By Ed Balls MP
All of us can be proud today. Whether we're on the London Pride march, a Labour Party member or both, we can all be proud of what our campaigning has achieved.
From an equal age of consent to civil partnerships and the right to adopt children, from scrapping the homophobic Section 28 to banning discrimination in the workplace and in the provision of goods and services, the list of advances for the LGBT community in the last twelve years goes on.
Much of this was done in the face of fierce opposition - not just in the House of Commons, but in the European Parliament too - and so we should never be complacent about what's been achieved.
But for all this progress I'm clear that there is still more to do to create the equal and tolerant society we all want to see. As long as discrimination, intolerance and prejudice remains there is still a cause to fight for.
Sadly, that discrimination and prejudice all too often rears its ugly head in the playground, in the classroom and on the school bus. Bullying of any kind is wrong: every child has a right to learn in a safe and secure environment, free from bullying. It blights the lives of children and as Schools Secretary for the last two years I've been working with schools, anti-bullying organisations and teaching unions to step up our drive to stamp it out.
As I said at our Party Conference last year, we will now ensure all incidents of bullying are properly recorded in every school. Over the last couple of years we have expanded peer mentoring schemes and produced new guidance for schools on how to tackle cyberbullying, bullying of children with a disability or special educational needs and bullying on the grounds of race, religion or culture.
In partnership with Stonewall and Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH) we have also produced the first-ever guidance on tackling homophobic bullying. And we will shortly be publishing guidance on sexist, sexual and transphobic bullying too.
I'm clear that homophobic insults should be viewed as seriously as racism. Even casual use of homophobic language in schools - such as the worryingly prevalent but unacceptable use of the word "gay" as a derogatory term - can create an atmosphere that isolates young people and can be the forerunner for more serious forms of bullying.
Homophobic bullying creates an ugly climate of intimidation and can make it harder for young people to come out. And whether it's directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, or heterosexual young people, our guidance makes clear that such bullying should be challenged wherever it takes place.
In the last few months we’ve written again to all schools to remind them about the guidance, which should be used to help all schools fulfil their duty to prevent bullying on the grounds of either a pupil's or their parent's sexual orientation. Our independent inspectors Ofsted are now required to ensure that they check what systems schools have in place to deal with all forms of bullying, including homophobic bullying.
The guidance makes clear that Section 28 was repealed in 2003 and is no longer law, and that there are no legal barriers to teachers discussing issues around sexual orientation in the classroom. And it provides advice on a number of topics including: challenging the use of the word “gay” as a derogatory term; working with pupils who bully and providing support to those who are being bullied; how teachers should respond if a pupil comes out; and preventing homophobic abuse within schools by ensuring proper reporting systems are in place and creating a climate where lesbian, gay and bisexual adults and students feel safe.
Growing up can be challenging enough for young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Being bullied and discriminated against at school as well can make life miserable and sometimes fearful too. I want all schools to step up their efforts to stamp it out, because it's only by tackling such prejudice in schools and in the playground that we will create a truly tolerant society.
And it's only through progressive politics and by the LGBT community continuing to make themselves heard – as they are doing, proud and loud, on the streets of London today - that we can build on the advances of the last 12 years and make homophobia in every part of society a thing of the past.
Ed Balls is Labour MP for Normanton and Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.
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Bullying. I was bullied, and I also dished a fair bit out too. it was great training for life, as you need to learn to stand up for yourself. In the workplace there is no teacher ready to deal out justice, but I am sure if you had your way you'd have a quango in every workplace monitoring correct-think and correct-speak.
Face it, Ed, the life is a big cruel place. I had the mickey taken chronically because I was overweight and a bit odd. It upset me, but I coped and it gave me character. Even the baddies, or should I say "bullies" who dole out this "hate speech" may be victims of bullying themselves, perhaps for being poor, or fat, or thin, or ginger (why don't you mention this, ever. Ginger kids were picked on more than ANYONE at school - the reason you don't mention this is everyone will see what a pathetic waste of time regulating children's attitudes and speach would be, as we all know kids will always make fun of kids different from the norm)
In summary, we are all different, we all get picked on for something.
Get on with some work and focus on something other than discrimination, something many of us think is an admirable conquest for fairness, but is increasingly the ONLY policy on this website (have a look at the top ten posts at any given time) and the ONLY policy of the Labour Party.
Labour - if we can't ban it, regulate it, or legislate it, we'll tax it!
Have you considered that Stonewall and the Government may be making children's lives worse than they need be and you might actually be encouraging more youngsters to take their own lives through the pressure of identifying with a certain sexuality at a stage in their lives when they are not equipped to cope with these issues?
