Something rotten in the state of England

The Department for Education has issued new advice to schools, specifically aimed at handling parental protests over LGBT teaching outside Primary schools.   Entitled Primary school disruption over LGBT teaching / Relationships Education: Advice for Local Authorities on steps to manage issues, it has reportedly been sent to all head teachers.    VfJUK is in possession of a copy but, as far as we can ascertain, you will not find any reference to this document on the DfE website, which is why a link cannot be provided. 
 
We are profoundly disturbed.
 
In face of such widespread and openly acknowledged concern about Relationships and Sex Education being used as a vehicle for the LGBT indoctrination of children, one might have thought the DfE would have adopted a conciliatory approach, promoting greater engagement with parents in order better to understand and respond to their anxieties.  One might even have thought they would reconsider the wisdom of promoting values so clearly at variance with those of all the major religions. But not a bit of it.  From start to finish this is the statement of a Department in battle mode, and, despite lip service being paid to fostering constructive relationships with parents, education mandarins are clearly not prepared to give an inch.  Indeed, the overarching game plan seems to be to hammer wayward and refractory parents into quivering submission. 
 
Beginning with advice to schools on how to recognise early signs of a coordinated campaign, it quickly moves on to recommendations for quashing protest before it gets out of hand.    Measures range from engaging support from faith leaders and local politicians, asking them to call for calm and endorse the principles of Relationships Education; liaising with the police to ensure rapid response; and advice on how to handle the situation legally, such as making applications for an injunction and/or anti-social behaviour orders, or imposing fines for non-attendance (where parents have exercised their legal right to withdraw children from inappropriate sexualising education).   Throughout, the Department recommends that schools co-ordinate their response locally and not engage with the media – who might give unacceptable coverage of the issues and so ‘inflame’ support for the protestors.
 
The real tragedy of this so-called advice is that protesters are at no point acknowledged as caring parents, deeply distressed by the harms to which they feel their children are being exposed, but rather portrayed as fundamentalist and bigoted lesser life.  Trouble makers who must be ‘dealt with’ … but never – heaven forfend – really consulted on what they want their children to be taught.  The State clearly knows best, and the inescapable conclusion is that these people are the enemy!  
 
But the enemy of what, VfJUK asks?  Of British democracy?  Of law and order?  Of morality?  No… they are the enemy of growing LGBT dominance – to which the Department has clearly submitted.
 
In guidance surely reminiscent of the early years of Nazi Germany, as Hitler’s henchmen scrabbled to consolidate power, the DfE enjoins schools to record incidents of concern to ensure there is proper documentation if it is later needed for the police or any other legal action.
 
This is frightening.  If evidence of growing LGBT totalitarianism that will brook no dissent were needed, this is surely it.  But the State does not ‘own’ children, and in issuing this advice the DfE has far exceeded its mandate.  Let educators learn that they are there to inform and pass on knowledge – of maths, of language, of history and the like.  They are not there to determine what values children are allowed to live by and think.   Teachers stand in loco parentis, and it is up to parents to decide the values they want their children to learn.  This right is enshrined in English law.   As laid down in Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention of Human rights, incorporated into English law in the Human Rights Act 1998, ‘… In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’  

Whatever is currently maintained, so-called LGBT ‘rights’ should not be promoted so as to trump anything and everything else.   Under the provisions of the Equality Act 2010, religion is equally a protected characteristic, alongside such things as sex, race, age, disability, gender reassignment etc.   Perhaps even more persuasively, Christianity remains the recognised, official religion of the UK, and the manifestation and practice of religious belief is protected under English law.  

Parents who wish to ensure their children grow up holding to the traditional values of their faith should be supported and celebrated – not demonised by Secular and LGBT activists eager to impose a value system hostile to belief.  As it stands, RSE is a tool for State-sponsored sexual grooming and abuse, and the DfE should apologise for its scandalous advice and, as a matter of priority, consult with parents to learn what it is they wish their children to be taught. 

Email or write to your MP today, protesting at the intimidatory tactics of the DfE and cavalier dismissal of parental concerns. Copy in the Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Gavin Williamson MP.