to.
RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION: WORKSHOP 14:
HANDOUT 2: FROM LIBERATION TO HEALTH
Abridged from "From Liberation to Health: The New UUA Sexuality Curriculum," by Dan Kennedy, published in UU World Sept/Oct 1999. Copyright (C) 1999 by Dan Kennedy. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Two years ago, the First Parish (in Wayland, MA) was one of 20 UU churches that field-tested Our Whole Lives, or OWL, a brand-new comprehensive sexuality education curriculum that has just become available for general use. About 15 Wayland seventh-graders experienced—and helped evaluate—the first major updating to the Unitarian Universalist Association's sexuality education program since the early 1970s.
They learned about values. They learned about safer sex and date rape and the acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality and transgenderism. They learned about—for lack of a better term—plumbing. They learned that it's all right to say no. And they learned that there's room for sexual experimentation without intercourse. That might not play well with the right-wing family-values crowd. But studies have shown that this kind of frank acknowledgment of reality does far more to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases than the "just say no" approach.
For Brad Keyes, who along with his wife, Susan Keyes, taught the course at the First Parish, Our Whole Lives was for them a chance to help kids deal responsibly with a topic that consumes their thoughts but is too often approached in ignorance and haste. "It allowed us to challenge the giggles," he says. "All of us—teachers and students alike." Susan Keyes remarks on how strange it is that many parents—by opposing comprehensive sexuality education—condemn their kids to learning about sex from uninformed peers and the commercial media.
(... )Our Whole Lives, developed jointly with the United Church of Christ, replaces About Your Sexuality (AYS), a groundbreaking sexuality education curriculum introduced by the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1971. About a third of the UUA's 1,000 churches have used AYS; the hope is that at least that many will use Our Whole Lives. Although AYS is widely viewed in Unitarian Universalist circles as retaining much of its usefulness, by the late 1980s it had been patched up and amended so many times that many Unitarian Universalists saw the need for an entirely new curriculum. When AYS was written, feminism was in its early stages, and AIDS was unknown. Supplements on AIDS and HIV, date rape, reproductive rights, and sexual abuse were added to the core curriculum, but they were an awkward fit. In contrast, these topics are an integral part of Our Whole Lives, reducing the possibility that students will receive mixed messages.
Another big difference is that AYS targeted only junior-high-school kids. Our Whole Lives is what's known as a life span program: there are five separate units, aimed at kindergarten and first grade students; fourth and fifth graders; seventh, eighth, and ninth graders; high school students; and adults. However, the junior high curriculum is OWL's centerpiece. The material for grades seven through nine, written by the noted sexuality educator Pamela Wilson, was the first to be released. It is also by far the most ambitious, with 54 hours of material spread over a recommended 27 sessions.
"Each age that we're addressing is important, but there's something crucial about the early adolescent age group," explains Judith Frediani, the UUA's curriculum development director. "By that age they're receptive, and it's early enough for them to prepare for the decisions they'll soon be making about sexuality. OWL will help them prepare in healthy and responsible ways for decisions that most of them haven't yet had to face."
There is one other crucial difference between AYS and Our Whole Lives. About Your Sexuality was a product of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when—under the influence of the sexual revolution—autonomy, liberation, and self-actualization were held up as the highest ideals. As religious liberals, UUs continue to believe in those ideals, but three decades after Woodstock, we also better understand the downside of the sexual revolution. Thus Our Whole Lives heavily emphasizes respect. It teaches kids that abstinence is okay, that coercion is unacceptable, that sexually transmitted diseases are real and must be dealt with. As befits a program that emphasizes responsibility and UU values, Our Whole Lives invites parental involvement more explicitly than AYS did. The change reflects a subtle shift in UU cultural yearnings—from the radical individuality of the 1970s to a greater emphasis on connectedness, community, and mutual respect. "The sexuality education program is about wholeness and healing. It is about justice and equity. It is about responsibility to self and to others," says Frediani. "It's about enhancing the meaning and value of life itself, and those are all religious pursuits... The tone of About Your Sexuality was liberation. The tone of Our Whole Lives is health—physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Each is the best we had to offer in its time and place."
