Miranda Devine: Tolerance taking its toll

HOW how much proof does Mike Baird need that Safe Schools is really about enforcing a radical sexual ideology on innocent children without parental consent, asks Miranda Devine.

Safe Schools — too much?

HOW can Premier Mike Baird continue to allow the warped anti-bullying Safe Schools program to be rolled out in NSW schools?

How much more proof do we need that the pretext of supporting lesbian, gay and transsexual students is a pretence, and that Safe Schools is really about enforcing a radical sexual and gender ideology on innocent children without parental consent.

We have reached the absurd position where teachers at an all-girls school in northwest Sydney, Cheltenham Girls High, have been asked to stop referring to their students as “girls”, ladies” and “women” and instead use “gender-neutral” language.

NSW Premier Mike Baird.

This is presented as a way to make a small minority of LGBTI students feel comfortable, but its insidious effect is to impose a transformation of the traditional view of male and female. We are told that it is bigotry to have a “heteronomative” view of gender as binary — male or female — or to believe that heterosexual attraction is the norm.

This is the attitude which Safe Schools is designed to stamp out.

But children who don’t go along with the illogical sexual and gender fluidity agenda are finding themselves excluded.

Joe Carolan, a former maths teacher at Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts, which is one of more than 400 “Safe Schools” in NSW, said last night that the banning of “heteronormative” language such as “mum and dad” is just the start.

He quit his job in protest at the program, which he said confused students and caused some of them distress. “The whole program is marketed as being about creating safe schools but it’s creating the opposite. It’s promoting extreme gender ideology that’s harmful to students in adolescence who are already going through issues and this is complicating things a lot more.”

At Cheltenham Girls High, in preparation for the Safe Schools rollout, a group of students have formed a “Queer-straight alliance” club which promotes LGBTI issues at the school such as Wear it Purple Day. Last month the school took down an Aboriginal flag from a flagpole inside school grounds and replaced it with a rainbow flag at half-mast for a week to commemorate the US terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Cheltenham Girls High School WSW Cup side.

But some students at the elite public school, with its large Asian population, feel marginalised and excluded if they do not embrace the ideology. Concerned parents have started a petition and complained to teachers as well as various politicians.

They have said their daughters felt pressured to wear LGBTI ribbons which were being handed out at the front and back entrance of the school one morning. And they have claimed students not wearing the ribbons were being called intolerant and labelled homophobes.

“A significant number of parents are concerned about this program being implemented in the school,” says their local Liberal MP Damien Tudehope.

“The parents are saying that at (LGBTI) events like Rainbow Day and Purple Day that if their daughter doesn’t comply with what they perceive as the school directions, their daughter is ostracised.

“My view overall is the Safe Schools program and this material should not be used without proper consultation with the parents and letting them know what the material is and how it is proposed to be taught.”

Epping Liberal MP Damien Tudehope.

But attempts by parents, teachers and a few brave politicians to stop the program have proved futile. And despite the federal government, which funds the program, making some reforms including that it should only be implemented in high schools, Safe Schools representatives are still evangelising the program at primary schools.

The June 30 newsletter of Dulwich Hill Public School reports on a P&C meeting the previous night at which “we were fortunate to hear from two guest speakers: Safe Schools Coalition – Project Officers, Mary and Darby, (who) spoke about how the Safe Schools Coalition provides professional learning, guidance and resources to help teachers create safe and inclusive school environments for same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students.”

Last week, the NSW Education Department removed from its website a list of more than 400 schools that participate in the Safe Schools program, indicating a worrying lack of transparency.

Dr Kevin Donnelly, senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University and co-author of the Review of the Australian Curriculum, said that the use of gender neutral language such as “students” in place of “girls and “boys” is part of the Safe Schools agenda to erase gender differences. “They say it’s hetero-­normative to talk about men and women, boys and girls, because it’s reinforcing a binary stereotype — which doesn’t exist because gender is fluid and limitless and … students can be what ever they want. I disagree with all of that, but I can understand why the school would be doing it. Gender ideology is undermining any traditional sense of what it is to be a man or a woman and its quite influential and powerful.”

Senator Cory Bernardi, who successfully led a group of MPs in reforming elements of the federally funded Safe Schools program, last night criticised the push for gender-neutral language in schools.

“The dismantling of gender differences diminishes both our humanity and our uniqueness — this is a societal poison that cannot be allowed to spread any further than it already has,” Mr Bernardi said.

The Hanson Factor

PAULINE Hanson appeared on Q&A on Monday night — or, should we say, was set up on Q&A with a hostile audience dominated by Muslims and ­violent protests outside.

All things considered, she handled herself as well as she could in the face of unrelenting antagonism.

Protesters outside appeared convinced she was the devil incarnate, as did host Tony Jones. But a pre-approved question from a man named Khaled Elomar, sporting a Salafist style beard featuring no moustache, was more disturbing than any of the anti — Islam rhetoric coming from Hanson.

Pauline Hanson on Q&A. Picture: ABC

He called Hanson an Islamophobe and, on behalf of his 11-year-old-son who he said was watching at home, asked if she were driven by fear, ignorance or hate.

He said he worked in Cronulla, where he claims “almost every day I get called a Muslim pig because of you”.

Hanson replied with her own question. “Why have we got so much fear on our streets? Why did the Lindt cafe happen? Why did Curtis Cheng – why is he murdered? Why are there terrorist attack around the world? You know, we need to find the answers to this and why the radicalisation, why have we just recently had another three men wanting to leave this country or five it was, to go and fight for ISIL?

Crowds gather outside the ABC’s Ultimo studio to protest Ms Hanson’s appearance.

Elomar’s response was to blame Hanson: “Why? Simply because people like yourself, who have extremely dangerous and disturbing rhetoric, it’s a fuel to hatred, bigotry and ignorance.”

So there we have it. Islamist terrorist attacks around the world have nothing to do with Islam. They are simply a natural response to the words of people like Pauline Hanson.

“There’s no room for someone like Pauline Hanson, “ one of the protesters outside Q&A told ABC radio.

“Her views are just wrong, ignorant, misinformed and not the kind of thing we need.”

Forget free speech or rational discourse.

No, social justice warriors want to shout down people with whom they disagree just to make themselves look virtuous. They end up looking like illiberal goons.