Australia: Safe Schools LGBT indoctrination: tell concerned parents ‘tough luck!’
Leaked video footage from the event, which emerged at the weekend, also appears to confirm what critics of the program have long suspected: that it was more about promoting radical political ideas around sexuality and gender than preventing schoolyard bullying. “(It’s) not about celebrating diversity; not about stopping bullying,” Ms Ward said. “(It’s) about gender and sexual diversity. About same-sex attractive, about being transgender, about being lesbian, gay, bisexual — say the words — transgender, intersex. Not just, ‘Be nice to everyone; everyone’s great’.”
Safe Schools project manager Joel Radcliffe, a fellow academic at La Trobe University, which spawned the program, told the audience that the issue of parental concern came up a lot when schools were considering whether to join the program. “Parents … seem to have a lot of power (in) schools,” he said. “Parents don’t have the power to shut this down.” The emergence of the video, which was shot in Melbourne in June 2014, follows the federal government’s decision on Friday to overhaul the taxpayer-funded program in light of an independent review.