(... )Our Whole Lives is based on a concept known as "comprehensive sexuality education," which can most easily be defined by explaining what it is not: the abstinence-only education favored by the religious right and frequently chosen by timid elected officials and school administrators. In a comprehensive program, students learn that sexuality is an essential part of every person; they learn the details of contraceptive use and sexually transmitted diseases; they learn about different sexual orientations in a nonjudgmental way; and they learn skills that can help them act responsibly. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a New York City-based educational group, studies show that comprehensive sexuality programs work much better than abstinence-only programs at helping teenagers delay intercourse and avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The same studies show that most parents favor a kind of sexuality education for their children that is more balanced than the right-wingers' abstinence-only programs.
It was because of political concerns that the Sexuality Education Task Force decided to split OWL into three discrete components. The first—the OWL curriculum itself—is primarily for use in UU and UCC religious education. But because it takes a secular approach, it can also be used in other settings: by agencies like Planned Parenthood that serve sexually active teenagers, in private schools, and even in public schools—although everyone involved with OWL agrees that few if any public schools will be using the curriculum unless the current political climate changes.
The second component, Sexuality and Our Faith, is explicitly religious and supplements the secular curriculum with spiritual values. Separate versions have been written for the noncreedal UUA and the liberal Christian UCC. The UUA version strongly emphasizes four Unitarian Universalist Principles: "the inherent worth and dignity of every person"; "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations"; "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning"; and "the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all." "We understand the value of the faith-deepening opportunity more than we did with AYS," says Cynthia Breen. "It's very carefully tied in with our values and principles." Significantly, only Sexuality and Our Faith and its UCC counterpart—and not the main curriculum—use the line drawings, which depict anatomy, masturbation, and lovemaking.
The third, and perhaps most intriguing, OWL component is the Advocacy Manual for Sexuality Education, Health, and Justice, subtitled Resources for Communities of Faith. Edited by UU Sarah Gibb, outreach coordinator for the Sexuality Education Task Force, the manual aims at building community support for comprehensive sexuality education. The manual, a resource for OWL instructors and others, shows why people need comprehensive sexuality education and offers advice on working with allies in the religious community and dealing with the media. The manual also includes case studies on, for example, a United Church of Christ congregation in Henderson, Kentucky, that sponsored a women's health clinic despite religious right opposition, and a successful campaign by religious liberals and moderates in Hemet, California, that replaced an abstinence-only AIDS/HIV curriculum in the public schools with one that offered more complete—and medically accurate—information. Gibb says she hopes her manual will empower people to speak out at public forums like school-board meetings and let the public know that the religious right doesn't speak for most religious people.
"Some very conservative people of faith . . . have gotten their message out about how they feel about sexuality," Gibb says. "The advocacy manual is for people of faith who believe in comprehensive programs that celebrate abstinence as a good choice but also give information on how to make healthy decisions on contraception and safer sex."
As an indicator of the acute need for resources such as the advocacy manual, its development was funded in full by the Ford Foundation. Margaret Hempel, a former deputy director at Ford who is now with the Ms. Foundation for Women, hopes the manual can be used, in a modest way, to help propagate OWL to faith groups beyond the UUA and the UCC, and perhaps even to help public school sexuality educators to articulate their students' needs and offer ideas on how best to meet them.
(... )One especially valuable feature of OWL (and, before it, AYS): in the face of high rates of suicide among gay and lesbian adolescents, it introduces teenagers to healthy models of all kinds of sexuality. In fact, guest speakers from the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities are a vital part of OWL.
