Parents gather outside Birmingham school to protest against gay teacher

[farmerbarleymow]

Letter from the school to parents.

https://fluencycontent2-schoolwebsi...s/Letters/No-Outsiders-Equality-Education.pdf

I'm upset that they use 'I' and 'we' in the letter, given it was from the board of governors (or whatever). Where do I protest?

Pedant-in-chief Pickman's model will tell me that I'm wrong, no doubt.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Now that's how you write a letter! Fair but clear.

They should have told the bigots where to shove it.

 

[treelover]

Where are the twitter outrages, the street protests, any other group acted like this, there would have been uproar, look at the coverage, the cake makers got, you can be sure Robinson and CO are pointing this out to their followers.

 

[Wookey]

They should have told the bigots where to shove it.

Not sure that was a chapter in How To Win Friends and Influence People...

 

[zahir]

Pupils shouldn’t be denied LGBT lessons – whatever their parents say | Benali Hamdache

Local MPs Liam Byrne and Shabana Mahmood have been championing the views of the petitions’ supporters, demanding the right for parents to opt out their children. Their comments and the decision to stop the lessons have sparked fury on social media.

I found myself browsing the comments with trepidation. I grew up gay in a Muslim household. I was opted out of sex education at the same age as the children of Parkfield, and I could easily imagine myself as any one of them.

To be frank, for me, growing up gay and Muslim was bleak. I was raised to believe that my desires were unnatural. I was fed homophobic myths about HIV and “the gay lifestyle”. I was starved of gay role models or evidence that being gay could be anything but miserable.

It’s not a story unique to Muslim households. Nor is it one that is universal to all Muslims. I know LGBT Muslims warmly accepted by their families as well as people of no faith cast out by their parents. Those attempting to use this case as a weapon against Muslims are speaking out of ignorance. And, more importantly, they do nothing to help young people in households like mine.

 

[zahir]

This report mentions a petition with 350 names - which certainly wouldn’t be a majority of parents. The school isn’t confirming the number of children withdrawn for the protests so it isn’t clear if the figure of 600 given in the Guardian report is correct.

School says LGBT lessons WILL continue after Easter

 

[treelover]

Shabana Mahmood under fire for comments on LGBT lessons in schools - LabourList

 

[zahir]

This is pretty grim.

 

[SpookyFrank]

This is pretty grim.

Complaining about indoctrination while standing on the back of a truck with a megaphone telling people, many of them kids, what to think.

Twat.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They should have told the bigots where to shove it.

I dunno, I admire people who can keep their powder dry enough to remain coherent even when confronted with infuriating levels of stupidity.

These religious folk (of all flavours) are already being done a massive favour by schools not teaching the blindingly obvious fact that religion only survives thanks to the systematic indoctrination of those too young to make informed decisions and the threat of repercussions both mortal and divine for those whoe question or challenge that indoctrination.

 

[treelover]

But these bigots seemingly are not the same as those say, orange bigots, or the Westfield bigots, or the cake making bigots, or the TERFS, they seem to be getting a pass from much of the liberal and far left, though thankfully not all on here.

 

[NoXion]

This is pretty grim.

'No outsiders'

I wonder how they would feel if a bunch of people protested against the notion that their lifestyles should be accepted.

 

[SpookyFrank]

But these bigots seemingly are not the same as those say, orange bigots, or the Westfield bigots, or the cake making bigots, or the TERFS, they seem to be getting a pass from much of the liberal and far left, though thankfully not all on here.

Probably because your standard white liberal is actually pretty racist, and cannot separate the behaviour of this particular group of people from the community* to which they belong, even though they would have no problem making that distinction with bigoted arseholes within their own demographic. Everybody knows you can't talk shit about Muslims, so the only option is to keep schtum altogether.

*Community, n. : group of people who are not like us.

 

[Serge Forward]

But these bigots seemingly are not the same as those say, orange bigots, or the Westfield bigots, or the cake making bigots, or the TERFS, they seem to be getting a pass from much of the liberal and far left, though thankfully not all on here.

That's just the madness of liberal/left identity/anti-oppression politics for you.

 

[zahir]

They seem to be taking an ecumenical approach to religious bigotry.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They seem to be taking an ecumenical approach to religious bigotry.

This may not be a productive approach tbh. If it's no longer a 'Muslim thing' then it becomes unambiguously a 'bigotry thing'.

 

[treelover]

People need to pay more attention because this controversy is likely to get bigger.
[thread]

from Sunny's tweet.

Absolutely, you can be sure the far right, robinson followers, etc, will be noting all this.

 

[tim]

Where are the twitter outrages, the street protests, any other group acted like this, there would have been uproar, look at the coverage, the cake makers got, you can be sure Robinson and CO are pointing this out to their followers.

Other major religious groups have their own state funded schools within most of which a programme like "No Outsiders" wouldn't get a look in.

Here's an article from the Catholic Herald on the topic.

Including the following quote from education minister Dominic Hind

“Well, schools of a religious character are able to reflect the ethos of their school in these lessons, and in how some of these subjects are taught,” Hinds says. He sees “a really positive change” in the government’s decision to make “relationships education” compulsory in primary schools. The emphasis, he says, is on relationships: “family and indeed friends, and all the important relationships that go to make up our lives. It’s about much more than sex education.”