Are you sure you know what you're doing? Do you get any information other than from Stonewall? I would like to know your other sources as this is so very serious.
We may be considered the Loony left for talking about this but then again the conservatives are happy to leave gay people out in the cold and have a long history of doing so. We must educate our children completely. we cannot allow taboo and blushes to deter a good education.
Then again we could always go with the idiotic conservative approach of bullying being character building.
Tell me to mind my own business if you like. It was just a thought.
Oh, and one other thing... "progressive politics" has brought this country to the point of bankruptcy. Time to get rid of Blinky and his friends.
Take Mr Balls. if things had gone the way him and his friend Gordon had wanted Balls would now be Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Perhaps Mr Balls might like to consider that many kids probably truant from school BECAUSE of bullying - including homophobia. That doesn't seem to play too much of a role, when we have his and other education spokespeople mithering on about truant kids and "feckless" parents.
Would he have been writing an article on personal abuse (including homophobia) in the City or Bank of England? I very much doubt it
Alan you raise a very serious issue here.
When I was working on a contract for KPMG I do not recall meeting anyone gay, but I do remember meeting a gay chap (who I went with to London Pride for the first time with all the staff) with a smaller investment company.
Well done
It may well be in a minority of cases that it is used in a derogatory way, but for the most part it is used in a good humoured way, there is nothing malicious about it. I was speaking to a gent the other day who has recently left education and he told me that something was 'sick'. I thought he didn't like what we were talking about, but he meant that it was good. Later he refered to something else as 'gay', he meant it was not to his liking. I only know this because I asked him. Could I respectfully suggest that before you label every school child as a bully or a bigot, you actually spend some time talking to these young people and learn a bit about how they communicate?
On the bullying issue, in the real world there are bullies, lots of them. If you don't equip a child or young person with a method of dealing with it they are going to have a very unhappy life when they leave school, and unfortunately the only way a child or young person learns how to deal with bullies is to actually experience bullying. I'm not suggesting you allow a child to be beaten to a pulp to teach them about bullying, but my first year in secondary education was spent drying my hair after spells of being dangled over toilets and various scuffles with pupils from all years. It wasn't pleasant but even at that age I knew that running to a teacher and crying about wasn't going to resolve the problem. I learned how to deal with it and because of that I can now deal with bullies in my adult life quite effectively.
Waste time and money trying to eliminate this 'prejudice' within schools, but what you end up with is a society of people in a generation or two who will be no more equipped to deal with the real world than someone who has been locked in a tower all of their life. Use of the word 'gay' does not automatically mean someone is homophobic and if you question a cross section of young people they have far less problem with homosexuality than many adults. It seems to me that you are creating problems.
Taking issue with children using the word gay in another context is the equivelant of me complaining because I can't wear the rainbow jumper I got for Christmas as people assume I am homosexual when I wear it.
Bullies. Yes I remember many at my old school they made our lives a living misery. In the end I failed because I ended up going into conflict with them one at a time. But at that age I did not have the social skills set I have now I am older. This does not detract from the fact that bullies are cowards and thier actions are bloody aweful. I have never and will never intimidate people because I do not agree with them or trhat thet are different.
It's a matter of conduct. This does not mean I respect everybody or that I am perfect, I'm not I just don't like groups mentally and physically oppressing others.
Should the term 'Paddy', 'Taffy' and 'Jock' be disallowed incase they offend? Or have they already been disallowed and I have just managed to offend a portion of the LL?
What is clear to me on all this 'political correctness gone mad' strands is that their is an element of self censorship and guilt from the people who make the loudest complaints. They feel their freedom of expression has been impinged, when in reality all that's happened is that other people are also deploying their own freedom of expression.
All I can say is that there is no right to freedom of expression free from criticism. In fact, I'd go further. Freedom of expression pretty much guarantees rebuke and criticism, and those who can't accept that don't really understand the concept at all.
Epithets certainly can be offensive - 'nigger' and 'wog', for example - but aren't always. Often it depends on their history and associations with persecution. There are various epithets for gay people, which vary in offensiveness, and which can certainly be used light-heartedly - 'fag', 'poof', 'queer', etc.
But insults are different. Using 'gay' as an insult - not necessarily to someone who is gay - says, essentially, that being gay is a negative thing. There's less room for light-heartedness there. I never knew of anyone at school with me using 'jock' as an *insult*, though they might refer to someone who was Scottish as Jock. I knew of plenty who used 'gay' as an insult though.