Paul Barron, (one of the OWL field test facilitators at South Valley UU society in Salt Lake City), puts it this way: "I'm a gay man, and when I first taught the AYS program in the late '80s, I was scared to death to tell the kids I'm gay." Since then, however, South Valley has become a Welcoming Congregation, and gay teens, whether they're out or not, can look to him as an example of a successful gay man. Or take Sue O'Connell, associate publisher of a gay newspaper, co-host of a gay radio show, and one of several gays and lesbians who spoke with the Wayland kids last winter. "You have the feeling you're just saying stuff that's not connecting," says O'Connell. "But you realize that a year later or a month later or whenever the teens need the information, they will have access to it, and then they will connect."
For Unitarian Universalists, diversity and acceptance are so ingrained that it's sometimes difficult to step back and see how radical we look to many others in the community. Consider what happened on October 8, 1997, when the CBS news magazine Public Eye (a Bryant Gumbel vehicle since canceled) discovered that the About Your Sexuality program was showing kids photos. In church! Of people having sex! The Rev. Roberta Nelson, now minister of religious education at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, in Bethesda, Maryland, defended UU values in a live interview with Gumbel, who was noticeably agitated by the notion of church-based sex educationthat didn't merely order kids to say no.
In the Wayland church, Brad and Susan Keyes recently learned how committed they are to diversity. Last spring, an antigay activist named J. Edward Pawlick, who runs a radical-right web publication called the Massachusetts News, sent a mailing to everyone in Wayland and several surrounding communities that denounced homosexuality and sex education and singled out Unitarian Universalists for vilification, accusing us of creating the false public impression that we are Christians and of promoting acceptance of gays and lesbians. (To the latter charge, of course, the defendants plead guilty.)
"Although most churches are teaching their children about God, the Unitarians are obsessed with sex. This is directly related to homosexuality," wrote Pawlick, who identifies himself as a former Unitarian. Following a sensational description of UU churches' showing pictures of "a male couple having anal and oral sex and a lesbian couple using a dildo," Pawlick then takes direct aim at OWL: "They are now preparing, 'A Lifespan Sexuality Education Series,' which is designed for use in religious and secular settings. It will cover sex for everyone from kindergarten to adults."
Pawlick's had little effect in Boston's liberal suburbs. The Rev. Kimi Riegel, co-minister in Wayland, wrote a letter to the local weekly newspaper denouncing Pawlick's attempt to stir up animosity toward UUs, as did several other Wayland residents. In nearby Newton, which Pawlick also targeted, the local human rights commission sponsored a well-attended public forum where pro-tolerance sentiment prevailed. Still, if one has been the subject of an outburst like Pawlick's, it's hard to be blase.
Susan Keyes recalls mainly that his actions filled her with fear—and ultimately defiance and a renewed commitment to her Unitarian Universalist principles. "When I started reading (Pawlick's) comments about sexuality education in the Unitarian church, it scared me," she says. "It's frightening to think you might have been targeted. Then I hoped that my mother wasn't going to get (Pawlick's mailing). But you know the truth? It made me feel Unitarian for the first time in my life, and I was brought up in this church. It made me realize that there isn't one ounce of this curriculum that we shouldn't be teaching."
RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION: WORKSHOP 14:
HANDOUT 3: PRESS RELEASE
PRESS ADVISORY — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date:
From: (your congregation's name)
Contact: (name, title, and phone number)
Heading:
Text:
RESISTANCE AND TRANSFORMATION: WORKSHOP 14:
HANDOUT 4: LOVING OUR WHOLE LIVES
From the sermon "Loving Our Whole Lives," preached at the Unitarian Church of Montreal by the Rev. Diane Rollert, March 1, 2009. Used with permission.
(Rollert describes her experience in an Our Whole Lives facilitators training.)
... Many of us had come of age during the sexual revolution of the early 1970s before the spectre of AIDS. We enjoyed the freedom and we lived with the scars of our experiences.Many of us had a lot to face as we prepared to teach: latent homophobia, past wounds, struggles to answer the question "why would you teach about sex in church?" By the end of the workshop, the group had faced many demons and celebrated many joys. David (Rollert) and I came back ready to teach.
