people opposed to sex education oppose sex education, shock

Cath Elliot at Liberal Conspiracy sketches out the details of the ridiculously minimal reform of sex education and touches on the knee-jerk responses falling from the mouths of self-appointed family values campaigners.

It's never been quite clear how these supposedly moral crusaders square their morality with a track record of - with the full support of certain newspapers - lying, transparently and repeatedly, about the value and content of sex education programmes.

For example, if a newspaper is going to quote the Family Education Trust on the issue of sex education, it should also take the time to point out that they embody a tiny conservative minority who are badly informed, prone to lying and think that the real problem with sex before marriage is that it turns your wife into a whore. They're also opposed to any discussion of homosexuality because it might make people think that gay relationships are legitimate.

Furthermore, their resistance to sex education is part of a specific, socially conservative agenda which they have no problem in forcing on everyone else. So, while - as should be transparently obvious - contraception reduces pregnancy, it should be treated with fear and mistrust because it "undermines" marriage.

On that note, compare and contrast Cornerstone Group's Edward Leigh's approach to sex education ("you can’t and shouldn’t seek to impose your ideas from the centre") and Edward Leigh's approach to marriage ("We need to explain how we will buttress and support it through the tax and benefit system.")