Bethlehem College does not allow the HPV vaccine to be given at their school. They believe that teenagers being vaccinated against HPV will lead to premarital sex.
Super gross they are telling people to tick each of those boxes just to enrol. You and I have talked a bit about my Christian upbringing in the US, David, but for some reason this just reminds me of my terrible time in Earth Science. Where the teacher was (correctly) teaching us about the scientific origins of the Earth, but I was so indoctrinated I kept answering the exam questions the way they taught us in Sunday school, like the Earth was only 6,000 years old (LOL) and such. My fucking word am I glad I left all that shit behind. I can't pinpoint the exact moment where I was like "hmmm...nahhhhh" but whatever it was, I'm grateful.
Powerful stuff. “If the environment they create causes people to feel hated and excluded” seems a pretty simple tenet to follow. And if that gets too complicated, they could always, I dunno, do what the other guy who was born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day did.
It’s so cringy for me to look back at my teenage years of believing and defending that bullshit. I voluntarily got involved with super evangelical groups. I studied social work and theology in college and literally remember sitting in a class, learning about some biblical heresy and thinking “this absolutely doesn’t matter.” I remember instead taking theological ethics classes (poverty, wealth and justice) and finding that much more relevant to my life. I also fit in the mold of “good christian” with a health dose of purity culture / sex-is-a-sin wrapped up in it too.
All that to say, l get the complicated feelings. I feel shame about what I used to believe, but those groups also gave me a place to belong and people that I cared deeply about. I’m 37 so this was back in the days of defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I have all kinds of complicated feelings about organized religion and identify as agnostic at best but it’s been a journey.
Thanks for sharing! I like all your reporting but feel extra special when we get a glimpse into your personal experiences.
I have to, once again in comments here I suspect, ask "Who said God said? Who said God instituted marriage between a man and a woman? Who said it was God's law?"
I don't think Jesus ever condemned anyone for loving another, in fact he promoted it. How his teaching gets twisted is very, very sad.
I think what a lot of churches need to realise is that society has progressed. Slowly, but surely, humans have started challenging and changing laws that they have agreed are damaging and hurtful to people and restrictive to their capacity to live a full and authentic life. Different countries at different paces, but across the world there is some recognition, and varying levels of progress, with this.
There are massive problems with a school making parents and students sign documentation that contradicts law. Morally and ethically these views have always been awful, but now they are not supported in legal definitions either.
Values are fine. Forgiveness, service, kindness, doing the right thing. Make a nice long list of commitments aligning to that kind of stuff and get everyone to tick away. Anything that starts to seep into judgements on how you identify and present as a person and the ways you may wish to form relationships, as you are legally entitled to, absolutely not appropriate ever.
Its so disappointing that there is still so much work to do, but its heartening that there are more people taking up that challenge and bringing attention to these things still existing.
There will be a lot here for you David and its really awesome you can face into your own history again, at a minimum as a display of how change is possible, but also demonstrating how acknowledging something once is not how life works. True bravery is facing into that battle again and again, every time there is value to others that you do so. So thank you.
I could write a million words but..... just want to say that I am in awe of the person you have become in spite of / because of all this shit. I say this as a 70yo mother of 4 (wonderful) sons born between 1981 and 1990. As an atheist homeschooling family, we were surrounded by christian homeschoolers, some with extreme fundamentalist beliefs - the worst kept their distance from us 'devil's spawn' thank goodness. (Yes, that was a term used!) I am so sorry that you were treated to this shit, and so very glad you escaped and became the you that you are now.
Jun 12, 2022·edited Jun 13, 2022Liked by David Farrier
Thing is you're not joining a school or a church, you're joining a club and it's exclusive and you have to fit a mold and tick some freaking rules.
I went to a public low decile school and it was hard enough, teenage era is just hard. But I just can't imagine having set beliefs thrown on top of my mind as well at that time.
It seems so cowardly that this institution would write out such a nasty small minded checklist you're required to tick like its no big deal, and then the minute they are called on it they don't have the bold audacity to stand behind their bigotry. Seems sort of pathetic and all the more cruel or manipulative. If they're going to say it and demand entire families live by it than fucking own your shit and stand by it, or even better, say sorry, you're right, we are gross and we need to really look at this. But to cowardly back pedal and manipulate their intentions....pathetic.
I feel incredibly sad that young people are still having to deal with this type of awful discrimination and are being pushed to feel less than. Im so sorry this was your experience. I was so extremely lucky with my upbringing and I am so grateful for my parents absolute laid back whatever floats your boat attitude. I think I have shared this on here before, but my babysitters in the early 80s were my mum's best friends who happened to be gay guys who had a large collection of friends in the gay community that seemed to always be hanging out at our house. I thought normal was to love whoever you wanted. Ive had attractions to men and attractions to women and Im so happy I never had to question what that meant about me. Some of my best friends are gay and when I hear what their families have put them through I feel the same heavy heart and anger I feel reading this.
