The statement quotes Minister Ed Balls telling the Daily Telegraph that religious schools should indeed be “forced” to teach pupils that homosexuality is “normal and harmless.”Posted on 02/23/2010 3:27:24 PM PST by wagglebee
LONDON, February 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Britain’s Labour government clarified this week that an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families bill, that says faith schools may teach the mandatory Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) program “in a way that reflects the school’s religious character,” does not, in fact, give the schools freedom to oppose abortion, contraception and homosexual activity on moral grounds.
The clarification has been hailed by a local pro-life and pro-family group as evidence that the spectre of "totalitarianism" has reappeared in Britain.
A recent statement from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), made in response to protests from homosexualist groups against the government amendment, said, “Faith schools cannot opt out of statutory [sex and relationships education] lessons when it comes into effect in September 2011.”
“All maintained schools and academies will be required to teach the full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the Bill including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity. Schools with a religious character will be free, as they are now, to express the views of their faith and reflect the ethos of their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones.”
The statement quotes Minister Ed Balls telling the Daily Telegraph that religious schools should indeed be “forced” to teach pupils that homosexuality is “normal and harmless.”
Balls said, “If their faith has a view in scripture, they can inform pupils of that. What they must not do is teach discrimination. They must be absolutely clear about the importance of civil partnerships [and that] bullying of homosexuals is wrong.” This is in line with previous statements from Labour ministers that religious schools will not be allowed to teach their religious tenets “as if they are true.”
On Tuesday, Balls told BBC Radio 4's Today program that in addition to promoting homosexuality, religious schools will also be required to promote abortion as a solution to unplanned pregnancy.
Until the passage of this bill, religious schools had the option to teach children that homosexual activity, abortion and contraception are wrong. But that situation, he said, “changes radically with this bill.”
“What this changes is that for the first time these schools cannot just ignore these issues or teach only one side of the argument. They also have to teach that there are different views on homosexuality. They cannot teach homophobia. They must explain civil partnership.
“They must give a balanced view on abortion, they must give both sides of the argument, they must explain how to access an abortion, the same is true on contraception as well,” Balls said. Balls backed up his insistence that faith schools will be forced to abandon their religious beliefs, in a letter to the London Times.
Balls went on to thank Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the English Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and the Catholic Education Service (CES) for their support of the bill. It was revealed by the government last week that the CES had actually assisted in drafting the legislation.
Balls said, “To have the support of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Nichols in these changes is, I think, very, very important, is a huge step forward… The Catholic Church, which I really welcome, is supporting, for the first time, compulsory sex education with an opt out at 15 [years].”
Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN), “People outside the UK must know that the British government's ideologues are just as radical but even more cunning than the French Revolutionaries.”
SPUC is lobbying against the passage of the bill, and accuses CES of collaborating with a radically secularist, anti-Christian government that is bent on expanding abortion and homosexuality and suppressing freedom of religious expression.
After the Catholic Education Service took credit for the government’s amendment implying that faith schools will be allowed to teach their religious tenets, SPUC responded, “The only people likely to be pleased with the press reports about the misinterpretation of this amendment are the Catholic Education Service (CES), who want Catholic parents and Catholic schools to think they are sticking up for them, when in fact they are betraying their principles.”
Paul Tully, SPUC's political manager, said that CES has only helped the bill to pass by pursuing the amendment. “SPUC condemns the action of the Catholic Education Service (CES) … The CES does not represent Catholic teaching on sex education, and its betrayal of Catholic families is widely lamented within the Catholic Church.”
Anthony Ozimic said, “Compromise and accommodation with this government will result, not in government concessions, but in increased persecution of those who stand up for life and family.
“Catholics in particular have been placed in this grave situation by an unholy alliance, forged by the fake Catholic Tony Blair, between the English bishops and the Labour government. The spectre of totalitarianism, which was seen from Britain in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, has reappeared, this time in Britain itself.”
