Safe Schools Coalition Australia - not safe pro-LGBT infiltration
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| Gay Politician pushing an agenda here? (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
(The Australian Newspaper) A
taxpayer-funded sexuality program that instructs 11-year-olds to role-play gay
teenagers has been accused of crossing the line between education and LGBT advocacy
in the classroom - YET - religious education is thrown out?
The
controversial Safe Schools Coalition program, which teaches high school
students in years 7 and 8 about sexual diversity and inclusion, is pitting
religious groups against gay rights advocates and a dominating LGBT agenda.
Ostensibly
an anti-bullying program, it takes a politically correct approach to sex
education which is code for pro-LGBT. Teachers are told it is “heterosexist’’ to refer to students as
“girls and boys”. Prepubescent children are taught the meaning of terms such as
“queer’’, “pansexual’’, “sister girl’’ and “trans guy’’.
Nearly 500
of Australia’s schools are using the program and Victoria has ordered all
government schools to sign on by 2019.
The
program’s teaching guide, All
of Us, includes a role-playing lesson plan in which kids as young as 11 are
told to imagine they are 16 and going out with “someone they are really into’’. All of Us focus on pushing the LGBT doctrine of immorality and lies. When you look at theyr website and PYA it becomes very obvious this immoral push has only one agenda - to normalize immoral homosexuality.
Half the
students pretend they are with someone of the same sex; the others have a
partner of the opposite sex. Students have to answer 10 questions including:
“When you go out with a group of friends to the movies, would you feel
comfortable giving your partner a hug or a kiss?’’ They also need to name four
famous Australians “with the same kind of relationship as you’’.
Children
are even asked to imagine losing their genitalia, in a lesson on transgender
experiences. “Indicate to your students that you are talking about gender and
not sex by asking them to consider what makes them female or male,’’ the
teaching manual says. “Most students will mention their genitalia. Extend the
discussion by asking students what it would mean in terms of their gender if they
were to lose that part of themselves.’’
The manual
tells children to ask people if they prefer to be known as he, she, ze or they.
It states that referring to “boys and girls’’ is a form of “heterosexism’’,
which assumes that everyone is, or should be, heterosexual.
“Phrases like ‘ladies and gentlemen’ or ‘boys
and girls’ should be avoided,’’ it says.
The Safe
Schools Coalition also promotes a book for children as young as four, The Gender Fairy, which author
Jo Hirst explains is “about two transgender children who are not fluid and make
the choice to socially transition.’’ Hirst wrote the book to help her young son
describe his experience of being transgender.
“Only you
know whether you are a boy or a girl,’’ says the Gender Fairy, who has a
“non-binary gender identity’’. “Nobody can tell you. If you feel no one knows
who you really are, you can tell a grown up you trust.’’
Greg
Donnelly, a Labor Party member of the NSW Legislative Council, has accused Safe
Schools of “gender bending’’ in the classroom. “We are talking about little
boys and girls, who are in effect a captured audience, being presented with
overt sexual and gender ideology that is being presented as a matter of fact,’’
he tells Inquirer. “Their parents, of course, are being kept in the dark.’’
Taxpayers
are funding the program, which the Safe Schools Coalition devised based on
advice from a “curriculum consultant” and a group of Melbourne teachers,
without input from psychiatrists or pediatricians. Students’ participation in
the program does not require parental consent because it is not deemed to be
sex education.
Labor
senator Penny Wong, who is gay, announced $8 million funding for Safe Schools
over four years when she was minister for finance in 2013, to “help stop
homophobia and create more inclusive school communities’’.
Safe Schools
Coalition national program director Sally Richardson tells Inquirer the federal
Education Department approved the All
of Us teaching manual, which
has been ordered by 350 schools.
“We do all
the staff professional development to introduce respectful language and
understand the concepts around sexuality and gender,’’ Richardson says. The
decision to target the teaching to the youngest high school students, she says,
was made by education consultant Janice Atkin, a former Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority project officer who managed the development
of the national health and physical education curriculum.
The Victorian Government recently banned any Religious Education based on one parents complaint - while welcoming LGBT agenda without parental knowledge or consent.
Safe
Schools also worked with Melbourne teacher Chris Bush, who has a year’s experience
as a high-school teacher, and “a group of other teachers’’ in Melbourne.
“We worked
closely with the federal Department of Education and Training to ensure all the
lesson plans and videos were appropriate for years 7 and 8,’’ Richardson says.
“All of our resources are being fully funded by the Australian government.’’
