Waltham Forest Declares Culture War On Parents

Waltham Forest Council is to prosecute parents who fail to send their children to school. Richard Littlejohn reports in the Mail  that it is being treated as mass truancy and that parents are to be taken to court by Waltham Forest, fined and forced to sign parenting contracts because their children were absent without leave at the George Tomlinson Primary School, in Leytonstone, East London.
The parents have exercised their right to withdraw their children from lessons ‘celebrating’ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. Parents have the legal right to exempt their children from religious education and sex lessons, but the subject is apparently “being smuggled in under the radar in the guise of ‘history’.”
The ‘lessons’ include a story called King & King - and a story of a pair of gay penguins at a New York zoo.
These fairy stories prepared for children as young as five were part of a £600,000 government-sponsored project prepared a couple of years ago. Seemingly placed under ‘history’ it appears that Waltham Forest may be paving the way for this subject to be taught to five year olds in schools across England and Wales.
“This isn’t education, it’s cultural fascism” says Richard Littlejohn in the Mail. “As I’ve written before, I have no problem with homosexuality being discussed in secondary schools. But not with children who won’t even hit puberty for another few years. Let them enjoy their innocence, for heaven’s sake.”
The row is not about homophobia - most people would accept that hate campaigns of any kind are not appropriate for a democratic society. The issue now is democracy and freedom of speech and the right of parents in the moral and religious training of their children. Who owns responsibility for a child’s upbringing? Is it the parents or the state? What will be the response if the subject is introduced to schools for five-year olds across the UK - if it gets that far? What about teachers - religious or otherwise - who decline to be involved? Will they face the threat of dismissal? What about faith schools which decline to be involved? Will they be threatened with closure? Will this become a ‘hot potato’ for schools around the country? Is Waltham Forest commencing for the government what could become a much wider culture war in the UK?
On its website Waltham Forest reckons that about 5% of its constituancy are lesbian or gay. When the new equality laws were welcomed who would have thought that that 5% of the population could now impose its views on 95% of the population under the threat of prosecution? Well not all that 5% because the comments following the newspaper articles show that gays also protest. This imposition could rebound. Has political Correctness gone a step too far? It is the strength of feeling in opposition to Waltham Forest in the comments that follow Littlejohn’s article - and surpringly The Times  more liberal readership - that is instructive.