I've been looking up the meanings of the word gay and came across 'ghey' which seems to back up your argument that it is used as an insult. Gamers adapted the word to ghey to get around word filters so they could insult each other with the word, so in that context it is widely used as an insult and makes me wronger than a wrong person who is in fact wrong.
It is up to me what offends me and it takes my permission to be offended. There is no legal right not to be offended. Therefore I am free to call people whatever I choose. It is up to them whether they choose to be offended (and yes, it is a choice).
I find Noel Edmonds deeply offensive for example. Let's ban him.
I don't like it anymore than you do, but I find it odd that this libertarian argument about 'offence' is wheeled out when it comes to homophobic or racist statements, statements that have often led to direct violence (incitement to hatred, lynchings etc) and yet forgotten when it comes to defending the shibboleths of right wing thought.
But it's not entirely about why they're using it - it might, I suppose, be entirely good-natured. But if a gay teenager is struggling with coming to terms with their sexuality, and their friends keep referring to things as 'gay' when they mean they're crap, let alone using 'gay' as a standalone insult, which in my experience is more prevalent than you think, that's going to make it all the harder.
Look at the name calling and insults that are used here on the LL and many other blogs around the internet. Walk into any pub and strike up a conversation with people you've never met and chances are they will say something over a given period that you will find offensive. What do you do about it? Should I complain to Alex if Guy continues to call me a thief? Should I complain to the landlord of the public house because one of the customers cracks a joke about those of Germanic descent?
If young people don't gain a thicker skin in school, where exactly are they going to learn these vital life skills? And if they don't learn them, what happens when they get out into the big wide world and meet someone who is genuinely homophobic?
I think we will reach a point where homosexuality isn't percieved to be a major issue, we've come a long way since the days where it was against the law to be homosexual here in the UK. Being homosexual destroyed Alan Turing's career and arguably led to him taking his own life, and no doubt there are still instances of someone's sexuality destroying their career or leading them to commiting suicide. But will curbing playground insults or use of language between children stop that happening?
If anyone needed to see the level of irrelevance socialism has to the big issues facing the UK they need do little more than look at LL for a few minutes.
The biggest governmental bully Mr Balls will no doubt be sending the education police to every school, not to ask why so many can't read or write the word "gay" but why they are using it.
Start going overboard on the "no legal barriers to teachers discussing issues around sexual orientation in the classroom" and I'll pull my kids from the class. Certainly my kids grammar school don't get involved in this debate and rightly so.
Cheers Ed
PS by the way, you might want to talk to Lynne Featherstone MP about a little Email I have
http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/2009/01/old-holborn-please-help.htm
Parents are held in great respect and so are teachers by children because they are taught to do so. Family is the most important aspect of South korean life.
So as you can see Guy, children do not have to be beastly.
Not so in the UK under New Labour though.....
Kids were not respectful when I was at school twenty years ago.
Sorry, you're wrong. I know a number of now-retired teachers who taught at non-public schools between the 1950's and 1990's. There was a shift in attitudes during that period. In the 1950's British children from all backgrounds, in general, were polite, respectful well-behaved and excelled at the three R's. Parents overwhelmingly supported the teacher against their own children when they were punished or rebuked.
By the 1980's it was a fight to get kids to shut up or even turn up, and if you spoke too harshly there would be repercussions from indignant parents who, like their kids, believed "We don't need no education".
Please read what I write before taking my comments out of context.
I started school in the 1980's....
All forms of playground bullying are wrong, but they'll always occur as children search for a position in their classroom hierarchy. Yet to turn this into a politically correct thesis, based on Socialist doctrine, is something that only a New Labour Minister would gladly subscribe.
I have posted what I thought were challenging comments, or at least they were meant to be, but Richard's achievement here should not be gainsaid.
When I was PIC (Person in Charge) of the stage/Jubilee gardens in 1987 I could only get through to Edwina Curry. She was very nice, but not appear on the stage. Labour did send a message, and Chris Smith came through, but, thinking back to then, I have read LabourList this weekend with a kind of wonderment.
Some people here have criticised Peter Mandelson. I have to say he is not my favourite politician as per his policies [He is of course, for those who enjoy the game, the sheer master to watch - Dr. Who ought to recruit him.] But it is a tribute to the British political class that, led by Liberals (let's be fair here), then Labour, and now Cameron, that it has given up gay-baiting.
I think we have to be careful about putting people into boxes, especially putting young people at school into boxes with respect to sexuality. A minor may identify themselves one way now, another later, it doesn't only go one way. It is possible that future generations will be far more polysexual. I think sexuality is much broader than identity.