@3ksandpj wrote:
So what you are trying to say is that you think religion is to blame for all the intolerance, homophobia etc?... government schools have all but taken religion off the curriculum. (Even though the first "charity schools" in Australia were Christian schools...)
The religious doctrine is what it is, people of faith should be free to think whatever they like about behaviours which are strongly advised against in their doctrine. I agree that it's not the job of religious zealots to persecute the LGBTI community, but it's also not the job of the LGBTI community to indoctrinate children and hypersexualize young minds...
Roz Ward made it clear that she strives for a sexual revolution. Which I dont have a problem with, what I have a problem with is that this ideology is being intertwined with an anti-bullying agenda (which has actually been in place in schools for quite some time now...).
And somehow it's taken over 3 years and nearly 500 schools implementing the programme until someone stands up and says "Hang on a minute, the associates of this "alliance/coalition" are actually promoting some really age inapropriate material..." It has nothing to do with religious extremism or intolerance, just concern that the click of a link can lead to some really adult sites.
And in trying to promote openmindedness when it comes to gender and sexual issues, there has to be better ways than encouraging kids to "imagine yourself at 16 attracted to someone of the same sex..." and that vaginal virginity isn't the only virginity. And to go beyond that to have reservations when asking a new parent if the newborn baby is a boy or a girl because its offensive to reference only the 2 genders...
People are people imo, you have to take them as you find them, treat them as you expect to be treated, be kind and non judgemental. How hard is it really to teach these fundemental social skills to kids?
No, I'm not trying to say that religion is to blame for all the intolerance, homophobia etc, but it's perfectly clear that our major religions are patriarchal, teaching a lesson which says that men are superior to women just by their very virtue of being men.
(just refer to their respective scriptures and other texts for confirmation of this)
"The religious doctrine is what it is, people of faith should be free to think whatever they like about behaviours which are strongly advised against in their doctrine."
Not really. people of faith often suffer a conflict of conscience when their articles of Faith teach them ideas and attitudes and ways of behaving which are clearly not egalitarian and compassionate.
People of faith all too often suppress their humanity in their effort to conform to the ideology which they are taught.
(it's not my fault; I'm only following orders)
It's a culture issue.
The Culture draws its moral and ethical lessons from its predominant formative religious philosophy. and then the institutions of the State (e.g the govt, the schools, the legislature) go on to mirror those sentiments,
and those attitudes and those prejudices and that morality.
So, we see a culture (ours) which is informed by the attitudes of the Christian religion that women are not the equals of men;
that people who are homosexual are to be condemned outright as being horrible and disgusting deviants;
that people who experience a gender identity confusion or conflict are likewise to be condemned as not being "normal".
We worship masculine male-models e.g football or other sports "heroes" . . . we worship "heroes".
We don't worship the sensitivity and the compassionate feminine side of our natures as much as we worship the violent conquistador.
These societal values and emphases cannot help but be absorbed by our young people, our children, because they are taught these every time they turn on their tv, or go to a footy or a cricket match. . . and they even follow a person and hound them down if that person seeks the sanctuary of their church, their synagogue or their mosque.
Our "safe schools" program is just a bandaid on a severed artery if we, as a Culture, continue to teach institutional lessons and models of behaviour which are misogynistic, homophobic and intolerant of the rights of the individual to be respected for his or her own choices.
Never mind. we'll just eat a few more meat pies, go to the footy and become either maniacally jubilant or suicidally depressed if our team (the team with which we somehow have become rather psychotically identified with) either wins or loses. and then . . . the choices are manifold.
go to the pub, get p iss ed and go home to beat up on the wife and kids?
go to the mosque to (soberly) absorb a message of hate against all those who dare to be different?
It's a Cultural problem, isn't it?
and our Culture seems to be seriously lacking in its ability and will to teach us (children as well as adults) how to behave as truly civilised individuals. . . and what is more; it's seriously lacking in its will to do so.
A place has a bogan culture; that place breeds bogans.
A place has a religiously intolerant culture; that place breeds religiously intolerant people.
A place is incongruent about what it says it wants to teach re what it actually teaches; that place breeds dangerously confused people.
and then we try to step in with a "safe schools" program as if that were going to really make any difference against the destructive tsunami of our actual Cultural lessons and examples?
good luck with that, cobra.
I do agree with you that this program might be inappropriate for very young children. It's bad enough that that kids are targeted and marketed to by financial interests who want to sell them "stuff" and who are selling "sex" or sexual awareness to children and linking it to their products.
There can be a safe school prog which addresses bullying and the rights of women to be the equals of men.
that is desirable.
If we have a school and a societal cultural "program" which successfully teaches this lesson then it will become uneccessary in schools to teach about the specific examples.
teach a basic Principle.
teach the Golden Rule.
everything else is just commentary.
The people who crated this material do know what is going on at schools. Parents are often the last to know.
