LGBT lessons stopped in Birmingham

[Diable Rouge]

The deepening controversy over the suspension of LGBT classes in Birmingham schools with a significant proportion of Muslim students highlights the challenges and limitations surrounding social policies, especially where minority interests are seen to conflict with majority cultural values. Of course, parents are entitled to hold personal beliefs and convey these to their offspring, but a national curriculum should provide an education for those of all religions and none - and given that all schools will be assessed by the State, the argument for a secular education is strengthened. Children should get a general overview of all religious beliefs and minority cultures, but also in the wider context of the broader community. Liberal tolerance requires the right to be intolerant, especially if practices impinge on rights, and this controversy appears to be such an instance, as with the rise in FGM that has recently been reported.

[Lang Spoon]

The Parents who engage with the running of schools always seem to be awful people. If it's not fostering bigotry it's forcing rugby down the necks of working class Fife kids at PE (close to thirty years on, I still hate the egg ball loving cunts). Is it Govian legacy policy that allows parents to dictate course content in England and Wales, or just cowardice by the Trust?

[laverte]

From the article linked by Diable Rouge, it's worth underlining the way this conflict has been exacerbated by Theresa May's shady and fruitless Prevent operation. i'd guess the school wrote some blurb about how these 'LGBT lessons' (which are nothing of the sort) complied with their obligations to Ofsted, because schools have to actively prove they're implementing Prevent, rather than just, as with Clause 28, doing nothing and keeping quiet about it. The homophobic Muslim parents have, almost understandably, not appreciated the suggestion that their refusal to accept gay rights might be leading Muslim kids to support Daesh.

Somewhat ironically, a recent poll showed that LGB people in France are increasingly hostile to Muslims, and drawn to the Front National, based on a supposition that 'Islam' is intolerant of homosexuality –-- a supposition that will be reinforced by the publicity surrounding these subtly sinister school protests.

"Morally we do not accept homosexuality as a valid sexual relationship to have. It's not about being homophobic... that's like saying, if you don't believe in Islam, you're Islamophobic."

i've read this over and over but nope not getting it.