By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A new bill proposed by Britain’s Labor government will force Catholic and other faith-based schools to promote homosexuality and abortion.
According to a report by LifeSiteNews.com, an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families bill that many, including the Catholic Church in England, believed would allow religious schools to teach a mandatory sex ed program “in a way that reflects the school’s religious character” are now being told that when the law takes effect in September 2011, they must teach the program as it is written.
“All maintained schools and academies will be required to teach the full programs of study in line with the principles outlined in the Bill including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity,” said a recent statement from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
“Schools with a religious character will be free, as they are now, to express the views of their faith and reflect the ethos of their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones.”
The statement also quotes Minister Ed Balls who told the Daily Telegraph that religious schools should indeed be “forced” to teach pupils that homosexuality is “normal and harmless.”
Balls said, “If their faith has a view in scripture, they can inform pupils of that. What they must not do is teach discrimination. They must be absolutely clear about the importance of civil partnerships [and that] bullying of homosexuals is wrong.”
Balls also said that religious schools will be required to promote abortion as a solution to unplanned pregnancy.
Thus far, religious schools in England have been permitted to teach children that homosexual activity, abortion and contraception are wrong. However, this new bill would change everything.
“What this changes is that for the first time these schools cannot just ignore these issues or teach only one side of the argument,” Ball said. “They also have to teach that there are different views on homosexuality. They cannot teach homophobia. They must explain civil partnership.
“They must give a balanced view on abortion, they must give both sides of the argument, they must explain how to access an abortion, the same is true on contraception as well,” Balls said.
“People outside the UK must know that the British government’s ideologues are just as radical but even more cunning than the French Revolutionaries,” said Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), to LifeSiteNews.com.
Ozimic blames former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Catholic Bishops conference and the Catholic Education Service for allowing the bill to get this far.
“Compromise and accommodation with this government will result, not in government concessions, but in increased persecution of those who stand up for life and family,” he said.
The bill is now headed for debate in the House of Lords.
