All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 16, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
52:42
What do the Birmingham Anti-LGBT Muslim Protesters Want？
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey folks, I've travelled up to Birmingham to interview Amir regarding the anti-LGBT ideology protests at the local schools here regarding the No Outsiders programme.
Amir, how are you doing?
I'm fine, thank you.
Good.
Right, so would you like to introduce people as to who you are, why you're involved with this and what's happened up until now?
Yeah, I mean earlier on this year, around January time, two mums felt that at Parkfield School, this is Parkfield School in Birmingham, felt that the school was pushing a sexual and gender ideology very aggressively.
And they approached the school to ask them that this was against their traditional family values and if they would consider the children's background and the community's ethos in devising this curriculum called No Outsiders that Andrew Moffat, an openly gay teacher at Parkfield School, had introduced.
The school were not listening and then the mums, I had already dealt with the No Outsiders programme at my son's primary school nearby, where they had sent a notice to parents saying that they were going to implement this program and this was before Christmas.
I spoke to the head teacher and the deputy head there after having read through Andrew Moffat's curriculum that he calls No Outsiders and I found that it was very much pro a sexualizing children basically.
It was introducing them to same-sex relationships and transgender introducing children to transgender a transgender ideology.
But the head teacher and the deputy head had heard that five other schools were introducing this program and I think just to gain brownie points with Ofsted, they wanted to introduce it as well.
And they were pushing it on me saying that this is the law, this is the Equality Act 2010, we have to do it, by law we have to do it.
But they didn't really know anything about the law and they were only from hearsay they were repeating what they had heard from other head teachers.
And anyway they wouldn't accept it.
They said that we are going to do this.
And I said if you will carry on and introduce this No Outsiders programme at Nansen School, I will run a campaign informing the parents and I think you will find a lot of parents will not accept this.
It goes against their values.
Then after Christmas in the new year they sent a notice to parents saying that they were not going to implement it.
And then it's a little after that that the mums at Parkfield School approached me and said if I could help them.
So that's how I got into the campaign.
Right, okay, because we've got some of the books here and I find them very interesting because this to me looks like a book for a very young child.
My son's about four years old and this looks like the sort of books that I take him through.
This one being about two gay penguins who are given an egg and have a small baby penguin of their own.
Well in fact it turns out they're not gay penguins.
End up after having hatched this egg, which is a true story, by the way.
Yeah, they say at the back that it's a true story, don't they?
Yeah, that the zookeeper found these male penguins huddling together and decided to give them an egg to hatch.
And after the egg hatched, they went their own ways and joined up with female penguins and did what is their sort of natural course of things.
But the story, the incident has been taken up by the author to sort of illustrate to young children from the age of four that you can have gay relationships and same-sex relationships.
But of course, children at this age, they're quite innocent.
They don't understand what sexual relationship is.
So to them, this is appears.
I mean, to adults, in fact, it's a very harmless book.
It's quite innocuous.
But to young children, you're planting an idea in their mind that two male individuals can live together and be parents.
And then I think you will find that even in the lesson plans for this book, that that is also discussed.
So it's an introduction to young children to a sexual ideology.
I had to read through it, and it's hard to frame it in a way that's not advocacy.
It is very much with the purpose of introducing the idea of gay relationships to children who are very young, which, I mean, I personally don't think that this is appropriate for that age group.
Regardless of how you feel about the morality of homosexual relationships, I think that that sort of four or five years old, that is just not something they need to know about.
And it's not something that concerns them.
Well, that's what I mean.
We get very often I'm told by LGBT members when I speak to them that, look, this doesn't make the children gay.
That's absolutely right.
It doesn't make them gay, but you're influencing their thinking and you're breaking down those moral barriers.
And it is designed to do that.
And that's exactly what the parents are opposed to.
We don't want you to break down these moral barriers.
And in a conservative community, sexuality is actually something that is very, it's treated with a great deal of modesty or chastity, if you like.
And you will, in our households, we don't even talk about heterosexual relationships.
Right.
So, in the sense of sexuality, because children, one, they don't appreciate what a sexual relationship is, in its significance, and what it means to have a sexual relationship, the commitment and all of that, the responsibilities.
They're too young to understand that.
So this is why it's an inappropriate age to introduce that sort of thing to them.
I mean, what they also tend to say at the school is that, oh, there may be some gay children in school.
But again, that is treating children with respect and tolerating any differences that children may have between them.
That's nothing to do with sexuality at this age.
I don't think you can really say they're a gay or heterosexual person.
No, you can't.
I think that's before the idea of sexuality has entered their minds.
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't think they have any concept of that.
No, no, that's right.
I mean, the typical thing that a child perhaps might say is, oh, you're gay, in a derogatory manner.
But that's bullying.
And that'd be addressed.
That's colloquialism, that's it.
That's colloquialism.
Exactly.
It's not because the child is gay.
