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LETTER: Sexual orientation a sensitive issue

A Ponoka News reader suggests sexual orientation is a sensitive and personal issue
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Dear Editor:

Bill 24 the NDP’s Gay/Straight alliance bill is being challenged by the UCP headed by Jason Kenney. The issue in contention, as I understand it, is whether parents should be informed about their son or daughter’s involvement in these meetings.

Sexuality and one’s sexual orientation has traditionally been, as far as I’m aware, a highly personal and often a deeply private subject in many societies, often only discussed and shared with others that are deeply trusted. Whatever we think of this privacy, it is helpful to discuss and share information about sexuality and sexual orientation. People need to know what medical, psychological and demographic information say about both these issues.

There is a high level of emotion involved in most romantic relationships and when we question someone’s emotional life, without being asked, it is stepping into a highly personal arena, where thoughtfulness and tact are important. Whether parents of teens, who are within a few years of making their own decisions, are open to giving the adolescents some privacy about this issue is of course up to the parents themselves. And really parents are the adults most in contact with their teenagers and of all adults might know them best.

Yet not all parents in reality are close to their kids or willing to accept and acknowledge a non-traditional sexual identity. It is here perhaps that a parental meeting could be helpful, not only with teachers but with sexual educators, medical and counselling professionals to share helpful information.

George Jason