Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has informed UK faith-based schools that if they don't comply with new rules requiring them to “actively promote British values,” including teaching tolerance of homosexuality, they could face closure.
“Schools should broaden horizons, not close minds, and should encourage pupils to respect other people even if they do not agree with them. I should have thought this is a principle with which the vast majority of people would agree,” said Morgan.
Morgan is on record for having voted against same-sex “marriage,” but has since said she changed her mind about the issue.
The new rules introduced by the Department of Education give inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) power to downgrade the ratings of, or even close, schools that do not conform to the Equality Act.
The new measures were invoked in response to the so-called Birmingham Trojan Horse plots in which radical Islamists reportedly attempted to take over state schools.
Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.
Both Christian and Jewish groups, whose schools are targeted by the no-notice Ofsted inspectors looking for schools which are “indoctrinating or alienating” children by teaching them traditional ethics and morality, warned that the new rules pose a threat to religious liberty and parental rights.
Antonia Tully, national coordinator of Safe at School, a parents' rights campaign of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, called Morgan's announcement an “attack on every parent in the country.”
“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,” Tully said in a statement.
“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,” said Tully. “Parents are furious that this scheme was introduced without a parental consultation. But more than that, they are worried sick about what is happening to their children.”
Contact:
Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Educationbr>Ministerial and Public Communications Division
Department for Education
Piccadilly Gate, Store Street, Manchester, M1 2WD
Phone: 0370 000 2288
[email protected]