Opinion
UK set to ban sex ed for young children amid parental backlash against LGBT indoctrination
From LifeSiteNews
There is undoubtedly a backlash against LGBT ideology unfolding in many Western countries, the source of which includes many ambivalent towards LGBT lifestyles but who are still uncomfortable teaching the ideology to children.
In March, podcaster Joe Rogan paid tribute to his favourite teacher. His seventh-grade science teacher, he noted, “was a brilliant man and he taught me about wonder. I think about that guy all the time.” But now, Rogan said, teachers are frequently fixating on issues of sex and gender. “I don’t want that gang of morons teaching my children about biological sex or gender,” Rogan said, adding that Drag Queen Story Hour is unacceptable for kids. “I don’t want you teaching them about any of those things.”
Instead, he suggested, teachers should focus on history, and math, and… all the things teachers used to focus on.
Rogan’s position on sex education is significant not only because he is the most popular podcaster in the world, but because he has achieved his success because he is a microcosm of the average adult. He is largely libertarian in the “live and let live” sort of way that saw a huge public opinion shift in favour of same-sex “marriage,” which Rogan supports; he is not religious; but he is still very uncomfortable with the full-scale sexualization of our education institutions and the insertion of gender ideology into public school curriculums across the board.
Rogan is something of a bellwether on these issues – he articulates the sort of common sense that many people hold but cannot articulate (or are too fearful to).
The “silent majority” is not a moral majority, but they are uncomfortable with the vast, swift social changes we have seen unfold over the past decade. Much of the backlash against gender ideology and increasingly explicit and instructional sex education in schools comes not from Christians – there are simply not enough of us – but from people who do not have moral objections to LGBT ideology, but do not want it taught to children. In short, most people are fine with adults doing whatever they want to, but they still believe that these behaviours and lifestyles are the purview of adults, not children.
That is why we are beginning to see government action on public school sex education even in the post-Christian United Kingdom. According to a recent BBC report, the U.K. government is planning to ban sex education for children under the age of ten, including a ban on any content about gender identity. Teachers’ unions, predictably, have pushed back, insisting that the proposed plan is “politically motivated” and that there has been no issue with inappropriate material. That claim is laughable; parents have been protesting the LGBT curriculum and other explicit materials for years now, and school staff have frequently responded by accusing them of various phobias.
According to the BBC, the “statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) – which schools must follow by law – is currently under review. The government believes clearer guidance will provide support for teachers and reassurance for parents and will set out which topics should be taught to pupils at what age.” Sex education is not “typically taught until Year 6,” when children are 10, and “parents already have the right to withdraw” their child, although this has proven difficult to do.
Sex education has been mandatory for older students since September 2020, and the “government strongly encourages schools to include teaching about different types of family and same-sex relationships.”
This curriculum – referred to as “relationships education” – is compulsory and parents cannot remove their children.
The BBC notes that parents have been demanding changes in order to protect the innocence of children, while educators are insisting that the content is necessary because children are exposed to this information online anyway and that it is important for “trusted adults” to contextualize that information. That is the crux of the issue here that few are openly addressing: educators want to “contextualize” this information from the perspective of a pro-LGBT worldview, while many parents do not want this material taught at all because they fundamentally disapprove of the LGBT ideology itself.
There is undoubtedly a backlash against LGBT ideology unfolding in many Western countries, but it is important to recognize the source of that backlash. Although Christians and other religious objectors are certainly part of that backlash, their numbers are not large enough, in most places, to force government action.
The growing discomfort we see in polling data is thus far more likely to be of the Joe Rogan variety – we should live and let live, but we should also let kids be kids. As the U.K. government’s proposed guidance highlights, this means that there will be changes, but not significant ones.
LGBT ideology will still be compulsory for later grades, and state schools will still be teaching state dogmas.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By David Blackmon
That is what happens when “science” isn’t science at all and energy reality is ignored in favor of the prevailing narratives of the political left.
As Congress struggled with yet another chaotic episode of negotiations over another catastrophic continuing resolution, all I could think was how wonderful it would be for everyone if they just shut the government down and brought an end to the Biden administration and its incredibly braindead and destructive energy-policy farce a month early.
What a blessing it would be for the country if President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were forced to stop “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” 30 days ahead of schedule. What a merry Christmas we could have if we never had to hear silly talking points based on pseudoscience from the likes of Biden’s climate policy adviser John Podesta or Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm or Biden himself (read, as always, from his ever-present TelePrompTer) again!
What a shame it has been that the rest of us have been forced to take such unserious people seriously for the last four years solely because they had assumed power over the rest of us. As Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead spent decades singing: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
Speaking of Granholm, she put the perfect coda to this administration’s seemingly endless series of policy scams this week by playing cynical political games with what was advertised as a serious study. It was ostensibly a study so vitally important that it mandated the suspension of permitting for one of the country’s great growth industries while we breathlessly awaited its publication for most of a year.
