Last week, the BBC published an article saying:

MPs have backed a government move to allow sex education to be taught in England in a way that “reflects” a school’s “religious character”.

What they are talking about is an amendment to England’s current Children, Schools and Families Bill, passed by a majority of 345 in the Commons, after much highly criticized, extensive lobbying from the Catholic Education Service. According to the BBC, amendment opponents are arguing that it could allow religious schools to teach sex ed in ways that are contrary to human rights, homophobic or gender discriminatory. But amendment defenders, such as Schools Secretary Ed Balls, see the bill as “a major step forward” because it requires schools to teach children about the biology of sex as well as relationships, it also lowers the maximum age for parents to keep their children out of sex ed from 19 to 15.

Mr. Balls told the BBC that, “Every school will have to teach the full curriculum in a balanced way that respects equality and is not discriminatory, but of course what we are saying is they can explain the views of their faith.”

It took me more than a week to be able to actually write a post about this for one main reason: several human rights of equal importance seem to collide in this case. Like many other people, I initially opposed this measure for fear that if you let faith school teach sex ed a certain way, they will most certainly teach values that are contradictory to human rights. But after a little introspection this position started to seem a bit narrow.

Defenders of free speech claim no ideas, even those we hate, should be censored. Free speech is the foundation from which new ideas and progress will arise, and it is essential for any democratic system as a way of questioning the conditions of today for improving the conditions of tomorrow. The reason this bill is getting so much opposition seems to be due to a somewhat generalized belief that certain religious teachings and principles are contrary to human rights. So many people want those ideas left out of classrooms to make it harder for them to be ingrained into people’s minds from an early age. What this position seems to fail to see is that religious freedom is also a human right. Parents have a right to pass their religions down to their children, and if there are schools that can help them do that, wouldn’t we be violating their right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech by opposing that?

This issue is not just complicated because of the feelings that arise when we talk about things like religion, abortion, gay rights, etc. Its complexity lies in the fact that in asking faith schools not to teach certain things in accordance with their views, what we’re really asking them is to limit their own right to religious freedom and freedom of speech so that others can exercise the human rights that clash with the views of certain religions. What is at stake, really, is just the human rights of some vs. the human rights of others. What makes measure opponents somewhat biased is which rights they’re including in their definition of human rights and how they think those rights should be exercised and fostered.

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