The Student Room Group

This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

Parents withdraw kids from LGBT history lesssons.

Scroll to see replies

I think it would be very beneficial if children were taught about sex and sexuality from a very young age, so they get used to it. This happens in The Netherlands.
Seven_Three
Parents shouold have near 100% controll over what is taught in schools.


To what extent could that be upheld though? Say I wanted my kids to be taught Christianity and nothing but the bible, and other parents wanted their children to have a secular education, which parents view would be upheld in the school? Or would the parents just pull their children out of which ever lessons they deemed inappropriate? In that case, what would be the point of having compulsory schooling at all?

In the extreme case, what if I didn't believe in maths or science or being able to read and I just wanted my daughters to be taught cooking and cleaning and my sons to be taught hunting and fishing, should I be able to insist that a taxpayer funded school be set up to teach my children these skills, which are arguably very useful, but don't really set you up for life in modern Britain?
Reply 42
Pavlik
Yes it is more accurate, because it was conducting by the government and not 'interest groups' (i.e. gay advocacy groups). However I believe the most well-regarded source is the NHSLS survey from the USA:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=72AHO0rE2HoC&dq=The+Social+Organization+of+Sex:+Sexual+Practices+in+the+United+States&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=D461SejEFuTCjAewj4DfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA305,M1
Here a table of results from the survey is reproduced in Laumann's book 'The Social Organization of Sexuality'.

Notice that whilst 6% is a reasonable value for incidence of occasional same-sex desire/appeal and incidences of same-sex sexual contact, homosexual or bisexual identity is only 2.8% for men and 1.4% for women. People do experiment, and as you said sexuality may be on a spectrum (with clusters at each end) rather than always exclusive, but we see that a credible value for the proportion of people who could genuinely and accurately be described as homosexual/bisexual is 1-3%.

No, that would be a completely dishonest estimate; fiddling the figures is most certainly not honest in any way. There is no reason to think that gay people would not describe themselves as gay in an anonymous census, even if they weren't so keen to announce it in public.


The sources you have provided are no more accurate than the sources I’ve put forward. However, there really is not point in continuing this particular discussion. It really doesn’t matter whether gay people constitute 1% of the population or a quarter.

Pavlik
'Degenerate lifestyle' refers to the drug-taking, the promiscous sex (and sometimes deliberate spreading of AIDS), the short and unstable relationships; it is well known, surely? Good luck trying to deny this.


As I said before and you conveniently ignored the black community in the UK also, in general, have shorter and less stable relationships; higher incidence of drug abuse; greater percentage suffering from mental health issues and etc. You seem to be completely unaware of the fact that correlation does not imply causation.

Pavlik
As for child abuse, this article seems well referenced: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/DaileyHomosexualAbuse.htm
Perhaps I might get round to checking up on some of those references; but the article provides more hard facts than your source does.


The article you have cited is from a conservative Christian organisation and you have the audacity to attack the impartiality of the sources I provide. The article takes this bit of that research and that bit of another research and fuses it together to fit its own agenda. It completely distorts the research. Have a look at the following article which carefully dissects many of the claims put forward in the article you have provided.

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/HTML/facts_molestation.html
Pavlik
So it seems you are endorsing what that Marxist passage said. That was the gist of it, family life as it is commonly known is harmful to women and homosexuals and therefore should be disrupted. But you didn't seem keen to associate yourself with that idea earlier.


As I’ve said before, if by ‘traditional marriage/family life’ you envision a society where women are relegated to inferior posts and gay people are marginalised, then yes, I don’t have a particular problem endorsing an scheme which seeks to undermine that particular oppressive, archaic worldview.
This was at primary school? Then if I'd had children there I would have withdrawn them - not age appropriate imo.
Pavlik
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-373145/Lessons-gay-history-pupils-aged-seven.html



They are presenting homosexuality as something normal. However it is not, it is abnormal. Homosexuals are only 1% - 3% of the population. The reality is that homosexuality is a perversion of normal human sexuality, as is paedophilia for example.

