Should Schools Teach LGBT Tolerance?
By: Samuel Hutchinson
Tags: Philosophy, Education, LGBTQ, UK Politics, Society

In the UK, there is an ongoing debate as to whether schools should teach lessons on LGBT rights. In Birmingham, this debate recently came to a head with Parkland Community School announcing that it has suspended its lessons on LGBT rights. This essay will examine the controversial lesson in order to figure out why there is so much opposition. Following this, I will then explore the position put forward by Angela Leadsom MP and scrutinise her belief that parents should be allowed to remove their children from LGBT classes.

The lesson in question is called No Outsiders and is focussed on teaching tolerance for diverse groups, such as different genders, races, or sexual orientations. As a government education spokesperson has said:

We are making relationships education compulsory in all primary schools from 2020 to teach pupils the building blocks needed for positive and safe relationships of all kinds, starting with family and friends. The subject will teach children, in an age-appropriate way, about healthy relationships of all kinds and will help schools’ efforts to foster respect for other people and for difference.

This focus on tolerance was also supported by Hazel Pulley, chief executive officer of the trust that runs Parkland Community School:

We are not teaching children about same sex couples in the sense of sexual relationships, what we do teach our children is that there are different families and that there are families with two mummies, two daddies.

I can only speak from experience, but having a class focussed on LGBT rights would have been fantastic in my secondary school. I attended secondary school in a small, working class town in the north east of England. Small, working class towns are not known for their enthusiastic acceptance of gay culture. Consequently, as a teenager struggling to understand his bisexual identity, I was extremely confused. This confusion was not born from self-hatred, as I never believed being gay was inherently wrong or shameful, but it was difficult to understand that I could be attracted to both men and women. I did not have an understanding of myself that others did at the time. In addition to this, being gay was not welcomed by my peers. Gay was used as an insult with no hint of pride, so it felt unwise to confide in my schoolmates at the time. I wouldn’t be so bold to suggest that having classes on LGBT rights would have helped with my identity struggles, but it certainly would not have made it worse. The goal of these classes is not just to teach tolerance to allies, but to give pupils an understanding of these sexualities so they can avoid experiences like mine.

An Irrational Campaign

The campaign to ban the lessons had its roots, ‘shockingly’, in conservative religious communities, with the most prominent being Muslim parents. One of these parents, Fatima Shah, removed her 10-year-old from school as she believed:

It’s inappropriate, totally wrong… Children are being told it’s OK to be gay, yet 98% of children at this school are Muslim. It’s a Muslim community. He said all parents are on board with it, but the reality is, no parents are on board with it.

Shah’s reasons for pulling her child out of education are clearly homophobic and will only negatively impact her child’s future. Her child will be growing up in a country with liberal values that welcomes people regardless of their differences, not allowing her child to understand that these differences are acceptable is indefensible. This child will be starved of vital knowledge of the British community because of their parents’ views, leaving them at a disadvantage when interacting with the community (even more so if this child happens to be part of the LGBT community). Dr Kate Godfrey-Faussett, a Muslim scholar, has also weighed into the debate and claimed that LGBT lessons are a ‘totalitarian endeavour to indoctrinate our children into sexual ideologies.’ However, the idea that these lessons are indoctrinating children into the LGBT community is nonsense. The No Outsiders lesson is not a ‘How to be Gay’ class, it teaches tolerance. Beliefs like those above are a result of centuries of LGBT erasure and hatred, in the interest of human rights the UK Government is obligated to continue these lessons. In a similar vein, BBC question time recently posed the question — is it morally right for five year old children to learn about LGBT issues in school? This question is inherently flawed. The question ought to be — is it morally right for five year old children to learn about respect and tolerance in school? Not only is it right, it is required. We should be teaching children the virtues of tolerance and respect from an early age. We should be teaching children to consider people by the content of their character rather than prejudicial, irrational bias. The way we tackle homophobia, like with any bigotry, is through education. We teach children early that every human being is deserving of respect, as the former chief of Ofsted has stated, religious people can hold their views, but they must understand that they are living in a ‘pluralistic society with liberal values, that strongly believes that people should be treated fairly and equally.’

Leadsom’s View

Perhaps the most prominent opinion on this topic was given by Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire, Angela Leadsom. In a recent LBC interview, Leadsom agreed with the government that relationships and sex education should be taught in schools, but still claimed ‘I also agree that it’s right that parents should be able to choose the moment at which their children become exposed to that information.’ It is worth mentioning that Leadsom’s comments are not as bigoted as some on the internet would have you believe. She claimed to have no issue with her children being taught about LGBT rights, adding ‘I would be entirely happy for my children to grow up finding that their LGBT classmates are exactly the same as them.’ Some could point to Leadsom’s voting record in parliament as evidence of her homophobia, but I’m willing to be charitable here and assume the best of her. Therefore, the focus will not be Leadsom’s possible homophobia, it will be her argument that parents should have a right to decide what lessons their children are being taught, or when they are ‘exposed’ to certain information. The only indication that Leadsom gives is that parents might consider it too early to learn about LGBT issues. This argument makes two distinct mistakes.

The first is that it assumes LGBT issues are R-Rated by implying that there is an age restriction on LGBT rights. Yet, as was established earlier in this essay, the lesson teaches tolerance. There is no mention of sex education in this lesson. This begs the question as to why you would assume a child is too young to learn the virtue of tolerance? Is there something inherently ‘adult’ about the LGBT community? According to the Guardian, books being read by the students include Mommy, Mama and Me and King & King. There is nothing fundamentally ‘adult’ about these stories, no more so than stories about a King and Queen.

The second issue with Leadsom’s argument is that she believes a parent should have the right to remove a child from class if they consider a subject matter ‘too soon’ for their child to learn. However, is it right that a parent should be able to remove their child from the class if they deem the subject matter ‘too soon’? I think this is a very vague and ill thought out belief. It would justify parents removing their children from any class. A parent might believe it is too soon for their teenager to learn the quadratic equation or play football. A parent should still have the right to question their child’s education, but this should not devolve into a carte blanche to remove the child.

Knowledge is indeed power, it is through knowledge and education that we gain positions in life (the common people anyway), it is through knowledge and critical thinking that we learn how to question the world around us and form opinions on our own. It is through rational thought rather than bias and inclination that we understand our moral obligations. To remove a child from education is to weaken that child. It is to pull your child into the warm embrace of your own echo chamber, a safe space in which you can deny facts about society and those who exist in it. It is to perpetuate intolerant and ignorant beliefs about people based on hearsay and myth.