Yeah, it's not an address of their actual sexuality.
That's right.
And even then, that's older than what this book is aiming at.
I mean, a four or five-year-old doesn't run around yelling at people.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, it is.
So it is, you know, it's very clear from Andrew Moffitt's thinking, and he explains this in his book that he is trying to push this as an accept to do as an acceptable sexual relationship.
But to do that to young children, that is just inappropriate.
It's an inappropriate age.
They don't know what sexuality is.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that they don't know what sexuality is.
And I do think that it's inappropriate to start putting these ideas in their head.
Children are influenced by the world around them anyway.
So if they were to see homosexual couples, if they lived in a liberal area that was, you know, that had homosexual couples, they'd be used to it by just seeing it themselves.
You don't need to teach them this.
But the one that I find most concerning, though, is this one, My Princess Boy, which is essentially an autobiographical account of Cheryl Killer Davis, where the boy is essentially encouraged to be transgender.
And it's encouraged that other people around them accept them as transgender.
Now, looking at this, I'd say it's probably aimed at about eight or nine-year-olds.
Although it could be younger than that.
When he was younger, the incident at Anderton Park School, the child was younger, I think around seven.
Really?
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's got just affirmations like a princess boy can wear pink and I will tell him how pretty it looks.
So erasing the very idea of a gender role seems to be the purpose of this.
A princess boy can play with me in pretty girl clothes and I will still play with him.
So it seems to be full-on advocacy of transgenderism.
Is that how you'd counterize it?
Yes, absolutely.
It is full-on.
They are basically pushing a gender identity ideology on children.
Obviously, in a child friendly way.
I mean, to adults, see, a lot of parents in our community would consider these books as innocuous.
It doesn't make any difference.
But to young children, it does make a difference and it's designed for them.
And it is children have come back home saying, oh, mum, I can be, you know, boys have come back saying, oh, I can be a girl.
And girls have come home saying that they can be a boy.
And they dress appropriately.
and these are children of very young age as well yes so it's it i mean this these these books are obviously highly ideological um They're obviously a product of LGBT ideology.
You wouldn't get any other movement producing books like this.
That's right, yeah.
And they're not safeguarding any children who may have a tendency towards being gay or being transgender.
I don't think that these books safeguard them at all in terms of bullying.
Bullying is an issue that is dealt with purely from being kind and caring to other individuals.
So it's irrespective of what colour creed or orientation, sexual orientation they may be.
And that is being dealt with at schools as a matter of norm.
So, you know, where do these books fit in?
They really, I can't see how they fit in the curriculum in terms of government guidelines, except to say that they are just pushing an ideology.
I mean, this is something that I've been very concerned about recently because the whole purpose behind the ideology is effectively to encourage those people who are closeted, say, like, you know, who are not prepared to embrace their transgenderism at a young age into this kind of method of thinking.
So they take puberty blockers and then go on to transition.
And we've seen a massive spike of children doing this in the United Kingdom.
And on the other side of that process are a growing number of people who really regret having gone through the surgery.
There's a website called, I think it's My Sex Change Regrets, I think it's called, where people just email in explaining what their life is like after they've been through the surgery.
And it's quite harrowing reading, to be honest.
It's very, very disconcerting.
And I find it very, very concerning that this sort of thing is being marketed to children at the sort of age of like seven or eight years old that you're saying.
I mean, the books promoting homosexual relationships, I find less troublesome because that's not a life-changing view.
young person could say well maybe I am this way experiment and find they are aren't that way and then carry on their lives as normal but when it comes to the the issue of transgenderism I've that's the one I find most concerning because that's a yeah I mean that's it's genuinely scary how untested this is The drugs are not tested, they're being given to children, and the surgery is irreversible.
And it really, I mean, it turns the person into a eunuch.
So it's genuinely one of those things that, I mean, the other stuff I could probably tolerate, but I think that the transgender stuff being pushed towards children is definitely intolerable.
And I think it's irresponsible to encourage children to be confused in this way, especially at that age.
I mean, they may already be quite confused, and they need a time to mature their thoughts and how they feel.
And just to sort of jump in and take over the child's life and their judgment, I think it's just to be responsible.
It's brutal, really.
And I'm not a particularly socially conservative person, but I would definitely say this is too far.
I would not let this be taught to my son.
So what's the response from the authorities been like regarding your protests and your objection to no outsiders?
Well, you see, I think the problem that, I mean, Anderson Park is a local authority school.
Parkfield Community School is an academy.
So we've had the DFE, the Department of Education at Parkfield School, they did get involved in the mediation between the parents and the school.
But it seems that the LGBT lobby is so powerful that these mediations were pretty meaningless.
I mean, there was no meaningful conversation that took place between the parents and the school.
And I think that is primarily because of the school's intent.
They had no intention of changing the programme or listening to the parents' concerns With a view to sort of try and reconcile the issue.
