Both James Higham and Trooper Thompson have picked up on this story. Paper here.
Children as young as 11 could soon be asked about their sexuality without their parents’ consent, it has emerged.
Teachers, nurses and youth workers are being urged to set up pilot studies aimed at monitoring adolescent sexual orientation for the first time.
A report commissioned by the Government’s equalities watchdog found that it was ‘practically and ethically’ possible to interview young children about their sexuality.
It’s difficult to know where to start when reading something so outrageously offensive and Orwellian. There is a simple response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission – this is none of their business and I suspect that had they asked questions such as this when I was at school, that is the response they would have received vigorously, forcefully and obscenely. I wonder if today’s youth will be similarly robust in their response.
I do recall what is now called homophobic bullying going on when I was at school. Then it was called joshing, because no one seriously believed that the object of the jibes was actually a queer, poof or whatever the epithet of the day was. This is because statistically, they were unlikely to be so. Much as the gay lobby would like us to believe it, homosexuality affects a very small percentage of the population. Those who were accused of being poofs at school were usually those who didn’t like sport – me included. I am heterosexual yet was accused of being a poof because I didn’t like football. Was that homophobic bullying? Of course not. Nor did I need some quango to protect me. A junior judo green belt did the trick.
Naturally, for adults the decision to be open about their sexuality and to adopt a gay lifestyle is up to them. Should they choose not to be open, then that is their decision also. And of course they should expect tolerance from everyone else, irrespective of their decision. It is not appropriate to question children about such matters, particularly at an age where they are not fully developed. Sure, like most kids, I knew what went where long before it was covered in biology classes, but I wasn’t overtly aware of sexuality until well into my teens when I started dating girls. I guess, then, that means I didn’t come out as gay…
This paper, though, tells us how deeply corrupt and wicked has become the state and its agents. Back when the Thatcher government was embroiled in the controversy over Section 28, I was vigorously opposed to them. I felt that it was over the top and unnecessary. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can’t help wondering if they were onto something. We have gone from right and proper tolerance to actively seeking people out based upon their sexuality and monitoring them from an early age.
If the EOHR feels the need to conduct such a survey – and I take the Sir John Cowperthwaite view here – there is an ethical way to do it and that starts with parental consent. It does not involve monitoring children who are deemed to be “uncertain” or “questioning”. That is a matter for them and their parents, not the dead hand of the state.
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Update: Leg Iron also comments and says something about childhood that resonates with me.
At age 11 I had no idea what ‘homosexual’ meant. I was still a couple of years away from any interest in girls, in fact I still had to pass through that natural phase of experimentation with explosives and had hardly electrocuted myself at all. I was many volts away from the time of sexual awakening (and if you’re 11 and are wondering, no, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be so have fun with the explosives and the electricity while you can).
To be fair, I wasn’t into the explosives – more camping out and building dens in the woods, but when I first heard classmates talking about “homos” I didn’t understand what they were on about and I suspect that they didn’t really, either. Looking back, I suspect that they were repeating something they had heard, knowing that it was an insult but not fully appreciating exactly what it implied.
At age 11, the principal drivers of life were toy cars, plastic kits, things that went ‘bang’ and things that could fire something over long distances. There were no videos or electronic games in those days. We amused ourselves by finding lizards under rotting logs or finding crawlies under stones or building dams across streams or a hundred other things, none of which involved any sexual activity of any kind at all.
Yeah, me too, me too.
“It is not appropriate to question children about such matters, particularly at an age where they are not fully developed.”
Indeed, and yet if you read the report, it is very clear that this questioning is aimed at children who are not fully developed, and I can’t help thinking the intention is that if a child admits to any inkling of non-heterosexual feeling, they will be jumped upon and pressurised to identify themselves as such.
I still cannot for the life of me understand what business one’s sexuality (in all or none of its many forms) has to do with anyone else apart from under very specific circumstances.
This idea is as creepy as all hell. Don’t just bin it; pour petrol on it and set it alight.
When we look at the lunacy in Elfansafetee snd all that crap, we are justifiably angry. But when it comes to what is done to kids, I’m just dismayed.
That’s just it; it’s no one’s business but the individual.
Thats just…disgusting. The state has NO business asking the sexuality of anyone, much less children.
“A record should be kept of those unsure or ‘questioning’ their sexuality.”
I literally choked when I read that. At that age I was unsure of my sexuality. God forbid some prick from a Quango should monitor me and try pressuring me in any particular way.
Kids should be allowed to develop at their own pace. The only people who have any business knowing their sexuality are their parents or guardians.
” I wonder if today’s youth will be similarly robust in their response.”
I’d hope so. But I suspect they won’t be.
If you REALLY want a case of worrying prying into people’s private matters, then start with the big grocery chains.
There is a link in the Telegraph about this.
Read the small-print.
The worker(s) are being compelled to register the (judged – not actual ) AGES of customers passing through their tills, usually without their consent or knowledeg.
Contrary to the Dtata Protection Acts, and contrary to their personal privacy, and WRONG.
Joshua, my reaction was the same as yours. As a child I was always placid. However, I know myself well enough to realise how I would have reacted to such questioning and it would have been hostile and uncooperative.
Greg, the grocery chains do this for one reason only, they are afraid that they will be persecuted by the state if they don’t. It’s all to do with this obsession about people under the age of 25 buying alcohol and tobacco. Given that the legal age is 18, that’s just absurd. And, as you say, wrong. I don’t blame the stores, though, I put the blame where it belongs – with the nasty control freak politicians.
I’ve had problems with self-service checkouts because I had “age related” products. it was a packet of aspirin, for crying out loud.
This is genuinely disgusting.
Rarely a day goes by where I don’t get confirmation that the decision to keep my kids as far away from these lunatics as possible is the right one. The list of reasons just keeps getting longer.
Those people are very powerful in this country.
In TOTAL agreement with your update LR. In fact I still haven’t quite got through the explosives and model kit stage at 48.
The sexual orientation “equality” agenda is to actively promote homosexual and bisexual lifestyles. Most people probably thought I have been mad all this time to criticise Stonewall and the government, but the more inches they have been given by the public, the more miles they have taken. And they won’t stop at 11.
Ed Balls wants children as young as 4 and 5 taught sex education – or the government’s version of it – and it looks like the Coalition perverts want the same.
Brian “Stagecoach” Souter’s private referendum in Scotland in 2000 showed that 7 out of 8 Scots wanted to keep Section 28. And clearly we who voted to keep it weren’t all Tories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Clause_campaign
Simply speaking, this is about destroying the traditional family to aid destruction of society for political reasons.