On the long car journeys on weekends i spent being ferried from Mum's house to Dad's house and back we would listen to all genres of music and at 7 I would recite Lou Reed's Transformer world for word. I had no idea at the time what half of what he was singing meant but between Reed's lyrics and Mum's friends I knew being gay or bi or trans was not in any way easy because some people in the world hated you for it and would do everything they could to discriminate, belittle, abuse and deny common human decency toward you. I could NEVER comprehend why. I think this was one of the very early reasons why I developed such distaste for religion, that and all the child molestations. I watched mum lose most of her friends in the 80s to Aids and no one gave a shit but worse still it seemed like certain religions felt homosexuals were getting what they deserved. I still feel rage at this.
Shame on this school, and shame on any institution that thinks they need to tell a young person who they have to be attracted to, or who they can marry. No child should go to school and be made to feel worthless by the very institution that's meant to be helping form their minds. No one should ever have to feel the things people are made to feel every day by these fucking places. School is for learning science and maths and discovering fabulous literature and art, not control and discrimination and abuse. I hope everyone stops ticking those pathetic little boxes and they take so much heat from this they are forced to alter their ways. It's tragic you know a child that didn't make it out of there alive..... So bloody sad.
These special character schools have made me uneasy for a while. They're Integrated schools, and thus publicly-funded. This document demonstrates they can do whatever they like, and claim it under special character. So many of them are just Christian schools, of whatever flavour. It's like a free pass to sit outside our education system.
I'm on a school board. Under the Education and Training Act 2020, a board’s primary objective is to "ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement." Call me crazy, but I don't think this can happen when you're undermining and invalidating the very identity of some of your students. If a board has lost sight of that goal, they're not functioning.
I looked up Bethlehem and I see there was a notice in the Education Gazette in 2020, saying they had been granted a "supplementary integration agreement," but not what that agreement says. I don't see how they can be approved to teach (indoctrinate) things which directly contravene NZ law.
I met a few BS alumni when I was at Massey University, and they were all very straight-laced Christians.
I just checked some more. The values of the Christian Education Trust are:
Love and loyalty to God
Love and care for others
Absolute truth of Scripture
Faith and prayer
Honesty and integrity
Service and humility
Wisdom and responsibility
Peace and forgiveness.
Love and care for others? Peace and forgiveness? Honesty and integrity? Going by some of the comments people have posted, the school's practices in many cases appear to fall far short of this.
I thought the Bible was largely metaphor for the human condition, with stories intended to demonstrate both goodness and badness and therefore point to moral and ethical behaviour. How do these people know there is 'absolute truth' in the scriptures?
My nephews and niece went there from preschool on and they’re not religious in any way. My niece was so badly bullied by a teacher in year 7 or 8 that she shaved her eyebrows off and the front of her hair. We had no idea what was going on and we were really concerned. A parent who’d been doing parent help told my sister at the beginning of the next year.
Personally I’d never send any kid to any religious school. I am a product of the catholic system in the 1960s and 70s. I was pretty screwed up by that
It's so exhausting to try to work through all of that stuff once you're out of it. I spent my teenage years in public school in the southern US...even though the schools were public, they don't seem all that different from your experience at BC. As you mentioned in your Flightless Bird episode on the subject, the supposed separation of church and state doesn't *really* exist in the US. The stuff they did should be illegal. And it's not like this was 20 years ago -- I graduated high school in 2015, so this was the 2010s.
They would allow a bible study to be held in the mornings before classes and bribed you with free donuts or chick-fil-a. I went to one once because I was hungry (it was worth it). They also allow youth leaders from a local church to come in once a week or so at lunch time and proselytize to the students eating lunch, making themselves comfortable, sitting down and eating with us, getting all buddy-buddy. Looking back, it's horrifically creepy to think of the school letting random adults come in to socialize with teenagers in the hopes that they will convince some of them to attend their church (think steve buscemi "how do you do, fellow kids?" meme, but churchy). Imagine if a Muslim or Jewish person tried to do that! The school would fly into a panic about brain washing etc.
While there are issues with the Satanic Temple, I'd love to see them tackle stuff like this that is clearly not ethical, and honestly probably a legal gray area as well. If TST tried to come hang with the teens during lunchtime all hell would break loose.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/126523643/like-bodies-like-minds-i-was-a-highfunctioning-bulimic - The headboy in my day, happy he has come so far
Bethlehem College does not allow the HPV vaccine to be given at their school. They believe that teenagers being vaccinated against HPV will lead to premarital sex.
