Won’t anybody ever just think about the bloody children?
The Australian Christian Lobby and their supporters are really upping the ante in their campaign to bring down a national anti-bullying program aimed at preventing homophobia and discrimination in schools.
NSW Labor MP Penny Sharpe says she has received nearly 1000 Helen Lovejoy-esque emails from parents worried about the Safe Schools program, which (shock! horror!) wants to make sure that same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse young people feel, um, safe at school. Yuck.
“This campaign is based on misinformation about a program designed to support & keep LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or intersex] kids safe at school,” Ms Sharpe told Fairfax.
“The ACL hides flimsily behind a veil of concern for children yet the emails sent to MPs are often homophobic & transphobic.”
Watch Penny deliver a passionate IGNITE speech on the topic (post continues after video):
The program, which is now operating in 450 schools across the country, was conceived of by Labor’s Bill Shorten and Penny Wong as a way to “tackle homophobia” and commenced last year under the Coalition.
Since then it has been shamelessly teaching “students that heterosexuality is not the norm, and encouraging students to explore sexual and gender diversity” or so the ACL’s campaign flyer claims.
Top Comments
agree this doesn't belong in primary schools. in high schools yes after extremely careful consideration and then only if parents are on board. I hate to think what the experience might be in certain schools if someone who looked like a boy started using girls changerooms. also, surely this is subject to abuse - are we going to allow any and every boy access to girls changerooms and vice versa? what should the criteria be? unless high schools are a wildly different place than they were 15 years ago it is really hard to believe that a boy wearing the girls uniform is not going to be bullied
also, despite reading multiple articles i am still none the wiser about why safe schools think it is important that primary kids know about breast-binding and be allowed to use different bathrooms (or whatever the problem is). is safe schools written by parents whose primary-aged children are struggling with gender identity? we all know roughly who the ACL crew are and know that they stand for. who is behind safe schools?
I think we should leave sexuality out of primary school. Kids don't need to be sexualised so young. let them get on with just playing. They reflect their parents values so lets just help them enjoy life and focus on friendships. The sex stuff isn't necessary. Children (i.e. pre puberty) certainly don't need to learn about stuff they are not interested in. My daughter is bombarded by sexual information in school programs and she's not ready for it, and doesn't understand it and doesn't want it. She just wants to be kid and enjoy non adult stuff. Perhaps leave for high school and send a message in primary school that we don't need to start being sexual until later. You can teach humaneness and empathy without needing to encourage exploration into sexual behaviour.