The program was, and still is, brilliant. We found that our students were more concerned about their own physical and emotional changes than anything else. They wrestled with questions about making good decisions. There were activities that got them to see where their own knowledge was lacking; that got them to think about honouring and loving who they were, rather than living by what the media or peers demanded of them.
As their teachers, we didn't have to moralize. The youth figured it out for themselves. That was the miraculous part. There was always this transformative moment when the students would begin to see each other as equally human and equally vulnerable. They became an ethical support network for each other. What better way to come of age in a challenging world?
To teach this program was an honour and a blessing. Our students were thoughtful, deep and fun. They were inspiring. As we went along, we did learn a lot ourselves. When as an adult do you get the time to talk about these things? In 1996, when I became the director of religious education at First Parish in Concord, David and I were both sorry we had to let our teaching go. My role shifted to recruiting and supporting other teachers.
During my first year as the new director, we had a very large class of 13 and 14 year olds participating in the program: 22 students with two teachers. Midway through the year, two sets of parents became upset about some of the program's visual materials. It was a story that began in our small town and ended on national TV. Yes, national TV.CBS.
In those days, the program for teens included a series of filmstrips. Filmstrips, for those of you too young to remember, were these long strips of film that were passed through a projector, one frame at a time—pretty much like looking at a slide show. No movement, just still photographs. Among these visuals, there was a filmstrip on anatomy, as well as several filmstrips on lovemaking. Yes, these were explicit, and yes they included straight, gay and lesbian couples.
For a series of complex reasons, we had failed to show these materials to the parents. We had made a mistake, but by the time we rectified the situation it was too late. These two parents had launched a campaign to discredit the program, the minister, the chair of the religious education committee and me. It was a hard time. Angry, accusing letters were sent all over town. Explicit details of the materials were printed in the local papers, and became a source of gossip on the soccer fields, at cocktail parties and coffee klatches. Everyone, I mean everyone, was talking about the Unitarian church and sex.
That summer we got word that a new television "news" magazine called Public Eye hosted by Bryant Gumbel had decided that a story involving a church, sex and teens was the perfect foil for raising their ratings and viewership. Hello 15 minutes of infamy. Here we were in the heart of Puritan country, in a church with a history that went back to 1636, and we were about to be literally and figuratively exposed.
I'm proud of how the congregation handled the situation. We formed a task force.We began showing the filmstrips to all the adults in the congregation.We put the visuals into the context of the program and explained all the good reasons why these materials were used.That was a fearful time.What if the congregation was shocked and appalled by what they saw?What if this crisis pulled us apart?We lived in a puritanical and homophobic world.The conflict could have destroyed us.
As the congregation saw these materials and discussed them, the response was overwhelmingly positive and supportive.Yes, there were those who expressed their discomfort.But the majority remarked how wonderful it was to see normal people, not airbrushed, not frighteningly thin, expressing their love.How wonderful it was that we were speaking openly to our youth and providing them with accurate information.
Debbie McLean Greeley, the widow of Dana McLean Greeley (former minister and president of the American Unitarian Association), must have been in her eighties by then.She stood up during an information session and pounded her walking stick on the ground. "We should have offered this program 50 years ago!"Another member, also in her 80s, told me that she wished she'd had access to such information when she was younger."I wouldn't have had six kids!"These were prim and proper New England ladies—so much for my assumptions about the stereotype.
In the end, 19 students remained in the class.When Public Eye made it clear they were only planning to interview the two aggrieved families, our task force succeeded in getting the producer to also interview the other families.The day the film team arrived in our fellowship hall, they were shocked to find ten parents and ten teens waiting for them. They'd never had to mike so many people for sound before.
Of course, sensational TV is sensational TV, and as contrived and biased as you can imagine.Out of an interview that lasted more than an hour, only a less-than-flattering sound byte or two remained.All the thoughtful comments of our youth and their parents were dropped on the cutting room floor.
