| Monday, 7 November 2011 On The Guardian's website last Friday, Elton John, the pop singer, wrote (my emphases in bold): “For too long schools have been afraid to take action [against homophobia]. They've feared the sort of moral panic generated by oddball fundamentalists, claiming that somehow seven-year-olds are being tutored in having sex ... There's an associated area where we're also all painfully under-serving our next generation. That's in our continuing failure to furnish them with an honest and appropriate sex education from the time they need it. Too often, we still take a near-Victorian approach to sex-and-relationship education which should be at the heart of our national curriculum ... We owe it to boys and girls to have a frank, open and realistic discussion with them before the age of sexual activity so that they're prepared and protected. There's no evidence – even if Tea Partiers in the US fancy the possibility – that abstinence campaigns either work or indeed successfully elevate the sanctity of marriage ... We can all contact our former school or the schools where we live, both primary and secondary, asking the headteacher exactly what he or she is doing to combat homophobic bullying and to equip young people with appropriate and robust sex education.” This is the same Elton John: Elton John's reference to "fundamentalists, claiming that somehow seven-year-olds are being tutored in having sex" is a reference to the campaigns of SPUC's Safe at School and its colleagues from other organisations fighting against the pornographic material being shown to primary school children. But let's be clear: Elton John's agenda is not merely the uninformed blather of an ageing narcissistic 'star'. It is an agenda shared at the highest levels of the British government. Before the 2010 general election, David Cameron (now prime minister), Nick Clegg (deputy prime minister) and Ed Balls (then education secretary, now shadow chancellor of the exchequer) all agreed that schools, including faith schools, should be forced to teach that homosexuality is normal and harmless. I therefore thank God that there are powerful signs of resistance to the homosexual agenda to be found. For example: - the foreign minister of Tanzania has said that his country rejects pressure by the British government to adopt so-called gay rights. Bernard Membe said: "We are not ready to allow any rich nation to give us aid based on unacceptable conditions simply because we are poor." Leaders in other African countries are also rejecting the Cameron government's pressure
- Timothy Dolan, Catholic archbishop of New York, last month issued a strong statement forbidding Catholics in the archdiocese from any complicity in same-sex marriage.
We will all need great courage in the coming years to show such powerful signs of resistance to the homosexual agenda. Companies are already sacking or demoting employees who publicly oppose so-called gay marriage. It was very appropriate, therefore, that yesterday's Epistle at Mass was from Ephesians 6: "Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not, against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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