Rev. D. M. Boyd
AN attempt to introduce condom vending machines into the toilets of secondary schools in the Highland Region has been defeated. The Highland Health Board made this suggestion to the Education Committee of the Highland Regional Council, but the Committee rejected it unanimously last month.
The Health Board and the Education Committee commissioned a study of young people in Highland in 1992-3. The findings from this research study, Lifestyle and HIV/AIDS, revealed that 39% of schoolchildren in the fourth year of senior schools claimed to have had sexual intercourse. A recently published follow-up Parental Survey showed that 51% of parents thought that condom vending machines should be situated in senior toilets at secondary schools.
This was enough for the Health Board to begin a media campaign to promote this idea. The media quickly emphasised that over half the parents believed that condom machines should be sited in the senior toilets in secondary schools, not stopping to explain that this was hardly practical as few secondary schools have “senior toilets” as such. Nor was it helpful that the Parental Survey wrongly quotes its own figure as 58% in one of its summaries. Although the public were led to believe that the majority of parents were in favour of condom machines in all secondary school toilets, the media bandwagon chose to ignore the fact stated by the survey: “…only one-fifth (of parents) thought they (condom vending machines) should be in all secondary school toilets”. This low figure of 21% demonstrates that there was a majority against any practical change.
This majority manifested itself in a counter campaign over the summer months before the 9th of August meeting of the Education Committee. Hundreds of letters were received by the Chairman of the Committee, (one report said more than 400 letters), and by other members of the Committee. On account of opposition from school headmasters as well as parents, the recommendation from Regional Council officials to the Education Committee was as follows: “The Committee advise the Health Board that it is not prepared to instal condom machines in schools but that they would support the Board in any plans it may bring forward to improve availability outwith the school.”
A loophole to be closed
The first part of this recommendation was acceptable, but not the latter. The latter part was too wide; in fact it was a loophole needing to be closed because some of the Health Board’s plans are unacceptable. For several years our Church has campaigned against the Health Board’s reluctance to actively promote the postponement of sexual activity between unmarried teenagers and pre teenagers in Highland as part of its policy for the prevention of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, earlier this year the Health Board provided the start-up and maintenance funding for a Brook Advisory Centre (which has a liberal attitude to sexuality) in Inverness, without any consultation with Local Health Councils.
At the Education Committee meeting, almost all councillors were thoroughly opposed to having condom machines in schools, and several members of the Committee expressed concern over the Health Board policy. As the Church’s representative on the Committee, I highlighted the Health Board’s reluctance to give unmarried young people a lead in the direction of postponing sexual activity, and I exposed the lack of “balanced advice at the point of distribution” in its policy of promoting the installation condom vending machines in secondary schools.
The motion that was unanimously passed was: “The Committee advise the Health Board that it is not prepared to instal condom machines in schools but that it will continue to promote and develop a balanced Health Education programme relevant to the needs of the total school population in consultation with the Board.“
Stirring the silent majority
The significance of this decision is its showing the stirring of the hitherto silent religious community. There has been cause for disquiet at the Health Board policy for several years (see Highland Health Board Campaign on HIV and AIDS Prevention in the Highlands in the Religion and Morals Report to the 1993 Synod, and Preventing AIDS in the Highlands, May 1993, Religion and Morals Committee). The eyes of the religious community were opened, too late, when the Health Board suddenly decided to fund a Brook Advisory Centre in Inverness. However, it stirred local people into action. The summer recess gave time for action which resulted in the above victory. However, the leader in next day’s Press and Journal, the main regional newspaper, showed its bias towards the seriously flawed Health Board policy by saying that the Education Committee decision was wrong.
We may expect the Health Board to come back some other way. When the Lifestyle survey was published on 1 December 1993, (World AIDS Day), the Health Board’s AIDS liaison officer floated the idea of condom machines in school at that early stage. When this failed, the Health Board came back in December 1994 with its decision to fund the Brook Advisory Centre: a back door policy to make condoms freely and easily available to promiscuous teenagers. The Health Board intends to extend these centres throughout the Highlands once they have “monitored” the Inverness one. We have not had any indication from the Health Board of what it would consider to be proof of success or, more important, of failure of this policy. We suspect that if the figures for promiscuity get worse, these will be used as proof of the need for more centres; if the figures get better they will be used as proof that the Health Board’s policies are beginning to work.
Moral ecumenism
The success of the counter campaign also indicates the danger of moral ecumenism taking over in campaigns against social evils. This moral ecumenism was not overlooked by a journalist writing in The Herald who noted that Free Church ministers and members stood shoulder to shoulder with Roman Catholics outside the Regional Council Headquarters in Inverness on the day of the committee meeting. In America, the Moral Majority, which has now given place to the Christian Coalition, has fostered a sense of unity between Romanists and so-called evangelicals which resulted in the statement Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. This statement, after years of cooperation on moral issues, now calls each side to recognise the other as true Christians, and to stop the proselytising of each other.
As expected, the counter campaign victory was discounted by the Health Board spokesman as the churches’ opposition. The Press and Journal described the vote as “deference to religious outrage”. The Parental Survey paved the way for this hostile reaction by highlighting the opposition of “the more religiously active” to the opinions of those who favoured siting condom dispensers in secondary schools. This hostile reaction has force when only ministers and church leaders are seen to be opposed to these measures. It is therefore good to see the representatives of the community, in the persons of the Education Committee members, coming to such a decision. But there is a need for Christians in public life to speak up for Christian values; if they leave it to ministers and churches, then the opposition can be more readily dismissed. However, if Christians in the community are steeled by the example of the church and are encouraged to stand up for Christian values in the community, then the lead given by ministers and churches will not be in vain.
It may not be too much to say that some people have been provoked into action by the lead given to them by our own Church, which has been in the vanguard of the public debate. IDEA (Inverness and District Evangelical Alliance) has recently sprung up; CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) now have an honorary regional officer; and SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) has become active in the area since the Brook Advisory Centre proposal. However it is better that the opposition comes, and is seen to come, from a wide spectrum of churches and individuals rather than from one focussed coalition which can be handled by the Health Board as a single opponent and dismissed as such. There is an advantage in this diversity.