A week or so before the show was to be broadcast we called an open congregational meeting.We set up two microphones at the front of the sanctuary so that anyone could share their thoughts or concerns about the program and the upcoming broadcast.David and I had tears in our eyes as a large group of our former students presented a signed document to the community expressing their support. "We have gained a greater understanding of our lives, sexuality and religion... We are proud to say our church has stood for open-mindedness for generations."
The next week, the staff and other members of the church gathered to watch our 15 minutes of fame.In a flash, it was over. The next thing we knew, the whole world was busy analyzing the meaning of the word "it" and the relationship of Bill Clinton to an intern named Monica Lewinsky.We were quickly forgotten. Though not entirely...
Suddenly, there were new families crossing our threshold."Are you the church that isn't afraid to talk to kids about sexuality?Help! Our kids are so bombarded by sexual information on TV and the Internet we don't know what to do.When can we sign them up?"
"Are you the church that is open enough to talk about homosexuality with your children?Thank you.I can't imagine how different my life would have been if my church community had told me that I am loveable, that I have inherent worth and dignity."
We grew and strengthened as a community, and our children reaped the benefits.
...These days we need this program more than ever. When David and I first started teaching, our students had no access to something called the Internet.Within ten years, the landscape had completely changed.Suddenly all our children could access a host of distorted and disturbing images, no matter how hard their parents tried to shelter them.In case you are wondering, the new program replaced the old filmstrips with slides of beautiful line drawings. (My favourite is a couple in their twilight years, wrapped in each other's arms, smiling.) These days, parents tend to be grateful for the rarity of positive images of loving relationships.
...Why do we teach about sex at church?A religious community at its best should be about living our lives as caring and just human beings.A major part of how we live our lives is related to our sexuality.What is our identity?Who do we love? How do we love? How do we act as responsible human beings, caring for each other, caring for our young?Yet many of us come from religious traditions that taught us that sexuality was something evil or wrong.We were taught that there was only one kind of loving relationship or only one way to make decisions about our bodies.
You could argue that many religious traditions treat sexuality as taboo.Yet, in silence you areteaching something.In silence you can teach shame and fear.All religious traditions make a statement about sexuality, whether explicit or implicit.If we aren't direct in how we teach our children about sexuality, within the context of our values, I assure you that someone or something else will.Would we really want to leave our children's sexuality educationto someone else?
You could say that sexuality is something that needs to be taught at home, and this is true.But these are challenging times to raise children (I suppose all times are challenging).We need the support of our community to do it well.Believe me, the prevailing culture is strong. It envelops our children, whether we like it or not. Parents and those raising children need all the support they can get.
You could say that sexuality is something that should be taught at school, and when it is, this is great.Here in Quebec, teachers are expected to incorporate sexuality and morality education throughout the curriculum.Yet this assumes a level of comfort and training few teachers receive.
As Unitarian Universalists we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of each person.We honour the whole person.That means understanding our responsibility to ourselves and to others.That means providing accurate information to our children and youth that keeps them safe, helps them to feel whole, and value others.That means each of us learning how to communicate, make decisions, assert ourselves in healthy ways in order to create meaningful and respectful relationships. That's how we express our faith, our values and our love, our whole lives.
FIND OUT MORE
Read "From Liberation to Health (at www.uuworld.org/1999/0999feat3.html)" by Dan Kennedy, from the September/October 1999 issue of UU World magazine.
Learn more about Our Whole Lives (at www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/ourwhole/index.shtml) sexuality education programs and resources.
The Religious Institute (at www.religiousinstitute.org): a multi-faith organization dedicated to advocating for sexual health, education, and justice in faith communities and society. Read the Religious Declaration of Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing (at www.religiousinstitute.org/religious-declaration-on-sexual-morality-justice-and-healing) that many Unitarian Universalist religious professionals have signed.
Read "Adventures in Adult Sex Education (at www.oprah.com/relationships/Adult-Sex-Education)" by Amanda Robb, in O Magazine, July 16, 2009.
Find more resources on the website of SIECUS (at www.siecus.org/): Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.