Telegraph: Anti-homophobia books removed from schools

(Ed: Can't help observing the irony here, compared with the previous post. Alison Ruoff wants no more mosques, Muslims in Bristol succeed in doing what no group of Christian parents could have managed regarding a book on anti-homophobia for five-year-olds. Hmmm.)

Story books designed to discourage children from bullying homosexuals have been withdrawn from two primary schools after an outcry from predominantly Muslim parents, a council said yesterday.

The books were removed by Bristol City Council after parents complained that the anti-homophobia programme was not appropriate for many pupils and had been introduced without consultation.

The Council said that it had temporarily withdrawn teaching materials from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School and Children’s Centre so they could “meet their legal responsibilities and operate safely”.
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One of the books, which was aimed at pupils as young as five, featured the story of a king who could not find a suitable woman to be his wife so he married a prince instead.

Members of Bristol Muslim Cultural Society in Bristol said parents were not outraged by the school’s anti-bullying policies but were frustrated by the lack of consultation.

Farooq Siddique, the community development officer for Bristol Muslim Cultural Society and a governor at Bannerman Road, said many schoolchildren - 70 per cent of whom are Muslim - were too young to define heterosexuality and homosexuality.

“The main issue was there was a total lack of consultation with parents. ... The schools refused to deal with the parents, and were completely authoritarian,” he said. Read more
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