That, of course, was the Department of Energy’s (DOE) study related to the economic and environmental impacts of continued growth of the U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) export industry. We were told in January by both Granholm and Biden that the need to conduct this study was so urgent, that it was entirely necessary to suspend permitting for new LNG export infrastructure until it was completed.
The grand plan was transparent: implement the “pause” based on a highly suspect LNG emissions draft study by researchers at Cornell University, and then publish an impactful DOE study that could be used by a President Kamala Harris to implement a permanent ban on new export facilities. It no doubt seemed foolproof at the Biden White House, but schemes like this never turn out to be anywhere near that.
First, the scientific basis for implementing the pause to begin with fell apart when the authors of the draft Cornell study were forced to radically lower their emissions estimates in the final product published in September.
And then, the DOE study findings turned out to be a mixed bag proving no real danger in allowing the industry to resume its growth path.
Faced with a completed study whose findings essentially amount to a big bag of nothing, Granholm decided she could not simply publish it and let it stand on its own merits. Instead, someone at DOE decided it would be a great idea to leak a three-page letter to the New York Times 24 hours before publication of the study in an obvious attempt to punch up the findings.
The problem with Granholm’s letter was, as the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board put it Thursday, “the study’s facts are at war with her conclusions.” After ticking off a list of ways in which Granholm’s letter exaggerates and misleads about the study’s actual findings, the Journal’s editorial added, “Our sources say the Biden National Security Council and career officials at Energy’s National Laboratories disagree with Ms. Granholm’s conclusions.”
There can be little doubt that this reality would have held little sway in a Kamala Harris presidency. Granholm’s and Podesta’s talking points would have almost certainly resulted in making the permitting “pause” a permanent feature of U.S. energy policy. That is what happens when “science” isn’t science at all and energy reality is ignored in favor of the prevailing narratives of the political left.
What a blessing it would have been to put an end to this form of policy madness a month ahead of time. January 20 surely cannot come soon enough.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By J.D. Foster
Trump should insist on these measures and order that unless they are carried out the United States will not participate in NATO. If Canada is allowed entry to the Brussels headquarters, then United States representatives would stay out.
Steps Trump Could Take To Get NATO Free Riders Off America’s Back
In thinking about NATO, one has to ask: “How stupid do they think we are?”
The “they,” of course, are many of the other NATO members, and the answer is they think we are as stupid as we have been for the last quarter century. As President-elect Donald Trump observed in his NBC interview, NATO “takes advantage of the U.S.”
Canada is among the “they.” In November, The Economist reported that Canada spends about 1.3% of GDP on defense. The ridiculously low NATO minimum is 2%. Not to worry, though, Premier Justin Trudeau promises Canada will hit 2% — by 2032.
A quarter of NATO’s 32 members fall short of the 2% minimum. The con goes like this: We are short now, but we will get there eventually. Trust us, wink, wink.
The United States has put up with this nonsense from some members since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That is how stupid we have been.
Trump once threatened to pull the United States out of NATO, then he suggested the United States might not come to the defense of a NATO member like Canada. Naturally, free-riding NATO members grumbled.
In another context, former Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore famously outlined the first step in how the United States should approach NATO: Don’t get stuck on stupid.
NATO is a coalition of mutual defense. Members who contribute little to the mutual defense are useless. Any country not spending its 2% of GDP on defense by mid-year 2025 should see its membership suspended immediately.
What does suspended mean? Consequences. Its military should not be permitted to participate in any NATO planning or exercises. And its offices at NATO headquarters and all other NATO facilities should be shuttered and its citizens banned until such time as their membership returns to good standing. And, of course, the famous Article V assuring mutual defense would be suspended.
Further, Trump should insist on these measures and order that unless they are carried out the United States will not participate in NATO. If Canada is allowed entry to the Brussels headquarters, then United States representatives would stay out.
Nor should he stop there. The 2% threshold would be fine in a world at peace with no enemies lurking. That does not describe the world today. Trump should declare the threshold for avoiding membership suspension will be 2.5% in 2026 and 3% by 2028 – not 2030 as some suggest.
The purpose is not to destroy NATO, but to force NATO to be relevant. America needs strong defense partners who pull their weight, not defense welfare queens. If NATO’s members cannot abide by these terms, then it is time to move on and let NATO go the way of the League of Nations.
Trump may need to take the lead in creating a new coalition of those willing to defend Western values. As he did in rewriting the former U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, it may be time to replace a defective arrangement with a much better one.
This still leaves the problem of free riders. Take Belgium, for example, another security free rider. Suppose a new defense coalition arises including the United States and Poland and others bordering Russia. Hiding behind the coalition’s protection, Belgium could just quit all defense spending to focus on making chocolates.
This won’t do. The members of the new defense coalition must also agree to impose a tariff regime on the security free riders to help pay for the defense provided.
The best solution is for NATO to rise to our mutual security challenges. If NATO can’t do this, then other arrangements will be needed. But it is time to move on from stupid.
J.D. Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.
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