I hope she wins this one.
A devout mother who claims her four-year-old son was forced to take part in a school LGBT Pride parade accused his headteacher of being ‘Christian-phobic’.
Schools should not be having Pride parades. That is bringing politics into education and education should be politically neutral. However, if they do decide to to do this, there should always be the opt out – just as, for example, the Jehovah’s Witnesses I was at school with were opted out of the assembly. It’s a simple enough matter to accommodate conflicting world views. Except these days, you either agree with the state religion and submit to it, or you are a bigot. There is no opt out. There is no agree to disagree, there is no freedom of thought, conscience or speech.
Izzy Montague, 38, said she was told by Susan Papas of Heavers Farm Primary School in South Norwood, southeast London, that her son could not opt out of the event in June 2018.
She contacted the school asking for her child’s attendance to be excused after a receiving an invitation to the school’s Pride event in June 2018.
The invitation stated the school would be ‘celebrating the differences that make you and your child’s family special.’
That’s some double speak right there. Celebrate the orthodoxy – and no opting out. It wasn’t an invitation, it was a demand, an order.
Continuing her evidence today Mrs Montague told the court: ‘I believe anyone who decided that children should march for LGBT should not be a head of a primary school.’
I agree. I do hope she wins. The outcome of this case will inform us just how deep the rot has set in. I have my own thoughts on that one.
Unfortunately she’s probably the wrong religion to be kicking this off. The Muslims would have no such truck, they’d simply threaten both the staff and the school in huge numbers until there was a quiet turnaround.
Can’t say as i blame them.
They don’t want their kids subject to the latest questionable fads, and unlike those of other or no religions, they stick together and get the backing from the elders in their faith in turn backed by seriously wealthy support from oil rich states abroad, support from the hierarchy bit is where Christians find their church leaders have already sold out in most cases.
And the head teacher would have to go into hiding. Yet no-one would be charged with threatening behaviour….
I don’t know John – the Trans lobby was quite emboldened during the Recent furore in Birmingham – I think they are top of the identity politics totem pole (certainly above women – look at the TERF controversies) – they might even trump Islam.
I know your disdain for football so this sporting story probably passed you by,
A player for the NHL team the Philadelphia Flyers, Ivan Provorov sat out the warm up during the team’s ‘Pride’ night on the grounds it was contrary to his orthodox Christian beliefs. The furore is still ongoing.
https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/video/nhl-must-decide-hockey-really-163720853.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFbonU5v2BnXdgTIBetYoyoNjieAaIZijFbABTmBv-v-NViJwi4rs5LherrXm49Je65wHQxuXWrnu8BA-Qq6q_E142xnympqdSYzKXN7wAOUk_2TFiIVYUmcvG3m1xN_6WCfF5Ua6C4IZ0v1fkCtrmb7z8Y8uhVDNP8zGo4yxYjK
Basically there is no middle ground – you either embrace this lunacy wholesale or you are cancelled and harassed continually. It’s reached a rum pass when I’m hoping to get these people on a plane to Northern Nigeria or Mozambique to give ‘diversity’ paeans to Islamic State fighters but I am increasingly of the opinion that is the sole option. Peaceful co- existence and mutual tolerance isn’t in their mindset or worldview
I hope she wins, but I think religion is a flimsy platform for the fightback. Most people these days are not religious and don’t have ‘beliefs’ to fall back on. We need to fight this with science. Science is an absolute, where two conflicting ideologies can only be fought on who carries the highest victim card. As mentioned above, there are different tiers of religion too, with widely different victim cards
Unfortunately the far left already has that one covered. With ‘decolonisation’ even of STEM subjects now embedded into the education establishment (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11431449/Universities-courses-computing-classics-told-decolonise-degrees-watchdog.html) the science says exactly what it is told to say. Apparently Trofim Lysenko is alive and well, and working at the Department for Education.
These days, a victim card – even a low value one – probably carries a better chance of succeeding.
The detail that struck me about this the was the Head’s daughter being present at the meeting in the capacity of School Manager and Deputy Safeguarding Officer – which surely raises some questions in itself – wearing a slogan t-shirt clearly intended to provoke a reaction.
The daughter, it turns out, is not an obvious match for a role in primary education:
Attie Papas is a graduate student of Sports Sociology and Feminist Theory. Her papers include “A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach to the Roles of the Penis, the Phallus and Hegemonic Gender Norms in ‘Feminist Porn.'”
(The source describes the suspension by Susan Papas of two year 5 boys for alleged homophobic remarks after they asked to be excused LGBT lessons.)
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/pro-gay-head-teacher-suspends-catholic-student-for-homophobia
According to her CV, Attie Copeman-Papas was a post-graduate student until 2017, so she must been appointed to the School Manager role immediately afterwards; are we, I wonder, looking at a mother so obsessively in thrall to her daughter that she gives her a (lucrative) senior position on the school staff and allows her to influence school policy?
This really requires some sort of official investigation. It’s a gross abuse of position.
Hear hear.
With parent and child being black it will be interesting to see who wins in the battle of the card-players. Ethnics vs LGBT .
Sure, but I think that it is the wrong diversity card to play here. If she was black AND muslim, it would be a different matter.