There’s nothing like catching ’em young.
Pink News tells us: “Students at a Catholic state school in south London have been shown a presentation on religious opposition to the government’s proposal to allow gay couples to marry in civil ceremonies which, it is claimed, encouraged them to sign the Coalition for Marriage’s petition against the move.”
Kids as young as 11 were asked to sign this petition, says the online news source.
If this is true, it smacks of hypocrisy. One of the first things the bigots reach for when it comes to telling kids about sexual orientation in school is their age. Oh, they’re too young to have to worry about this sort of thing.
But they seem to be encouraging kids as young as 11 to put their names to a petition opposing equality for gay people.
Pink News quotes a sixth-form student, Katherine: “In our assembly for the whole sixth form you could feel people bristling as [the headmistress] explained parts of the letter and encouraged us to sign the petition.
“She said things about gay marriage and civil partnerships being unnatural. It was just a really outdated, misjudged and heavily biased presentation.
“A few of us in my year are buying Gay Pride badges to pin on our uniform and thought about staging a Stonewall coup by posting the ‘Some people are gay – get over it’ posters around school.”
Good for them!
“Most importantly though, there are several people in my year who aren’t heterosexual – myself included – and I for one was appalled and actually disgusted by what they were encouraging.
“After all, that’s discrimination they were urging impressionable people to engage in, which is unacceptable.”
The Catholic Education Service confirmed to the online outlet that it had written to at least 359 Catholic state secondary schools in England and Wales last month asking them to draw attention to a letter by senior archbishops that told Catholics of their “duty” to do “all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations”.
The Catholic Education Service says: “We have been aiming this towards older pupils and parents. The archbishops’ letter is a positive statement of the Church’s support for marriage, rather than negative comments about gay marriage.”
Yes, well, it amounts to the same thing. Hettie marriage is just there. People get on with it without let or hindrance. It’s taken for granted. People do it. Why bother to say what a jolly whiz thing it is if you’re not trying to hold up gay relationships as something to be condemned by comparison?
Good to see that some of the students have got more sense than the Catholic authorities, anyway.
The Catholic church will try all it can to use the children because they are the only ones left who aren't skeptical of the church.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, they aren't really aware of the cover-ups of priest sex abuse of children, or any of the other monstrosities committed by the church yet. So the children remain malleable to the churches whims.
I believe your view to be narrow minded and well, arrogant. As a fellow atheist, I find it cowardly to judge an entire religion on a few renegade priests. I have great respect for all religions.
DeleteHere is the comment that Benjamin Cohen, founder and owner of Pink News, made on this report:
ReplyDelete"I think this also shows the power of the LGBT media to hold those in authority to account. It’s not just for lobby groups or charities to do so, but I’m glad that the National Secular Society, the British Humanist Association, PACE and Accord were so quick to offer us assistance in understanding the legal ramifications of what we uncovered as well as press releasing it to the mainstream media."
Greetings! Do you happen to know how to make sure that your personal content is unique around the Internet and no other blogger is using it without making sure you are aware of it?
ReplyDelete