There is some talk in Sydney of volunteers providing "ethics" courses in public schools as an alternative to Scripture classes given by the local churches.
I have never seen any syllabus or any description of what would be in these courses, other than the title "ethics", so I find it very hard to comment on this idea, it being so vague.
But now I see the case of Frederic Mitterrand, the French Minister of Culture and Communication. He wrote 5 years ago in his autobiography that he visited Thailand and was fascinated by the trade in boys and ....... well frankly, I don't care, or really want to know what happened after that.
Despite what he wrote in his autobiography, he now says:
"that the book was not a strict autobiography. He admitted to "errors" in paying for sex in the past, but said he had relations only with consenting men his age." (as reported in the London Telegraph newspaper )
An English translation of what he said is:
"A mistake certainly, a crime no, nor a fault because each time I was with people of my age, [or] who were five years older than me. There was never the slightest ambiguity - and they were consenting."
Err, what was that again? A "mistake", yes, not a "crime" or a "fault". He claims that the other parties were adults and consenting, but it was a mistake, but not a fault. Why? Is it bad because it is good but embarrassing?
Now I think we need that ethics course, after all...
If you are interested in the French words used in the translated quote above, they were: "erreur", "crime" and "faute"
This quote came from an interview last week on French TV station TF1:
http://www.wat.tv/video/defense-frederic-mitterrand-1uewu_1k5lc_.html
