Father starts judicial review over 'No Outsiders' programme

I take it you’ve seen the CPS guidance cuckoo?

And Cuckoo, you still haven't said whose morality the schools should be teaching. Morality is a very personal thing.

How many little girls who have refused to get undressed in front of boys have been reported to the police for hate crimes?

No legislation then Cuckoo? If you want to convince people that your statements are correct, you can link to some evidence. I don't intend to read hundreds of pages of documents just in order to discover that you're making stuff up.

aesopfable what I am suggesting is nothing like a totalitarian state. If you think it is then you have no idea what it’s like to live under such a regime.

oldcrone the national curriculum statements are freely available on the dept of Ed website. You’ll find it there.

There is a totalitarian nature to this ideology. Dissent is not permitted: #nodebate. People losing jobs for saying sex is real. People being told by the police to check their thinking for laughing at the ideology.

This doesn’t happen to atheists or those who are adherents of Buddhism. It happens to people who challenge this ideology. So yes totalitarian elements. That’s actually one of my main objections to it - I’m not otherwise very much affected.

What you are suggesting is reminiscence of totalitarian states. I didn't think I was just implying that - I thought I was pointing this out.

As for free to disagree - if a girl decides she does not wish to undress in front of a boy then teachers are now being directed to report this to the police as a hate incident.

schools are obligated to provide a moral education to their students.

Are they? Can you link to the legislation?

If this is true, then whose morality should they be teaching? A teacher who is very religious might think it is their moral duty to teach that although homosexuality is legal, that it is morally wrong, because those moral teachings are what that teacher believes.

Yes one example should definitely be extrapolated to every classroom in the country. Well done. We now live in a totalitarian state in which teachers have all the power.

oldcrone schools are obligated to provide a moral education to their students.

Children are not free to disagree though are they. Remember the boy expelled for challenging the teacher on ‘sex is a spectrum’ ?

Please don’t try to make out I’m in favour of the state brainwashing children. I can see what you’re implying and you’re way off the the mark. This isn’t North Korea. The children are free to disagree with their teachers and stick with their parents views if they choose to But schools are not bound to endorse the views of the parents regardless of what those views are.

That homosexuality is morally wrong when it isn’t. That is the position of the state.

The state doesn't have a position on the morality of homosexuality. The state's position is that homosexuality is legal.The state also recognises that some religious groups may not agree with same sex marriage.

cuckoo do you see no problem with the state using schools to impose the 'correct' view on children? That is the most worrying thing here: that you thing it OK for the state to use schools to instill political ideology on children.

On homosexuality the state accepts that it is reasonable for people not to accept same sex marriage and this is written into law.

some pp have a very strange idea of what goes on in schools. Every day we are dealing with prejudice. It is schools moral and legal duty to address this. Whatever the views of parents. Clearly there is a professional judgment to be made by schools and parkfield have done a very poor job in this case imo but that doesn’t mean schools should just go with whatever the parents think.

aesopfable
That homosexuality is morally wrong when it isn’t. That is the position of the state. Clearly that is the debate we’re having here. If you want to discuss other issues on which teachers need to contradict parents I’m very happy to. As a science teacher who has worked in some very religious schools I have disagreed with parents on many issues. Obviously there’s a way to phrase these things respectfully but teachers are not bound to agree with everything children’s parents say and children should be encouraged to question everything!

So did the other gay kids.

It's worth mentioning that there are gay members of many religious groups who ultimately agree with the teachings of their faith and live according to them. It's their right too, to live according to the views that make sense and seem compelling to them.

I sometimes get the sense that people think religious teachings about sexuality exist in a sort of vacuum.

The trans-promoting press has demonised the parents as all being homophobic bigots, and clearly some are, but I have no idea how many parents who are protesting at parkfield are against the no outsiders program but not against teaching acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality. Does anyone know this? Have there been any vocal parent protestors who would like their children to be taught tolerance but not under the no outsiders program?

Frankly I don't think it matters, and the problem is that people are assuming that "tolerance" is the same as pro-LGB (whatever that would mean, it's really a bizarre configuration.)

The main point is that while the state has a reasonable place in teaching students that we need to get along with and respect others, even if our views are very different from our own. That's what tolerance is - not that you have to make their views your own or agree with them. I'd have thought that was implied in the word "tolerate" but it seems like it has changed meaning for many people.

tWhat the state doesn't have is a place usurping the parents role in teaching kids what the role of sexuality is in human life. That's not a factual or scientific point, it's ideological, whether you are religious or not. It's no different than if they began to take a position on monogamy vs pansexual relationships.

The reason this sort of thing has become a problem is not just about the inclusion of the T, it's because the way they are teaching about LGB topics has changed.

coyoacan but the parents beliefs are wrong. If children don’t hear that at school where will they hear it?

You want to teach children that their parents' beliefs are wrong? Really? Where is the tolerance of people who have different beliefs?

What sort of effect do you think it would have on children who are told in school that their parents' beliefs are wrong, and at home that what the school is teaching them is wrong?

coyoacan but the parents beliefs are wrong. If children don’t hear that at school where will they hear it?

There's generations now of literature - decades of it - by gay writers describing growing up in a religious faith and choosing to move away from it when they discovered their sexuality in their teens. There's a mix of those who separated from families and those who have cultures and families and cultures who found ways to come to terms with it. When I was growing up there were no lesbian role models of any kind anywhere on tv or in books, nothing whatsoever, and it was the time of section 28 so no discussion of LGB issues at all. I managed just fine to figure out who I was attracted to and in the days before internet and social media also managed to find groups and phonelines when I wanted support. So did the other gay kids. It wasn't dependent on adults sitting us down and teaching us how to do it or how to deal with it.

There's a huge difference between teaching that there are different kinds of families, different kinds of sexualities, different kinds of relationships and in the UK this is ok, and these are the things (bullying included) which are protected in law and aren't tolerated. And here is where you find information, helplines, support groups. The kids for whom that is especially relevant will draw their own conclusions without being spoon fed. That's very different from actively teaching children that their family and their family's beliefs are wrong and unacceptable.

This is the fundamental challenge of liberalism. How do you deal with conflict when you have committed to uphold the right to different religious beliefs with the commitment to uphold people’s right to live as gay and lesbian men and women? There just is a conflict and it’s no good preaching tolerance because the true believer cannot show tolerance to something religiously forbidden.

The state could have avoided this standoff but chose to go all in with LGBT education, egged on by some dodgy lobby groups. The result is particularly cloth eared by all accounts.

The T bit is obviously a total nonsense of supernatural thinking and gaslighting but I also think that there is too much overreach in LGB materials generally. I am not happy with how it’s done in my daughter’s secondary school - too dogmatic with young girls going through a lot of changes. And I’m not religious. I am fairly liberal and my children are very familiar with different family types. So going in all guns blazing in a primary school with a very different cohort was always going to cause division and upset.

I don’t particularly want to throw my support behind some religious conservatives with whom I disagree on homosexuality. But their beliefs and wishes have been trampled all over by this ideology just as mine have. Nobody asked women. Nobody asked religious groups. Nobody asked safeguarding experts. We were all sidelined.

Cuckoo which of their parents’ belief are wrong? That the Conservatives form a better government? Voting remain? That marriage is the preserve of heterosexuals? That there is one God? That the welfare state is too extensive? That parents should be able to home educate or private school their children? That utilities should be renationalised? That Scotland should be independent?

Which of these beliefs should the state be ‘correcting’?

coyoacan but the parents beliefs are wrong. If children don’t hear that at school where will they hear it?