Testimony before FCPS, Agenda item: FLE and Suicide
by FCTA's Fred Costello, 09/28/2017
Suicide is not always the result of mental illness. Sometimes it is a choice -- as in assisted suicide. People choose death over the pains of life. Your FLE program adds to the pains.
In April, I asked you to revise the FLE program so it was not a course in Pregnancy-free Sex at Any Age but truly Family Life Education, teaching marriage, not sex. Teach the students how to stay married and be good parents. I know a woman who married one of your public-school products and divorced after one year. Her ex-husband thought marriage was totally about sex -- exactly what your FLE program implies. He is now self-destructing. Their son is one of your problem children. In April, I suggested that you get the divorce rate down from the 50% national average to the 1% average of several large segments of our society. It can be done. Thanks to the marriage courses that my wife and I took in high school, we have been married for 58 years. Much data shows that children from stable marriages are happier and perform better in school and in society. Your teachers will be delighted to have such students.
Since April, I was shocked to learn that your FLE program does not cover the psychology of sex. Your program teaches mating. For human beings, sexual intercourse is not simply mating. Your FLE program doesn't even link sexual intercourse with love and commitment. Statistics imply that only one of you Board members experienced the beauty and joy of being a virgin who married a virgin. Don't deprive your hundreds of thousands of students of this beauty and joy. Don't treat them as trainable beasts but as educatable human beings. Teach them the psychology of sex as experienced by families that have a mere 1% divorce rate. Teach them how to have happy marriages and a properly focused sex life. Don't lead 50% of your 184,000 students into extra-marital, unfulfilling sex, and dismal marriages. Don't foster suicide. If you do, you will be responsible and guilty. You will ultimately pay the consequences, perhaps on your deathbed, as you reflect on your life, or thereafter. Teach the psychology of sex. Teach marriage, not sex.