Sunday, January 30, 2005
Openly gay MP Chris Smith says "I'm HIV positive". Part of me can't help but wonder if he really would have said this if he wasn't already standing down at the next election but anyway. It still matters when anti-gay bullying forces thousands of pupils to leave school after GCSEs.
Homophobic bullying in British schools is forcing thousands of gay pupils to leave early, prompting calls for the introduction of sexual orientation lessons to the curriculum.
Oh God no! It was bad enough being told about what the little sperms and the little eggs do inside a lady's tummy, 'classes' where we 'discuss' sexual orientation, well that's just asking for trouble. However, something does need to be done, the Daily Hate Mail (sample headline: "It isn't rascist to say we should kick out all the non-white skinned foreigners who aren't fabulously wealthy out of the country") and the Express (sample headline: "We want to be the Daily Mail when we grow up") ran predicatably tired stories a few weeks ago about public money being spent on 'gay months' in schools, ie: LGBT History Month. Of course, these papers are enemies of diversity and understanding, as is their party, the Conservatives who are obviously in no hurry to shed their image as the 'nasty party' by attacking the month and insisting the Tories wouldn't support such an initiative if they were in power. Whether they would also bring back Clause 28 and automatically take into care children of queer parents, well, I'm fairly sure some candidates have said it.
If you actually go to the Schools Out website and look at the teaching resources then you see it's actually about combatting discrimination, referring to things like the Stephen Lawrence case and bullying in general. Are the papers really saying trying to prevent such things are bad? Does the Express really support beating up children in playgrounds?
Finally, a question. Why aren't Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin complaining about the Labour posters with their heads superimposed onto the bodies of pigs? I don't believe it's anti-Semitism, why would Labour want to alienate that section of the community when their support amongst British Muslims is so low, but on the other hand why would Howard and Letwin miss an opportunity to get an easy shot at the government? Is it because they don't want to really talk about their economic plan which seems to have been written by twelve drunk men ("An' I wan' a gold-plated Rolls Royce! For ev'ryone!")?
Homophobic bullying in British schools is forcing thousands of gay pupils to leave early, prompting calls for the introduction of sexual orientation lessons to the curriculum.
Oh God no! It was bad enough being told about what the little sperms and the little eggs do inside a lady's tummy, 'classes' where we 'discuss' sexual orientation, well that's just asking for trouble. However, something does need to be done, the Daily Hate Mail (sample headline: "It isn't rascist to say we should kick out all the non-white skinned foreigners who aren't fabulously wealthy out of the country") and the Express (sample headline: "We want to be the Daily Mail when we grow up") ran predicatably tired stories a few weeks ago about public money being spent on 'gay months' in schools, ie: LGBT History Month. Of course, these papers are enemies of diversity and understanding, as is their party, the Conservatives who are obviously in no hurry to shed their image as the 'nasty party' by attacking the month and insisting the Tories wouldn't support such an initiative if they were in power. Whether they would also bring back Clause 28 and automatically take into care children of queer parents, well, I'm fairly sure some candidates have said it.
If you actually go to the Schools Out website and look at the teaching resources then you see it's actually about combatting discrimination, referring to things like the Stephen Lawrence case and bullying in general. Are the papers really saying trying to prevent such things are bad? Does the Express really support beating up children in playgrounds?
Finally, a question. Why aren't Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin complaining about the Labour posters with their heads superimposed onto the bodies of pigs? I don't believe it's anti-Semitism, why would Labour want to alienate that section of the community when their support amongst British Muslims is so low, but on the other hand why would Howard and Letwin miss an opportunity to get an easy shot at the government? Is it because they don't want to really talk about their economic plan which seems to have been written by twelve drunk men ("An' I wan' a gold-plated Rolls Royce! For ev'ryone!")?
