{"id":8157,"date":"2014-11-13T21:19:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T21:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2014-11-13T21:19:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T21:19:21","slug":"faith-schools-must-promote-british-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/faith-schools-must-promote-british-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith Schools Must Promote “British Values” of Gay Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Secretary<\/a>
Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan believes it is “crucial” for all schools to promote tolerance for beliefs that are different from those the school might believe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Faith schools must promote <\/a><\/strong>“British Values” such as gay rights and other religions.<\/p>\n

The Equality Act<\/strong><\/a>, effective last week, gives inspectors the authority to censure schools that do not \u201cencourage respect for lesbian, gay and transgender people, and other religions and races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspectors will look for schools that are intolerant of same-sex \u201cmarriage\u201d or engage in practices such as forcing girls to sit at the back of the classrooms.<\/p>\n

These new rules<\/strong><\/a> were inspired by Michael Gove, MP for Surrey Heath, in response to the \u201cTrojan Horse\u201d incident in Birmingham, which revealed that extremist views were being taught in state schools.<\/p>\n

In response to news about the policy, the Department of Education tweeted<\/strong><\/a>: \u201cNonsense to say schools ‘must teach gay rights’. We want schools to teach broad curric based on British values.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tweet, which was later deleted, offended many people because it seemed to make a distinction between promoting gay rights and \u201cBritish values,\u201d which many believe are the same thing.<\/p>\n

Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt responded: \u201cLGBT rights are British values. The Department for Education must back compulsory sex and relationship education, including LGBT rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, the DfE needs to clarify whether it considers gay rights to be \u201cBritish values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christians have opposed the new policy, fearing that it will threaten their religious liberty. The DfE says that teachers who disagree with gay \u201cmarriage\u201d are allowed to express their opinions in class, but they must respect gay children or parents and not discriminate against them.<\/p>\n

Antonia Tully, national coordinator of Safe at School, a parents\u2019 rights campaign of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, called<\/strong><\/a> Morgan\u2019s announcement an \u201cattack on every parent in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tully said in a statement<\/strong><\/a> that “it’s quite clear that the new rules for schools actively to promote so-called ‘British values’ are all about indoctrinating children with a homosexual ideology. The prospect that schools will have to champion homosexuality or risk being downgraded by Ofsted strips all parents of their right to educate their own children about sexual morality.”<\/p>\n

She added, “It is misleading to suggest that same-sex issues must be embedded in the school curriculum in order to protect children. Parents will be left powerless to keep their children safe from harmful sexual lifestyles. Nicky Morgan’s zeal to further the gay agenda is undermining every parent in the country.”<\/p>\n

However, Nicky Morgan, secretary of education who succeeded Michael Gove, told the Sunday Times<\/strong><\/a> that it was \u201ccrucial\u201d for Christian and Jewish schools to follow these rules as well as Muslim schools, despite the fact that the schools targeted in the Trojan Horse Plot were not faith schools.<\/p>\n

Already an all-girls Jewish schools was punished last week<\/strong><\/a> and downgraded from good to adequate ratings for not meeting the new standards. According to inspectors who visited the school, there were \u201cmajor gaps in students\u2019 spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Students are not provided with sufficient opportunities to learn about or understand people of other faiths or cultures. The school does not promote adequately students\u2019 awareness and tolerance of communities which are different to their own. As a result, the school does not prepare students adequately for life in modern Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this development, the DfE claims that faith schools are not being forced to teach gay rights, a notion that one spokesman declared was \u201ccomplete nonsense.\u201d Commenting further, he said that \u201cOfsted are rightly ensuring that schools do not indoctrinate pupils about gay people \u2013 or any other people \u2013 being inferior. The same goes for schools that do things like make girls sit separately at the back of the class. Both are practices which go directly against the fundamental British values of tolerance and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan will soon begin a consultation suggesting<\/strong> <\/a>that students taking GCSE religious education must study more than one faith, exposing students to views other than their own and offering them a more well-rounded education.<\/p>\n

The question many parents will want to ask is this: Where will inspectors differentiate between upholding Christian beliefs, on the one hand, and teaching students intolerance, on the other? Contrary to popular belief, many Christians do not want to discriminate against others when they teach their views in faith schools. There is a big difference between teaching about other views and condoning them. Unfortunately, Nicky Morgan seems to be leaning toward making schools enforce the latter.<\/p>\n

Find out how to join Christian Voice and stand up for the King of kings (clicking on the link below does not commit you to join)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Please note that persons wishing to comment on this story must enter a valid email address. Comments from persons leaving fictitious email addresses will be trashed.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faith schools must promote “British Values” such as gay rights and other religions. The Equality Act, effective last week, gives inspectors the authority to censure schools that do not \u201cencourage respect for lesbian, gay and transgender people, and other religions and races.\u201d Inspectors will look for schools that are intolerant of same-sex \u201cmarriage\u201d or engage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,144],"tags":[1381,579,674],"class_list":["post-8157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-children","category-freedom-of-speech","tag-british-values","tag-equality-act","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Robin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/robin\/"},"rttpg_comment":8,"rttpg_category":"Education & Children<\/a> Freedom of Speech<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Faith schools must promote “British Values” such as gay rights and other religions. The Equality Act, effective last week, gives inspectors the authority to censure schools that do not \u201cencourage respect for lesbian, gay and transgender people, and other religions and races.\u201d Inspectors will look for schools that are intolerant of same-sex \u201cmarriage\u201d or engage…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}