‘All children must learn about same-sex relationships regardless of their religious background.’
So said head of Ofsted Amanda Spielman in a recent interview in wake of the protest at Parkway School Birmingham, where around 600 parents withdrew their children following objections to the No Outsiders programme designed by gay activist Andrew Moffat.
Mr Moffat, assistant head at Parkfield Primary – a mainly Muslim school – reportedly designed the programme to teach children about issues such as gender, identity and sexual orientation, so as to combat homophobia and transphobia. Using storybooks such as ‘And Tango Makes Three’ (a story of homosexual penguins) and ‘My Princess Boy’ (the name is self-explanatory), his expressed aim is to teach children it’s okay to be gay. And, guess what, you might be too!
Under the new Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) Regulations currently awaiting approval by Parliament, Relationships Education will be mandatory for all Primary-aged school children, Relationships and Sex Education mandatory for all children at secondary level, and Health Education mandatory for all. The regulations will apply to all schools, including state funded, maintained, and independent. But there are real fears that the teaching will become little more than a Trojan horse to indoctrinate children into acceptance of LGBT lifestyles and choice.
The guidance explicitly states that all teaching will be age appropriate, and that the religious background of pupils must be taken into account. It states: ‘Schools must ensure they comply with the relevant provisions of the Equality Act 2010, under which religion or belief are amongst the protected characteristics.’
Expecting the impossible
This sounds highly reassuring and, if the guidance stopped there, there would be no problem. But – and it’s a big but – the Department for Education has explicitly stated that all teaching must at the same time be LGBTQ+ inclusive. On any analysis, this is a logical impossibility. For example, teaching children whose faith backgrounds unambiguously prohibit certain behaviours as sin, that all relationships are of equal value and ‘good’, carries the clear message that belief is irrelevant – the leftover fossil from a bygone age that should be ignored.
As so trenchantly stated by Amanda Spielman – and, as head of Ofsted, she should know – what the guidance will mean in practice is that, regardless of religious background, all children will be taught from age five that same-sex relationships and ‘marriage’ are the same as heterosexual relationships, and that all sexual orientations are equally valid. Following current practice, they will also, we know, learn in detail at Secondary school about different behaviours and practices, together with advice on how safely to perform oral and anal sex, and how to avoid pregnancy. (For more detail, see DfE recommended resources: sexwise; stonewall; educate and celebrate. Further resources can be found here ).
But it doesn’t end there. In some schools, children are already being taught from age five that, though they may physically look like a boy or a girl, gender actually is a matter of choice and biology is irrelevant. They are even encouraged to dress up and experiment. Just as later, in sex education classes at secondary school, children are encouraged to experiment with different kinds of ‘sex’, before deciding on their orientation. After all, you can’t really know what you are until you’ve tried the different options, can you?
Normalisation and promotion
Whatever the lip service paid to religion, diversity and tolerance, what we are seeing in schools today is the deliberate normalisation and promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ideology. It is profoundly intolerant, and a species of ideological indoctrination. For the wellbeing and safety of children, it is time parents woke up and asserted their rights under law to have their children educated in line with their personal and religious beliefs!