Super gross they are telling people to tick each of those boxes just to enrol. You and I have talked a bit about my Christian upbringing in the US, David, but for some reason this just reminds me of my terrible time in Earth Science. Where the teacher was (correctly) teaching us about the scientific origins of the Earth, but I was so indoctrinated I kept answering the exam questions the way they taught us in Sunday school, like the Earth was only 6,000 years old (LOL) and such. My fucking word am I glad I left all that shit behind. I can't pinpoint the exact moment where I was like "hmmm...nahhhhh" but whatever it was, I'm grateful.
Powerful stuff. “If the environment they create causes people to feel hated and excluded” seems a pretty simple tenet to follow. And if that gets too complicated, they could always, I dunno, do what the other guy who was born in Bethlehem on Christmas Day did.
It’s so cringy for me to look back at my teenage years of believing and defending that bullshit. I voluntarily got involved with super evangelical groups. I studied social work and theology in college and literally remember sitting in a class, learning about some biblical heresy and thinking “this absolutely doesn’t matter.” I remember instead taking theological ethics classes (poverty, wealth and justice) and finding that much more relevant to my life. I also fit in the mold of “good christian” with a health dose of purity culture / sex-is-a-sin wrapped up in it too.
All that to say, l get the complicated feelings. I feel shame about what I used to believe, but those groups also gave me a place to belong and people that I cared deeply about. I’m 37 so this was back in the days of defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I have all kinds of complicated feelings about organized religion and identify as agnostic at best but it’s been a journey.
Thanks for sharing! I like all your reporting but feel extra special when we get a glimpse into your personal experiences.
Why are religious schools still being taxpayer subsidised?
I have to, once again in comments here I suspect, ask "Who said God said? Who said God instituted marriage between a man and a woman? Who said it was God's law?"
I don't think Jesus ever condemned anyone for loving another, in fact he promoted it. How his teaching gets twisted is very, very sad.
I think what a lot of churches need to realise is that society has progressed. Slowly, but surely, humans have started challenging and changing laws that they have agreed are damaging and hurtful to people and restrictive to their capacity to live a full and authentic life. Different countries at different paces, but across the world there is some recognition, and varying levels of progress, with this.
There are massive problems with a school making parents and students sign documentation that contradicts law. Morally and ethically these views have always been awful, but now they are not supported in legal definitions either.
Values are fine. Forgiveness, service, kindness, doing the right thing. Make a nice long list of commitments aligning to that kind of stuff and get everyone to tick away. Anything that starts to seep into judgements on how you identify and present as a person and the ways you may wish to form relationships, as you are legally entitled to, absolutely not appropriate ever.
Its so disappointing that there is still so much work to do, but its heartening that there are more people taking up that challenge and bringing attention to these things still existing.
There will be a lot here for you David and its really awesome you can face into your own history again, at a minimum as a display of how change is possible, but also demonstrating how acknowledging something once is not how life works. True bravery is facing into that battle again and again, every time there is value to others that you do so. So thank you.
I could write a million words but..... just want to say that I am in awe of the person you have become in spite of / because of all this shit. I say this as a 70yo mother of 4 (wonderful) sons born between 1981 and 1990. As an atheist homeschooling family, we were surrounded by christian homeschoolers, some with extreme fundamentalist beliefs - the worst kept their distance from us 'devil's spawn' thank goodness. (Yes, that was a term used!) I am so sorry that you were treated to this shit, and so very glad you escaped and became the you that you are now.
Thing is you're not joining a school or a church, you're joining a club and it's exclusive and you have to fit a mold and tick some freaking rules.
I went to a public low decile school and it was hard enough, teenage era is just hard. But I just can't imagine having set beliefs thrown on top of my mind as well at that time.
It seems so cowardly that this institution would write out such a nasty small minded checklist you're required to tick like its no big deal, and then the minute they are called on it they don't have the bold audacity to stand behind their bigotry. Seems sort of pathetic and all the more cruel or manipulative. If they're going to say it and demand entire families live by it than fucking own your shit and stand by it, or even better, say sorry, you're right, we are gross and we need to really look at this. But to cowardly back pedal and manipulate their intentions....pathetic.
I feel incredibly sad that young people are still having to deal with this type of awful discrimination and are being pushed to feel less than. Im so sorry this was your experience. I was so extremely lucky with my upbringing and I am so grateful for my parents absolute laid back whatever floats your boat attitude. I think I have shared this on here before, but my babysitters in the early 80s were my mum's best friends who happened to be gay guys who had a large collection of friends in the gay community that seemed to always be hanging out at our house. I thought normal was to love whoever you wanted. Ive had attractions to men and attractions to women and Im so happy I never had to question what that meant about me. Some of my best friends are gay and when I hear what their families have put them through I feel the same heavy heart and anger I feel reading this.
