h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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*Possum steps forward, always ready to voice his opinion even though he's aware that he's probably way out of his depth here*

Okay, this is just my opinion...I'm in no way suggesting that I'm in any way correct, I'm just getting the ball rolling, so to speak.

Personally I think that 16 year olds are young, impressionable and, more importantly, are still children. Therefore, I think that 16 year olds who are struggling with their sexuality should not be open to influence from any external factors whatsoever; they should be able to make up their own mind about their sexuality without being affected by the wishes or desires of anyone else. This may mean that they should be prevented from taking part in homosexual sex, because we all know that the body responds to stimulation of any kind. This could easily tip the balance, so to speak, in a young, confused mind, whereas the same mind could develop differently if the 16 year old had no homosexual experiences.

While true that some 16 year olds are mature enough to make decisions of this nature, many are not. And in order to protect the ones who are not, Section 28 should remain.

I'm not suggesting for a second, though, that the situation is ideal, because fairness dictates that the age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual sex should be equal. Much of the above argument could be applied to issues of 16 year olds participating in heterosexual sex as well.

Now feel free to argue against me. Like I said, I'm just getting the ball rolling. I appreciate that this was not a particularly lucid or eloquent argument but I have a reasonable excuse - 3 hours sleep last night

Erm. All that presupposes (a) That developing homosexual feelings would in some way be a bad thing and (b) that people aren't born with a particular sexuality.

It certainly isn't clear that (b) is the case, and I suspect it causes people a lot more pain in the long run to deny how they feel rather than open up to it. In fact, I go by the view that 'sexuality' is something that doesn't really exist, and is a simplification of the really complex way that human libidos work. I know enough people that will only have sex with, say, blondes, to know that it is very difficult to say the least to pin down sexuality, on anything more than a person to person basis - whether you are attracted to someone or not.

I personally (and this is one of the reasons why I can't see why Section 28 should be kept) don't understand why schools should *ever* feel it is their place to promote *anything*. I always though schools were there to educate and present information, not to support or oppose anything at all.

(Oh, and for reference, the Green party wholeheartedly opposes Section 28, and is supporting its repeal!)

Right. Again, this isn't going to be very eloquent, but hey, we appear to be the only people here so, hey, you'll have to put up with me

a) Developing homosexual feelings _is_ a bad thing if they are not right for the person involved. As is developing any sexual feelings whatsover if the person in question is not ready.

b) As far as being born with a particular sexuality is concerned, I tend to subscribe to the view of sexuality being on a sliding scale, determined by a variety of factors. Ideally, these factors should not have overt influence until the person in question is adult and ready to deal with them. Of course, a persons entire life experience influences sexuality, but sexual acts, by definition, influence sexual persuasion far more than anything else, and can interfere with the natural development of this sliding scale. I try to think of it as a pair of scales - on the one hand a person is heterosexual, on the other homosexual. The scales should not be tipped by anything other than what a person arrives at internally with as few external influences as possible.

I hope that made sense, although I'm not convinced that it did.

Schools should be there primarily to educate. But they should also do the best for their students. Surely the repeal of Section 28 promotes homosexuality - thereby going against your view that schools should never promote anything?

I'm not a mindless follower of any political party which I support, whether the Green Party, or anyone else. I like to have my own opinions

A lot of what you say is fair, and I don't by any means suggest school should be freely exposing children of any age to any material - we don't have sex education for 5 year olds. That does not mean that *anyone* but the teachers or their unions should be considered more qualified to decide what should be taught and when, and to say that the current law, which makes teachers afraid to even introduce concepts about homosexual acts is in the interests of children is in my opinion ridiculous and dangerous. Should teachers be only pointing out that people should make sure they use condoms for vaginal sex, for example, when there is far more danger from unprotected anal sex. Sorry to get so specific, but this was what I remember sex education being about - not what choices you made as to who you slept with or when, but advice as to how to make it safe, comfortable and consensual.

I'd probably agree about sliding scales, but tend to subscribe to the view that your own sexuality should be explored, not avoided. Only within a context of demonising homosexuals and homosexual acts is there any reason to suggest that experiencing these feelings could be wrong - by all means things might not be right for a person, but this goes as much for heterosexual feelings as homosexual.

As to your comment about repealing Section 28 promoting homosexuality, I couldn't disagree more. This is one of the arguments given by some of the most extreme of Section 28 advocates, but I can't see how it works at all. Unless we're going to say abolition of the black slave trade was 'promoting being black' - which patently it was not - I can't see how abolising bigotted legislation designed to demonise certain portions of society can be considered to be promoting that group - it is simply evening the score.

Could you put an explanation of what Section 28 is and what its effects are in the entry? If someone reads this forum without knowing much about the issue they could well believe it's to do with the age of consent and teaching in schools, which is misleading at best. Cheers.

Since my last post I have come across the full text of the relevant clause of the Local Government Act 1988:

"28 -(1) The following section shall be inserted after section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986 (prohibition of political publicity) -

"2A -(1) A local authority shall not:

"(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality

"(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

"(2) Nothing in subection (1) above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease.

"(3) In any proceedings in connection with the application of this section a court shall draw such inferences as to the intention of the local authority as may be reasonably be drawn from the evidence before it."

I hope this is helpful.

In my opinion homosexuality falls in the same category as normal sex and drugs. If somebody isn't given all the facts about sex they're more likely to end up with problems like STDs or Teenage Pregnancy, if somebody isn't given all the information about drugs they're more likely to end up with a drugs problem, so what makes people think that NOT teaching kids about homosexuality will somehow make them straight.

Somebody who is thinking about homosexuality will find their information somewhere, whether teachers provide it or not. Every school has one or two gays in it and they will usually be marked out by just about everyone else on campus, at least if homosexuality is taught by the teachers then kids who might just be going through a "phase" of homosexuality can get pure unbiased information, while if they get their information from the official school gay guy there's a chance that he'll simply be trying to get his leg over.