By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
MADRID, January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Spanish Supreme Court has been deadlocked for two days over whether or not to permit parents to remove their children from a government civics program that indoctrinates students with homosexual ideology.
The program, entitled “Education for Citizenship,” instructs teachers to “revise the student’s attitude towards homosexuality” and to teach children to reject “existing discrimination for reason of sex, origin, social differences, affective-sexual, or whatever other type” and to carry out a “critical evaluation of the social and sexual division of labor and racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic social prejudices.”
The Catholic Church and numerous individuals have protested the program, which is mandatory throughout Spain, including the nation’s private schools, although the latter have the option of ignoring individual directives in the program.
The case before the Spanish Supreme Court is an appeal of a decision of the highest court of the Spanish Province of Andalucía, which ruled that people may sue to prevent their children from being indoctrinated in the program, but later ruled against a particular group of families seeking exemption.
In addition to the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case, sixty-five organizations and groups in Spain have signed a manifesto denouncing Education for Citizenship as an attack on their civil rights.
“In every age the right of families to educate their children has had the same enemy: ideological indoctrination,” the manifesto states, and goes on to say that Education for Citizenship “is morally, intellectually, and politically inadmissible because it means obligatory indoctrination for Spanish children and adolescents with a particular ideology that is gravely damaging for people and society.”
Contact Information:
Embassy of Spain in the USA
Ambassador D. Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza.
2375 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
Telephone: (202) 452-0100; (202) 728-2340
Fax: (202) 833-5670
E-mail: [email protected]
Embassy of Spain in Canada
74 Stanley Avenue , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1M 1P4
Telephone (613) 747-2252, 7293, 1143/241-0542(24h)
Fax (613) 744-1224
For a list of Spanish embassies around the world see
https://www.spanish-living.com/info_embassies.htm
Related Links:
Manifesto Against “Education for Citizenship” (Spanish)
Manifiesto contra la Asignatura “Educación para la Ciudadanía”
https://servicios.ceu.es/manifiesto/manifiesto.aspx
Previous LifeSiteNews Coverage:
Legal Status of Catholic Church in Spain Threatened over Opposition to Mandatory Pro-Gay Citizenship Course
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07081003.html
Gay-Friendly “Diversity Training” to be Mandatory in Spanish Schools
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07072508.html