Teaching Jewish children to cure gays – is it legal?
Posted: February 19, 2012 | Author: Adam Wagner | | Tags: gay, jfs, jonah, theJC |3 Comments »
by Adam Wagner
Last month I posted on the serious issues raised by the Jewish Chronicle about JFS including reference to a sinister “gay cure” institute in a religious studies lesson. There have been a number of excellent follow-up posts, for example by David Yehuda Stern, Richard Verber and David Brown.
The story has prompted an important debate and in my opinion the response of JFS could have been more convincing, but as I suggested in my first post, this may have more to do with the inescapable strictures of Orthodox Judaism’s 3,000 year old perspective on homosexuality than a failure of the schools leadership.
I wondered at the time what the potential legal implications could be for JFS, but decided not to overcomplicate my post. Then, yesterday, The Observer reported an oddly similar story about Roman Catholic schools in Lancashire. Students in the schools have been given a booklet:”Pure Manhood: How to become the man God wants you to be” (you can probably tell where this is going), which
discusses a boy dealing with “homosexual attractions” which it suggested may “stem from an unhealthy relationship with his father, an inability to relate to other guys, or even sexual abuse”. The booklet, which claims that “scientifically speaking, safe sex is a joke”, explains that “the homosexual act is disordered, much like contraceptive sex between heterosexuals. Both acts are directed against God’s natural purpose for sex – babies and bonding.”
The booklet was given out after talks at schools across the Lancashire region. There are echoes here of the JFS case, in which the JONAH information was shown at or towards the end of a religious studies lesson.
The interesting thing about this more high-profile version of the JFS scandal is that Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has responded to a complaint with reference to the Equality Act 2010, an newish law which incorporates the formerly disconnected jigsaw of already existing discrimination rules. Mr Gove said:
The education provisions of the Equality Act 2010 which prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their protected characteristics (including their sexual orientation) do not extend to the content of the curriculum. Any materials used in sex and relationship education lessons, therefore, will not be subject to the discrimination provisions of the act.
This is clearly relevant to JFS, and I would hope that the post-JONAH investigation by the school included consultation with lawyers. Anyway, as I have posted on the UK Human Rights Blog, Mr Gove (at least in this one-paragraph quote) is wrong in his summary of schools’ duties under the Equality Act 2010. Any religious school assuming that “Any materials used in sex and relationship education lessons, therefore, will not be subject to the discrimination provisions of the act” could end up on the wrong end of a discrimination claim.
I have explained the legal position in more detail on the UKHRB blog, but in summary a school is permitted to teach about whatever subject it likes, so as not to inhibit it from teaching about a wide range of issues, including, it would seem, controversial views about homosexuality. However, the school must still ensure that those issues are not taught in a way which subjects pupils to discrimination.
It should not be a surprise to any teacher that schools never have a free hand to teach whatever they like however they like, whether or not a lesson happens to be in the context of religious studies It should certainly not be a surprise to the Education Secretary. It sounds like the burgeoning faith school sector and its champion Mr Gove could benefit from some extra homework on discrimination law.
[This post does not nor is it intended to constitute legal advice]
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Adam Wagner is a barrister practising in public, human rights and medical law. He edits the UK Human Rights Blog, and writes for guardian.co.uk. Twitter: adamwagner1“