Nor are homosexuals 'just the same' as any other group in society; for example their relationships are shorter and less stable than heterosexual ones, their sexual promiscuity is outstanding, they are known to suffer from more mental illness and they are responsible for a disproportionate number of child abuse cases.

That does not mean to say that we should persecute homosexuals. However, part of the leftist agenda is to undermine the family unit and traditional social structure, and by promoting homosexuality they are doing just that. The message is that there is nothing special about the nuclear family, rather this institution is supposedly one among many equally valid choices and the important lesson for children about the traditional family structure is lost.

We can trace the results of such thinking; look at our society, look how the institutions of marriage and family have been damaged, see the grave consequences that this has had and is having for our society.


Pavilk you are a sound man with sound beliefs; nice to see somebody fighting against a stream of s*itty left-wing rubbish.

This is a story which makes the blood boil; it's precisely that - the politicisation of education. The history of LGBT people? Why, I'd guess that their's was remarkably similar to mine, actually. And LGBT people? So primary childern have to learn about mentally unballanced, sick weirdo 'men' who like to wear dresses? It's disgusting and obviously an attempt by the left wing nutcase rulling class to burn their own belifs into kids from a young age. Hell, if I had to sit through a week worth of nauseating arse-bandit ***** in secondary school then I would either walk out in disgust and encourage others to do the same or sit in the lesson and mock the instructors untill they had to remove me.

Either way educational standards in the country are bad enough without this garbage being pushed on childern as well.
Reply 45
croissantfever
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160067/Parents-face-court-action-removing-children-gay-history-lessons.html

First off, I don't want this thread to turn into a debate about the ethics of homosexuality.

How much control should parents have over what is taught in school?



How much is this true? Should parents have the right to withdraw their children from any lessons that they disagree with? Be it religious education, sex education, learning about LGBT people, the holocaust, evolution?

If they should, then what gives them the right? When they sent their child to a school, they basically entered into and agreement saying that the school could educate their child as the school saw fit. If they object that much, they can always have the child homeschooled.

Also, what do you think these parents are scared of that will happen to their children if the learn that 'some people are gay and that is OK'?



Clearly parents do know what is best for their children. There is clearly something fantastically special about giving birth/ impregnating a female that enlightens you as to what is in children's best interests. However, you obviously only know what is in YOUR child's best interests, not other children's, because, because....
Reply 46
LurkerintheDark
Pavilk you are a sound man with sound beliefs; nice to see somebody fighting against a stream of s*itty left-wing rubbish.

This is a story which makes the blood boil; it's precisely that - the politicisation of education. The history of LGBT people? Why, I'd guess that their's was remarkably similar to mine, actually. And LGBT people? So primary childern have to learn about mentally unballanced, sick weirdo 'men' who like to wear dresses? It's disgusting and obviously an attempt by the left wing nutcase rulling class to burn their own belifs into kids from a young age. Hell, if I had to sit through a week worth of nauseating arse-bandit ***** in secondary school then I would either walk out in disgust and encourage others to do the same or sit in the lesson and mock the instructors untill they had to remove me.
What beliefs are the "left wing nutcase rulling [sic] class" trying to "burn" into children? AFAIK, the point is to raise children's awareness of LGBT history, and LGBT interpretations of history. I think the point is raising awarenss, rather than some sort of ideological insidiousness.
Reply 47
Pavlik
You're the one who tried to correct me. And it clearly does matter, because if homosexuals were 25% of the population then homosexuality would not be so abnormal and it might not be so harmful to present homosexuality to children (bearing in mind that fully 1/4 of them probably would not be eligible to participate in traditional family life).


Just because a particular group is a minority does not mean that they're a threat to the majority.

Pavlik
That is because blacks have a low mean IQ; a different causal factor. How is this relevant? Blacks and homosexuals are both degenerate groups.