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you bet it will and sooner than we think while we have those who keep saying that we have to have an open more inclusive tent or Govt should not get involved in any kind of marriage.
“This will be coming to America very soon.”
Obama (Obamacare) wants Planned Parenthood in the govt. schools teaching “health.” We MUST defeat govt.-run health care.
He sure looks like a prince among men.
It’s like a huge tsunami.
The devil doth dance.
At the same time it’s stunning that the once-stout Brits have just laid down and played dead over this.
If I see even one member of planned parenthood in a school I will drag that rodent out....by any means necessary.
Any ‘parent’ who refuses to do the same should have their kids taken away from them. For that matter, any pro-abortion ‘parent’ should have their kids taken away from them.
This will be coming to America very soon.
__________________
Well, if I were in England, I’d be in jail.
And if this were to come to America - to the “religious college” where I teach, I WILL be in jail. And, so will others on the faculty as well. Frankly, this is another place where I think the FEDS want to go — but they also really DON’T want to go...
I didn’t see any reference to how this affects the Muslim schools. What am I missing here?
I'm not so sure about that. There is no separation of church and state in the UK. Indeed there is an official established church. A liberal one.
Unfortunately, those Constitutional and legal details don't seem to matter here much either, under Obama.
U can say that again.
Just thought I’d include a statement from the CES
http://www.cesew.org.uk/standardnews.asp?id=9168
CESEW Chief Executive & Director responds to misleading reports in the Catholic Herald (2 February 2010)
*
Oona Stannard, Chief Executive & Director of the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales, has written to the Editor of the Catholic Herald following recent misleading reporting featured in that newspaper on 29 January 2010.
Dear Mr Coppen
Recent misleading reports regarding PSHE in Catholic schools
Misleading reports have recently appeared in the Catholic Herald regarding Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) Education, including Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in Catholic schools. Such ill-informed comments undermine the good work being done in our schools and cause unnecessary anxiety to parents and the Catholic community at large.
The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales is fully committed to the promotion of the sanctity of life, in accordance with the teachings of the Church, and we expect that all our schools promote this message to their pupils. We have every confidence that Catholic schools do this and promote the protection of life from conception through, for example:
· Determining what external parties operating on school premises can and cannot do, so that any information given is placed within the context of the Church’s teaching
· Ensuring that SRE is taught in a manner appropriate to the Catholic ethos of the school
· Promoting behaviour that is in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church
During our extensive negotiations with Government over the plans to make PSHE part of the national curriculum, we have been clear that the right of schools with a religious character to teach SRE in accordance with the ethos of their school must be retained and we have been assured that this will be the case. The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, gave this assurance in the House of Commons on 11 January 2010:
“The decision to make sex and relationship education statutory is, I think, supported by all political parties, but it is essential that it is taught in line with the ethos, including the faith, of the school. That is clear in the legislation: it is clear that parents as well as school governors will have a say in how the subject is taught, while there is also a parental opt-out, which will apply to pupils until they are 15. I can thus give the hon. Gentleman the complete assurance that the school will be in charge of how to teach SRE, but the fact of teaching it will be in law and guaranteed to all children.”
We have every confidence that, if the Children, Schools and Families Bill is passed, making PSHE part of the national curriculum, Catholic schools will be entitled to continue to teach this subject in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church, and that the teaching of SRE in Catholic schools will always uphold the importance of the sanctity of life.
In a recent press briefing with the Catholic Herald, all these points were clarified and explained.
Yours sincerely
Oona Stannard
Chief Executive & Director
Did ya’ll see that guy’s name???
“Bullying Homosexuals is wrong”. Bullying Christians? That’s the governments job.
Wow. Fascist totalitarianism enforcing social liberalism.
That’s horrible.
And it is here in America, its just that government officials use more euphemisms to refer to it while they get more and more entrenched so that it time they can make proclamations that are this blatant.
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