Thursday 30 April, 2009

UK
Education

The Rainbow flag or Pride flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

By Andrew Halloway

It’s intensely ironic that policies supposed to increase tolerance for one group of people – homosexuals – are increasingly being used to be intolerant towards another group – Christians.

It is even more ironic that Christians are the strongest supporters of equality and fair treatment for all, yet are increasingly regarded as social pariahs because they are mistakenly viewed as anti-equality.

Genuine Christianity has always supported the oppressed against the oppressors and stood up for justice. As a Christian, I’m outraged by homophobic bullying and violence – indeed any bullying or violence.

Yet, simply because we stand up for heterosexual marriage as God’s ideal for all sexual relationships, we are now being targeted as the source of prejudice that supposedly creates homophobic bullying and prejudice in the first place.

Think I exaggerate?

This week it came to light that a Christian teacher has been suspended since January after complaining that a staff training day was used to promote homosexual rights.

Did he encourage homophobic bullying? No, he was on the training day to learn how to stop it. Did he verbally abuse gay people or suggest they should be discriminated against? No, that would have been against his faith.

What he did do was object to being told that his own religious views on homosexuality were wrong and he needed to be re-educated.

Funny, I thought we lived in a country where there was freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of thought. I must be wrong. The thought police really are out to get us.

Kwabena Peat, 54, left a compulsory training session with several other Christian colleagues at a north London school after the speaker, Sue Sanders, openly questioned why people thought heterosexuality was natural.

In fact, Mr Peat says that Ms Sanders, a lesbian, told him and his colleagues that those who did not accept that being homosexual was ‘normal’ had “issues” they must deal with.

He said: “I expected the training session to help us by providing good information on how to handle bullying but she had another agenda. She started promoting homosexual lifestyles and suggesting those who had objections should sort out their prejudices. She clearly asked us, ‘What makes you all think that to be heterosexual is natural?’ ”

My answer would be that she needs to go to a biology class if she doesn’t know about the normal use of male and female genitals in the natural world. It’s simple – heterosexuality is nature’s norm because otherwise the world would come to an end. It was designed for reproduction (as well as pleasure).

Following an investigation, Mr Peat was suspended and placed on paid leave until the conclusion of disciplinary investigations. Mr Peat and other staff who disagreed due to their Christian convictions were given no opportunity to respond. As the training session was at the head’s request, it seems that the school allows only one view on homosexuality, despite claiming to teach diversity and tolerance.

Sue Sanders is co-founder of the Schools Out organisation, which promotes homosexual equality in education and last month met Gordon Brown at Downing Street to mark Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender History Month.

Mr Peat said: “I’m not surprised by all this, but I am disappointed. I’m the one being harassed and intimidated – for expressing my religious views. As an experienced professional I am very supportive of ‘equality and diversity’ programmes and have always got on well with colleagues who are well aware of my Christian beliefs.”

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting Mr Peat, said: “Mr Peat is being discriminated against for expressing his Christian faith. A legitimate orthodox Christian view as expressed by Mr Peat, however disagreeable others may find it, should not be construed as harassment or discrimination. If this is allowed to continue it will be state censorship leading to the infringement of a person’s right to freedom of religion and speech.”

Meanwhile the children themselves are being indoctrinated by the view that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle option.

The national newspapers reported this week that pupils aged 11 are to learn about gay sex – and it will be compulsory from 2011. Sex and relationships lessons for 11-year-olds are to include classroom discussions on gay unions and civil partnerships.

The intention is for children to learn their sex education from the classroom, not the playground. That in itself is a laudable aim, but it’s the content of the sex education that is worrying.

Even faith schools are not immune. Although faith schools in England will be allowed to add their own values to the sex and relationships education they provide, they will still have to teach their kids what’s in the curriculum. And although currently the plan is for parents to retain their legal right to withdraw children from the classes, that right is being targeted by campaigners – and Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said he is keeping the right of non-attendance under review.

Sexual health charities claim that allowing parents to opt out, even if it involves only a small number, is an infringement of young people’s rights. What about the infringement of parental rights to bring up their own children as they see fit?

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales explained the importance of the opt-out: “This is a crucial right in a community where parents are the first educators of their children, because parents are responsible for bringing up their children, and not the State.”

Unfortunately, many powers in the State don’t seem to believe that any more.

And it’s not just the homosexual content of the lessons that is potentially harmful, but the young age at which children will be exposed to all kinds of sex education. From the first year in primary school, four and five-year-old children will learn about different body parts, with lessons about sex from the age of nine.

Does the government seriously expect telling nine-year-olds about sex is going to reduce under-age sex rates, rather than excite their curiosity about it? We have the worst teen pregnancies and abortions problem in Europe yet all the government can do is keep reducing the age at which sex is taught – which so far has only exacerbated the problem.

What the government doesn’t understand is that it’s not the age at which sex education is taught that is crucial, but the values of that sex education. In other words, kids need to be taught that there is right and wrong, but woe-betide anyone who dares to bring Christian morality into sex education!

This government, and others before it, have divorced sex from any kind of morality. The most moral guidance a child can expect to be given these days is the encouragement not to have sex ‘until they’re ready’ – which in practice means whenever they feel like it. The government has completely abandoned the law that says sex under the age of 16 is illegal. It has been swept under the carpet, as our ‘leaders’ have gutlessly failed to provide any moral leadership on sex whatsoever.

But I digress. What unites both the persecution of teachers and the perversion of children’s minds by our sick society is summed up by Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute. He says the proposed lessons are “pressing the virtues of homosexuality” which could lead to more experimentation and be “harmful” to children.

Why? Well, for one thing, unprotected gay sex has a greater risk of sexually transmitted infections, and other diseases, than heterosexual intercourse. But the harm to children as a whole runs much deeper than that. Mr Calvert continues: “What we don’t want to see is vulnerable young people being exploited by outside groups wanting to normalise homosexuality.”

Well, sadly it’s not just ‘outside groups’. It’s government policy to normalise homosexuality – not just in schools but in society in general. Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust comments: “Making Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) a statutory part of the national curriculum could be used as a vehicle to promote positive images of homosexual relationships.”

But that’s exactly what the government and the politically-correct elite want. It’s not a case of abusing the curriculum – it’s the whole point of that part of the curriculum! The case of Mr Peat and the happy welcome for the gay agenda at Downing Street makes that abundantly clear.

Simon Calvert strikes a note of resistance to the UK thought police: “If this guidance purports to force faith schools to teach things which go against their faith then it is profoundly illiberal and must be resisted at all costs.”

But it is more than just the teaching in faith schools that is at risk – it’s faith schools themselves. Tony Blair was an avid supporter of faith schools, but since his exit there seems to be no-one left in government to defend what Ofsted always reports are the best state schools in the country. In fact many MPs, particularly on the Labour and Liberal benches, are opposed to the very existence of faith schools.

Schools are increasingly today’s battleground for the future morality of our nation, as the government uses schooling as a form of social engineering, and takes away more and more of the rights of parents over their children’s education and sexuality.
It must indeed be “resisted at all costs” or we will be culpable in the continued betrayal of our nation’s children.

If you would like to support the Christian Legal Centre (which relies on donations) as it runs Mr Peat’s case and others like it, see www.christianlegalcentre.com

Photo: Ludovic Bertron