The Wagga I know, the Wagga I grew up in is smarter than this. Has a bigger and more accepting heart than this. Cares more for it's citizens than this.

Perhaps Mr Wheeler has never been bullied or has never needed a helping hand to feel accepted. Perhaps Mr Wheeler is against the education of children for fear of a change to the "normal" he grew up in. A “normal” that is damaging to anyone who is forced to feel less than by it’s lack of acceptance.

I'm sure that if Mr Wheeler spoke with the recipients of this program, people who have been made to feel as though there isn't something wrong with them through care and understanding, people who are made to feel valued and important the way he has likely been lucky enough to feel most of his life due to the circumstances of his birth, age, gender, race etc - he would realise that even one person in 1000 people feeling that way would make the program worth having. Let alone two in every 100 - the incorrect and far too conservative estimate he included in his piece.

More accurate is between 5 and 15 percent (10% with a 5% +/- as a generous margin of error), as a gallup poll recently indicated.

That means that between 50 and 150 kids in Kooringal High School alone (again, a conservative estimate based on easy maths of 1000 students in the school) could be benefiting directly from this program.

Given the rate of youth suicide in the Riverina, wouldn't saving one teenage life be worth the expense? And this doesn't take into account the benefits that better education for all students would provide.

Mr Wheeler, who ill-advisedly argued for "a return of the grim reaper" in another example of your willingness to publish offensive, poorly researched and dangerous material, can hardly have it both ways here.

If he perhaps did some real research, he would find that better sex education decreased shame, demystified sex, saw an increase in safe sex practices (but not an increase in sex practices overall), and resulted in safer, healthier societies both physically and mentally.

This "indoctrination" of which he speaks, is simply an education. An acknowledgement of things that have existed forever, rather than excluding them by pretending that they don't.

I can understand that he may be coming from a place of ignorance. But for you, the editors, to publish this piece, especially in the wake of his last attempt to push his bigoted views onto a Wagga that I believe can be better than he makes it out to be ... that shows gross negligence.

At the heart of this issue lies this: Tolerance. We must encourage tolerance and even more, acceptance of other people as our equals, lest they feel excluded and unvalued.

To do otherwise is dangerous and uncaring. Please, I beg you, stop this second rate journalism. Show Wagga as the beautiful place it can be. Exhibit some leadership.

Andrew Strano

Melbourne

I don't know what Mr Robert Walker and Miss Mulholland do when they enter a public bathroom but the configuration of the genitals of the other people in attendance is not usually what I am preoccupied with.

Plenty of businesses, councils and countries have unisex bathrooms as a matter of course.

If who you see in the bathroom is that much of a concern then maybe you should practice holding it in until back in the comfort of your own home.

Phil Boyd

Wagga