The Australian Christian Lobby today criticised the grossly misleading comments from Premier Daniel Andrews about the content of Safe Schools at the Sky News public debate last night.
Andrews deflected a question about parental rights to opt out of the controversial Safe Schools program by saying the program was about protecting a child being bullied for wearing a turban or practising their religion.
ACL’s state director Dan Flynn said, “Safe Schools has never been about whether children are bullied for wearing a turban or their religion. It’s a resource for teachers to use in classrooms which explicitly teaches children that gender is fluid.”
“Safe Schools is not a broad-based anti-bullying program as Mr Andrews purported, it has an exclusive focus on LGBTI issues and is overtly focussed on issues of gender and sexuality,” warned Mr Flynn.
The Victorian Education Department Safe Schools website published a Guide to Making your School Safe and Inclusive for LGBTI Students, which states that “it is important to challenge our thinking beyond the binary constructs of male and female” and “gender identity does not necessarily relate to the sex a person is assigned at birth” (p14).
This kind of ideology is incredibly alarming, said Dan Flynn. “The Guide goes even further and endorses the “All of Us” school resource which states, “Gender isn’t quite as simple as whether you’re ‘male’ or ‘female’… it’s up to the individual to describe what gender identity fits them best.” (p34) And that “asking new parents whether their baby is a boy, or a girl reinforces heteronormativity.” (pg42) These examples show that Safe Schools is based on radical gender ideology.”
“It is grossly misleading for the Premier to imply that Safe Schools was just a teacher resource to help with bullying in the classroom. Victorians know that the reality of the program is far more sinister.”
“During this election Campaign Australian Christian Lobby volunteers have been busy speaking to voters about key election issues. Safe Schools is held in contempt by many voters who are adamant that their children should not be taught they can simply change their gender.”
“What voters really need to know about the Safe Schools program is that Daniel Andrews has made it compulsory for all state high schools and Matthew Guy if elected, has promised to abolish it,” commented Mr Flynn.