I'm going to ignore this comment for your sake.

Pavlik
My general point is that homosexuals as a social group have some distinctive and undesirable traits, and more importantly that schools should not promote homosexuality because it undermines the institutions of marriage and family and thereby causes social harm.


I object to your use of the word 'promote'. Whether you like it or not a minority of the population is, and always will be, gay and lesbian. These people exist and schools should, not 'promote', but enlightening their students about the human condition in all its beauty and complexity. Similarly, when schools educate children about e.g. Islam or Judaism in religious eduction classes, they are not 'promoting' these ideologies, but raising their awareness.

Plus, homophobia is rampant in many schools and this can be an effective way to deal with this sort of bullying.
I would argue that, ideally, parents would have no rights over what their children are taught in the classroom, and for this reason.

-Being a parent doesn't mean you are necessarily capable of teaching children, or deciding what to teach them. At least no more so than anybody else. Being a qualified teacher should (and if it doesn't that is a problem of teacher training, a different issue).

-Parents should not be able to withdraw their children from any lessons. The state provides a free education, and if you want to deny this right to education to a particular child, that is just unlucky enough to have parents with such views, you should be unable to do this. How can being the parent of a particular child in any way give you the ability to judge what is, and is not good for that child moreso than other people, who are more knowledgeable and qualified on the matter.

-If you want to severely beat your child, you cannot, because it is abuse. If you want to lock them away in a cupboard for days on end, you cannot because it is abuse. If you want to deny them their right to education, you cannot because it is, in a way, abuse. And if it's illegal and immoral to deny a child all education, it is still illegal and immoral to deny it education on a matter which doesn't appeal to you.

Why this applies to homoexuality in particular

-Homophobia is rife in schools, and this arises almost entirely from ignorance. Education is the only antidote.

-A minority, but a significant one (I won't argue on figures but it seems somewhere between 1%-6% and that is enough) of people are homosexual, and for young people who are it can be difficult enough already to accept, and for others to accept without ignorance and discrimination thrown in to boot.

-Homosexuality is not a choice, but it is a fact that some people are homosexual and most children will not understand this, and need to be educated on it.

-While racism is now (largely) a social taboo, homophobia isn't to the same extent, and it should be because it is just as wrong. Only education can solve this. And that some children's parents will be homophobic, only makes this more necessary.

Very few people would argue that it would be bad for schools to teach

-There are other races.
-Evolution is a fact as much as any other scientific theory is, or is at least the only widely held explaination of life among scientists.
-The Holocaust happened.
-There are other religions.
etc.

Schools teach all these things, and rightly so. That homosexuality exists is just as moral to teach.

My few objections to this particular case-

-LGBT History is fairly specific, and it would suffice to teach children that homosexuality exists in a more general sense. A whole week on the subject seems excessive.

-Primary school is too early for LGBT History perhaps, but not awareness. If anything, social awareness should be taught in primary schools rather than secondary.

-The T of LGBT doesn't greatly affect children so is not needed, especially at this age.

However, this particular case is unlike most, and it is also possible that the original Daily Fail article has exaggerated things somewhat.

Replies-

LurkerintheDark
This is a story which makes the blood boil; it's precisely that - the politicisation of education. The history of LGBT people? Why, I'd guess that their's was remarkably similar to mine, actually. And LGBT people? So primary childern have to learn about mentally unballanced, sick weirdo 'men' who like to wear dresses? It's disgusting and obviously an attempt by the left wing nutcase rulling class to burn their own belifs into kids from a young age. Hell, if I had to sit through a week worth of nauseating arse-bandit ***** in secondary school then I would either walk out in disgust and encourage others to do the same or sit in the lesson and mock the instructors untill they had to remove me.


You are a perfect example of why greater awareness of homosexuality should be taught in schools.

As for Pavlik, it's barely worth arguing with him. He thinks anyone different to him either genetically, culturally or mentally is a threat and should be removed.

Latest

Trending

Trending