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Ophelia 
Embodiment of Reason
Gold Contributor
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1436
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Received: 12 in 12 Posts
Gender: 
Location: France
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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 12:05 pm Post subject:
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| I believe the Flat Earth Society originated in Europe. |
Europe invented the Middle Ages type of mentality, the Inquisition, and a few other niceties. Since then, we've done a bit of thinking (I hope).
Now we have globally societies with very few extremes. For example, for the topics you mention, some traditionalist Catholic parents would be what would be called conservative parents here. They would put their kids in a Catholic private school, where they would be taught the curriculum. If this was not to their taste, they would grumble or complain to the headmaster, who would tell them it's the fault of the Ministry of Education, but they would not take them out of the school.
And I've really never heard of evolution being questioned outside of the US.
As for sex education, the problems we have had were with Moslem students whose families had recently emmigrated to France ( they only objected to the daughters being informed as far as I know.)
And things like two Dads, society is not ready for this in France (some other EU countries are more enlightened ), but again those who disapproved would not take any concrete action. And it's really a matter of generation, I find my students are naturally extremely tolerant and open about those things.
For example France has had a law for over 10 years, the PACS system, which allows an official civil contract between two persons, whether they are homosexuals or not (BTW, we were not pioneers in the EU here).
There were a lot of protests from Catholics at the time, but now it's well accepted. |
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ralphinlaos
Intern
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Location: Thakhek, Laos
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| Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 2:57 am Post subject:
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Remember James Frey? "A Million Little Pieces?" World-wide bestseller and then the controversy. Memoir or fiction? Well, there's an excellent six-page article in Vanity Fair in which Mr. Frey tells his side of the controversial story. You can read the entire article on-line at vanityfair.com.
Vanity Fair has some really top-notch contributors and their archives are filled with some great material; well worth reading.
Ralph |
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