On the long car journeys on weekends i spent being ferried from Mum's house to Dad's house and back we would listen to all genres of music and at 7 I would recite Lou Reed's Transformer world for word. I had no idea at the time what half of what he was singing meant but between Reed's lyrics and Mum's friends I knew being gay or bi or trans was not in any way easy because some people in the world hated you for it and would do everything they could to discriminate, belittle, abuse and deny common human decency toward you. I could NEVER comprehend why. I think this was one of the very early reasons why I developed such distaste for religion, that and all the child molestations. I watched mum lose most of her friends in the 80s to Aids and no one gave a shit but worse still it seemed like certain religions felt homosexuals were getting what they deserved. I still feel rage at this.
Shame on this school, and shame on any institution that thinks they need to tell a young person who they have to be attracted to, or who they can marry. No child should go to school and be made to feel worthless by the very institution that's meant to be helping form their minds. No one should ever have to feel the things people are made to feel every day by these fucking places. School is for learning science and maths and discovering fabulous literature and art, not control and discrimination and abuse. I hope everyone stops ticking those pathetic little boxes and they take so much heat from this they are forced to alter their ways. It's tragic you know a child that didn't make it out of there alive..... So bloody sad.
These special character schools have made me uneasy for a while. They're Integrated schools, and thus publicly-funded. This document demonstrates they can do whatever they like, and claim it under special character. So many of them are just Christian schools, of whatever flavour. It's like a free pass to sit outside our education system.
I'm on a school board. Under the Education and Training Act 2020, a board’s primary objective is to "ensure that every student at the school is able to attain their highest possible standard in educational achievement." Call me crazy, but I don't think this can happen when you're undermining and invalidating the very identity of some of your students. If a board has lost sight of that goal, they're not functioning.
I looked up Bethlehem and I see there was a notice in the Education Gazette in 2020, saying they had been granted a "supplementary integration agreement," but not what that agreement says. I don't see how they can be approved to teach (indoctrinate) things which directly contravene NZ law.
I met a few BS alumni when I was at Massey University, and they were all very straight-laced Christians.
I just checked some more. The values of the Christian Education Trust are:
Love and loyalty to God
Love and care for others
Absolute truth of Scripture
Faith and prayer
Honesty and integrity
Service and humility
Wisdom and responsibility
Peace and forgiveness.
Love and care for others? Peace and forgiveness? Honesty and integrity? Going by some of the comments people have posted, the school's practices in many cases appear to fall far short of this.
I thought the Bible was largely metaphor for the human condition, with stories intended to demonstrate both goodness and badness and therefore point to moral and ethical behaviour. How do these people know there is 'absolute truth' in the scriptures?
I’m really glad I was allowed to be a horny teenager, free from too much guilt.
My nephews and niece went there from preschool on and they’re not religious in any way. My niece was so badly bullied by a teacher in year 7 or 8 that she shaved her eyebrows off and the front of her hair. We had no idea what was going on and we were really concerned. A parent who’d been doing parent help told my sister at the beginning of the next year.
Personally I’d never send any kid to any religious school. I am a product of the catholic system in the 1960s and 70s. I was pretty screwed up by that
It's so exhausting to try to work through all of that stuff once you're out of it. I spent my teenage years in public school in the southern US...even though the schools were public, they don't seem all that different from your experience at BC. As you mentioned in your Flightless Bird episode on the subject, the supposed separation of church and state doesn't *really* exist in the US. The stuff they did should be illegal. And it's not like this was 20 years ago -- I graduated high school in 2015, so this was the 2010s.
They would allow a bible study to be held in the mornings before classes and bribed you with free donuts or chick-fil-a. I went to one once because I was hungry (it was worth it). They also allow youth leaders from a local church to come in once a week or so at lunch time and proselytize to the students eating lunch, making themselves comfortable, sitting down and eating with us, getting all buddy-buddy. Looking back, it's horrifically creepy to think of the school letting random adults come in to socialize with teenagers in the hopes that they will convince some of them to attend their church (think steve buscemi "how do you do, fellow kids?" meme, but churchy). Imagine if a Muslim or Jewish person tried to do that! The school would fly into a panic about brain washing etc.
While there are issues with the Satanic Temple, I'd love to see them tackle stuff like this that is clearly not ethical, and honestly probably a legal gray area as well. If TST tried to come hang with the teens during lunchtime all hell would break loose.