Richardson says the role-playing lessons are about “putting themselves in other
people’s shoes’’.
“It’s
about encouraging students to have a better understanding and empathy, and to
show that same-sex attracted people don’t fit into stereotypes,’’ she says.
“It’s been a very popular activity.’’
The
program does not require parental approval or even notification, Richardson
says, because “this isn’t sex education. It really is talking about
relationships between people; it doesn’t talk about sexual teaching and sexual
health,’’ she adds. “The teacher knows their class best, and what’s right for
them.’’
Child
psychiatrists and pediatricians — those with expert medical knowledge of
sexuality and gender identity issues — were not consulted, although Beyondblue,
Headspace and Family Planning have endorsed the program, along with the
Australian Education Union and the Australian Secondary Principals Association.
“The resource is geared around discussions about relationships so we didn’t get
medical input,’’ Richardson says.
The lead
author of the All of Us guide is Margot Fink, a finalist
for Young Australian of the Year for her work encouraging schools to create
safer environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex
students. A co-author is Marxist activist Roz Ward, who works for the
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University.
Writing in Red Flag, the newspaper of
Socialist Alternative, in 2014, Ward mocked the inclusion of “work studies’’ in
the national curriculum for high school students. “The system teaches students
to obey orders, pass tests and be grateful,’’ she wrote.
Addressing
the Marxism 2015 conference in Melbourne last April, Ward railed against the
“push to fit people into gender constructs that promote heterosexuality’’.
“Programs like the Safe Schools Coalition are making some difference but we’re
still a long way from liberation,’’ she said. “Marxism offers the hope and the
strategy needed to create a world where human sexuality, gender and how we
relate to our bodies can blossom in extraordinarily new and amazing ways that
we can only try to imagine today.
“Alongside
sexism, homophobia and transphobia both serve to break the spirits of ordinary
people, to consume our thoughts, to make us accept the status quo and for us to
keep living or aspiring to live, or feel like we should live, in small social
units and families, where we must reproduce and take responsibility for those people
in those units.’’
Kevin
Donnelly, a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University who
helped review the national curriculum for the Coalition government last year,
is a fierce critic of the Safe Schools program. “It’s under the guise of an
anti-bullying program but I’d argue it’s more about advocating the LGBTI
agenda,’’ he tells Inquirer. “We all agree nobody should be bullied or
victimised. But this is social engineering. Teachers are increasingly expected
to take over from what families traditionally have done. Schools and teachers
need to focus on the key disciplines, the basics, and that means more education
and not as much social engineering.’’
The list
of 490 schools using the program includes state, Catholic and independent primary
and high schools, although the identity of 24 schools in Queensland is being
kept secret. Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates tells Inquirer the
Australian Christian Lobby had been contacting principals, parents and Parents
and Citizens Association groups “to attempt to harass them out of the
program’’. “When a school is considering becoming a supporter of the program,
parents and teachers and students get involved,’’ he says. “We have students
with gender identity issues in our schools and it’s not something you can hide
from.’’
Australian
Christian Lobby spokeswoman Wendy Frances says the Safe Schools material
“discriminates’’ against heterosexual kids. “This is bullying in reverse,’’ she
says. “A lot of children are still pretty innocent about this stuff; there’s a
lot in the program that is age-inappropriate. We don’t want kids having to
think about sex all the time at school.’’
The Royal
Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ head of child
psychiatry, Nick Kowalenko, tells Inquirer parents ought to be consulted about
the program’s use in school. “The kids referred to me who have got gender
identity issues are often in early adolescence, from 12 to 16,’’ he says. “When
I speak to them they tell me it was from early primary school that they felt
different.’’ Kowalenko says the Safe Schools program might be “incredibly
helpful’’ for such children, “but if you’re talking about every kid in the
community, it might not be appropriate at 11”.
Child
psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg is managing director of the Young and Well
Co-operative Research Centre, which produced the Growing Up Queer report in
2014 showing that two-thirds of young LGBTI students are bullied at school. He
is critical of the Safe Schools strategy encouraging students to defy teachers
who do not let them put up posters or access gay websites.
“The civil
disobedience is not wise,’’ he tells Inquirer. “But I do think we need this
type of curriculum material because there’s a need to decrease the rampant homophobia
and discrimination against kids in schools. There are little kids who are born
in the wrong bodies and that’s not a choice. They fear puberty; 30 per cent of
them try to end their lives during adolescence. What the (ACL) is doing is
incredibly un-Christian because they are not showing any compassion for a
vulnerable group of young people.’’
