UK schools that are found to be ‘indoctrinating pupils about gay people’ will face closing under new rules designed to promote ‘British values, ’ the British Government confirmed Monday, according to the Daily Mail.
But the Department for Education said it was “nonsense” to suggest teachers in these schools would be forced to give lessons on gay rights.
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That brought a response from Labor’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt, who said that Education Secretary Nicky Morgan “clearly does not believe that LGBT rights are British values.”
Hunt added: “Compulsory sex and relationship education, including LGBT rights, in all schools is common sense, not nonsense. Nicky Morgan should apologize for the offence that has been caused by claiming that it is nonsense for all schools to teach gay rights.”
There you go. So, presumably, under a Labor government (with a Jewish prime minister, no less), Ultra Orthodox schools would have to teach the value of homosexual marriage, or else…
Oy vey…
A spokesman for the Department for Education insisted that Ofsted, the official body for inspecting schools, was right to make sure religious schools were not promoting homophobia.
There goes a whole portion of Leviticus down the drain…
The spokesman said: “Ofsted are rightly ensuring that schools do not indoctrinate pupils about gay people – or any other people – being inferior.
“The same goes for schools that do things like make girls sit separately at the back of the class. Both are practices which go directly against the fundamental British values of tolerance and respect.
“We believe schools should prepare all pupils for life in modern Britain. A broad and balanced curriculum is vital for this.”
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan told the Sunday Times that schools must teach “pupils to respect other people even if they do not agree with them.”
Which makes perfect sense, as Morgan put it: “I should have thought this is a principle with which the vast majority of people would agree.”
See? Education turns out to be democracy after all…
Here comes the less fun part: according to the Mail, schools have been warned that those that fail to follow new rules on “British values” (that’s LGBT to you and me) will be judged inadequate and could face closure by Ofsted inspectors.
The decision, which makes it practically illegal to teach some aspects of Jewish Studies, follows snap inspections by Ofsted at 40 schools, including Christian and Jewish institutions.
The new rules give inspectors the power to downgrade schools where teachers are breaching the Equality Act, which encourages respect for lesbian, gay and transgender people as well as those of other religions and races.
