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UK: Catholic church urges pupils to sign anti-gay marriage petition
Pupils at state-funded Catholic schools in England and Wales being asked to back campaign against same-sex marriage
...
A pupil at St Philomena's Catholic high school for girls in Carshalton, in the south London borough of Sutton, told the website PinkNews.co.uk that children aged 11 to 18 had been encouraged to sign the anti-equality pledge by their headteacher.
She said: "In our assembly for the whole sixth form you could feel people bristling as she explained parts of the letter and encouraged us to sign the petition. It was just a really outdated, misjudged and heavily biased presentation."
She said some pupils had responded by buying Gay Pride badges to pin to their uniforms. "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," she said. "After all, that's discrimination they were urging impressionable people to engage in, which is unacceptable."
The British Humanist Association said the CES's actions were likely to be in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act, which ban the political indoctrination of schoolchildren and require political views to be presented in a balanced way. The Act was used in a failed attempt to prevent schools showing Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/25/catholic-church-schools-gay-marriage
...
A pupil at St Philomena's Catholic high school for girls in Carshalton, in the south London borough of Sutton, told the website PinkNews.co.uk that children aged 11 to 18 had been encouraged to sign the anti-equality pledge by their headteacher.
She said: "In our assembly for the whole sixth form you could feel people bristling as she explained parts of the letter and encouraged us to sign the petition. It was just a really outdated, misjudged and heavily biased presentation."
She said some pupils had responded by buying Gay Pride badges to pin to their uniforms. "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," she said. "After all, that's discrimination they were urging impressionable people to engage in, which is unacceptable."
The British Humanist Association said the CES's actions were likely to be in breach of sections 406 and 407 of the 1996 Education Act, which ban the political indoctrination of schoolchildren and require political views to be presented in a balanced way. The Act was used in a failed attempt to prevent schools showing Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/25/catholic-church-schools-gay-marriage
Of course, one of the problems here is the existence of state-funded sectarian schools. I won't hold my breath waiting for a successful enforcement of the Education Act. The bishops will whinge this is about 'religious freedom' or 'moral issues' and no-one will be up for a controversial prosecution. But I'm glad to hear of the reaction of the pupils in that school.