Many people are crucifying Ed Balls and the Labour government for this, but I think it is a good move:

MPs pass Ed Balls's controversial change to the sex education bill, allowing faith schools to opt out of rules on teaching homosexuality and contraception

What this *should* mean is that while the subjects still have to be taught, they do not have to tow the government line on such things and pretend it is all happy families.

Even on the issue of contraception it would give the schools the right to put forward a stronger message than they maybe were previously allowed.

Ofcourse there are also dangers in all of this - people using it to push their agendas at a cost to the kids, but there is also a cost to having all the education be uniform and not conformant to the actualy views of the parents and society in general.

I think this is a brave move and should enable for better education of people instead of towing the usual panic of "we need to teach them everything, earlier" that seems to have been common in education circles.

So I will finish by saying: Good job Ed'. You got some.. erm...

I mean this should be extended to all schools - let them teach - within limits - sex education however they they think it will be most beneficial without actually removing the content (with maybe the exception of not putting too much emphasis on things too early).