‘Schools should consult parents’: an interview with Education Secretary Damian Hinds | Catholic Herald

And anyway, whilst God-botherer bashing, particularly of God-botherers who are perceived as having lifestyles, goes down well with certain posters here, don't you think the school might have mismanaged this a bit. Mr Moffat may well be an excellent classroom performer, but that doesn't mean he's not prone to siting on the occasional tuffet. Perhaps the school did that very teacherly thing of treating working class parents with distain and are suffering as a consequence

Social conservatism is not a uniquely Muslim phenomena. I have to look no further than my own family to see that. My nine year old nephew is curious to know the identity of his cousin's father . His anti-religious father is adamant that we can't just tell him it is the woman he knows as Aunty X. When I read this:

Two parents told Birmingham Live that children – one of them aged four – had come home asking if it was OK to change sex.

I could see my B in L joining in such protests

 

[zahir]

.

 

[Pickman's model]

.

Good point well made

 

[zahir]

I was trying to link to the full version of the video but the link wouldn’t work for me. Anyway the link is in the third tweet in Sunny Hundal’s thread if anyone is interested.

 

[tim]

Good point well made

A pointless post.

 

[Pickman's model]

A pointless post.

You are Alexander Armstrong and I claim my £5

 

[Serge Forward]

Other major religious groups have their own state funded schools within most of which a programme like "No Outsiders" wouldn't get a look in.

Here's an article from the Catholic Herald on the topic.

Including the following quote from education minister Dominic Hind



‘Schools should consult parents’: an interview with Education Secretary Damian Hinds | Catholic Herald

And anyway, whilst God-botherer bashing, particularly of God-botherers who are perceived as having lifestyles, goes down well with certain posters here, don't you think the school might have mismanaged this a bit. Mr Moffat may well be an excellent classroom performer, but that doesn't mean he's not prone to siting on the occasional tuffet. Perhaps the school did that very teacherly thing of treating working class parents with distain and are suffering as a consequence

Social conservatism is not a uniquely Muslim phenomena. I have to look no further than my own family to see that. My nine year old nephew is curious to know the identity of his cousin's father . His anti-religious father is adamant that we can't just tell him it is the woman he knows as Aunty X. When I read this:



I could see my B in L joining in such protests

I didn't think anyone here has argued social conservatism is a uniquely Muslim phenomenon, have they? As I understand it, this is all taking place at a non-denominational state school, so I don't see state funded religious schools being an issue either (for the record, religious schools are an abomination). That film shows what would be a typical far right demo... that is, it would be typical if those participating weren't predominantly brown/Muslim. If those on "the left" can't even call to smash all bigotry, whatever the religious, cultural or ethnic background of the bigots involved, then the wider far right (e.g Yaxley-Lennon types) will continue to make ground.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I didn't think anyone here has argued social conservatism is a uniquely Muslim phenomenon, have they? As I understand it, this is all taking place at a non-denominational state school, so I don't see state funded religious schools being an issue either (for the record, religious schools are an abomination). That film shows what would be a typical far right demo... that is, it would be typical if those participating weren't predominantly brown/Muslim. If those on "the left" can't even call to smash all bigotry, whatever the religious, cultural or ethnic background of the bigots involved, then the wider far right (e.g Yaxley-Lennon types) will continue to make ground.

Basically this.

Those who want a secular society are always in a battle against those who would wish to impose their religious sensibilities upon the rest of us, which is what these protesters are doing, whether they think they are doing it or not. There is a muddle here in some places. Reminds me of the equivocation in certain quarters over the shutting down of the play Behzti in Birmingham in 2004. Certain people - whether Muslim, Christian, Sikh or whatever - consider their religious beliefs to be deserving of special attention and protection, to the extent that everyone else ought to fall in line with their boundaries, and very often, as here and as in the case of that allegedly anti-Sikh play, receiving support from other religious groups that share a common cause in opposing the secularisation of society.

It's a pretty important battle, this, imo, and it is in danger of being lost again.

 

[mojo pixy]

Not lost IMO, conceded. By liberals in the main, who find the whole gnarl-up of hot-topic issues too complicated to unravel. Homophobes .. but with brown skin .. and muslims omg noooooooooo

run away.

 

[zahir]

LGBTI Muslims condemn homophobic school protests in Birmingham

https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/lgbti-muslims-condemn-homophobic-school-protests-in-birmingham/amp/

 

[8ball]

The media portrayal of this stuff seems to have glossed over the fact that this isn't even just about LGBT children, but about inclusion or otherwise of *any* children from certain unconventional family backgrounds because of their parents or other relatives.

 

[zahir]

A follow up thread from Sunny Hundal.

 

[Riklet]

What a bunch of bigots.

At the same time, it does come across as naive at best trialing the new lgbt stuff in a school which is 90% Asian, and which is probably quite a conservative area in general.

Has this programme already been rolled out in wealthier, more ethnically mixed areas then?