‘Sexuality is easier to reveal than faith,’ Education Committee says

Some young people feel that “coming out as an evangelical Christian in school is now much harder than coming out as LGBT.”

That’s according to David Smyth of the Evangelical Alliance of Northern Ireland (EANI).

But he told Stormont councilors that Christians did not want to “fight a culture war” over how Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) was taught in schools.

Members of Parliament (MLAs) on Stormont’s Education Committee Conducting an investigation into RSE in Northern Ireland.

The Evangelical Alliance is a Christian organization representing a variety of churches and individuals.

Mr Smyth also said: “I think we need to be careful not to create new secular blasphemies.”

“Is it a secular blasphemy to believe that a man cannot biologically become a woman?” he continued.

Mr Smyth told the committee that although the Evangelical Alliance had some “concerns” about the content of the RSE, it was not a matter of “religion and the RSE”.

“We are not looking to get into a culture war where children are missing,” Mr. Smyth said.

“There is a lot of common ground between Christians and non-Christians on healthy relationships, consent, preventing violence against women and girls, and sexualization.”

But he said parents had concerns about some of the things they had read in the media about what was taught at RSE.

gave a reference Previous report by Conservative MP Miriam Cates About RSE in schools in England and Wales.

“This report details some examples of age-inappropriate material in RSE on topics such as sexual practices that may be dangerous or even illegal, such as asphyxiation or chemical sex,” he said.

It also said some RSE lessons contained “scientifically inaccurate material that confuses and conflates biological sex with gender identity and teaches that children can choose to be male or female, both, or neither.”

“There are some specific areas where the views of evangelical Christians and many Catholics and Muslims are very different, such as abortion,” he continued.

It is set to become compulsory for all post-primary schools in Northern Ireland. providing students with information about access to abortion and preventing early pregnancy.

This is a result of former Northern Ireland Minister Chris Heaton-Harris introducing RSE-related regulations in Parliament in 2023.

“I sense some suspicion in some quarters that Christian morality equates to indoctrination or indoctrination, perhaps with good reason in some cases in the past,” Mr. Smyth said.

“But good RSE is about helping young people understand and think well about relationships, gender, identity and how these play into their moral beliefs and values.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools.”

Alliance MLA Nick Mathison, chair of the committee, said during questions Mr Smyth “expressed concern that there are teachers out there who are effectively trying to change children’s minds to push some kind of agenda”.

“I think our concern when it comes to teaching something like abortion law or different sexual identities is when it’s taught and how it’s taught, and that it’s an area where it’s not ideologically driven,” Mr. Smyth said. he replied.

“This is an area where we would want all young people to be able to respond to the truths being taught,” he continued.

The committee previously heard from Dr Susan Lagdon and Dr Julie Ann Jordan from Ulster University. research on violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland.

Dr Lagdon said violence against women and girls was a “significant problem” but many people in Northern Ireland were unaware of terms such as coercive control.

“This relates to negative and harmful patterns of behavior that can occur in close relationships to pressure, intimidate or threaten a person into submission,” he said.

“Coercive control is a term that reflects the reality of abuse that many people face.

“This is not a one-time event and it is not always physical in nature.”

Coercive control is a specific offense in Northern Ireland.

But Dr Lagdon said that overall, the teaching of “prevention programs to address intimate partner violence” in schools in Northern Ireland was “inconsistent”.