And the mediations at Parkfield School basically failed.
After four months of mediation, they failed.
The mediations ended.
And now, and this was towards the end of the summer term.
So coming back into the new year, I think the new academic year, the school will find that a lot of parents, because the parents at Parkfield School, they've gone through a lot.
They did a petition, they wrote complaints, letters, they withdrew children on one day.
About 600 children were withdrawn from the school as a protest.
Then they had protests outside the school on multiple occasions.
I think it was over a period of about six or eight weeks.
And I saw that Jess Phillips had come down to engage with the protesters.
Yeah, well, that was at Anderton Park.
So when Parkfield School entered into mediation, just around that time, Anderson Park started protesting.
But what I'm explaining at Parkfield School is that the parents went through so much, and at the end of it, the mediations failed.
And so now, coming back, when parents, I mean, a lot of parents are withdrawing their children from the school entirely.
They try and move their children to other schools or homeschooling them.
So Parkfield School will find in the new academic year in September that they will be losing a lot of pupils.
I mean, it could almost be a it could potentially be a ghost school.
Sorry to interrupt though.
So I'm curious.
So when it came to the mediations, what were the requests from the parents?
Were they just stopped teaching this altogether or they wait till they're older or what?
I think that there was, well, certainly all the parents didn't want it taught at a young age.
So before the age of seven.
That's a fair request, in my opinion.
And I say this is a secular liberal atheist, not a conservative Islamic person.
I think that's a perfectly fair request.
I think the parents have been very fair, actually, in fact, throughout this.
And a lot of the parents found that it was more acceptable in year six towards the latter part of the year.
What age is that for anybody who's not aware?
What age is year six?
So year six is around to 10, 11.
Yeah.
That's their last year at primary school.
So towards the end of their primary schooling, when they're more mature, basically, that was acceptable to quite a number of parents.
But certainly at the young age, that was universal that parents didn't want it at that age.
I think it's just inappropriate.
Again, you're ascribing a sexual dimension to beings that I think are fundamentally asexual.
I don't think children are sexual at that age.
And I think that approaching them, because I mean, you can't remove the sexual nature of what you're describing here from the material.
It is about sexual relationships.
Yeah, yeah, but see, at that age, you know, you find that most boys will have their best friend will be another boy.
And most girls, their best friend will be another girl.
And then when you're teaching them that, look, you can, you know, two men can live together and two women can live together.
You can have a mum and a mum and a dad and a dad.
And you can have these same sex relationships.
I wouldn't say necessarily it's confusing, but you are actually pushing them towards a line of thinking that they don't hold.
That they don't hold.
I would say it's corrupting it almost because, I mean, yeah, my son is the same.
I mean, when his best friend isn't his dog, it's one of the other children in the street.
But there's no implication of a relationship like this.
There's nothing like that implied in anything he says regarding his friends from school or wherever.
That's right.
It's obviously wrong.
I mean, we get criticized a lot saying that, look, these books are only teaching that these people exist, that gay and individuals exist.
But to a child, to young children, all people exist.
They exist as people, as human beings.
There's no sexuality involved in it for them.
And so this element of sexuality is being introduced.
At home, you take for granted your parents, whatever sexuality that may be.
And that's the norm to you.
So it should be left at that.
So whether that in fact is same-sex appearance or it's a mother and a father, the school should leave it at that, whatever the child's experience is at home, rather than pushing normativity in a different direction for the child.
Yeah, I can't help but agree because I just don't see any of this being the school's responsibility.
That's my concern.
And there seems to, and this was something we should probably come on to.
There seems to be a general attitude from people, and I specifically mean people like Jess Phillips, in fact, socialist, feminist, intersectional left-winger types who believe genuinely that the school or the state owns the children.
And they seem to genuinely have this opinion.
And in fact, she was protesting at 10 Downing Street, leaving her son there in demand that the state takes her child for more of the week than they already do because she wanted, you know, for whatever reason.
But the implicit assumption in the demand was that the state has a responsibility to care for your children.
And that implicitly implies that the state owns your children.
They're the responsibility of the state.
And I don't think that's true.
I think the state, the children belong to the parents.
Absolutely, yes.
See, we've been, one thing that we've been fighting for in this campaign is for parental rights.
There is a stated, you know, we have enshrined in law, parents have a right over their children's education.
And I can't see how the state can trump that.
It's a very basic, you know, for every parent, their most dearest possessions are their children.
They're the most beloved thing to them.
And for the state to say that, look, we have a greater right over your children's education than the parents, that just doesn't follow.
But that is precisely what they're insisting with the LGBT equality legislation, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
And like you say, that does actually conflict with our existing laws that you own your children and it's your discretion how they're educated.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that in fact has, you know, right from the beginning when we had state schools started after the Second World War, it started off in the Education Act 1944.
And it says very explicitly in there that the children should be educated in accordance with the wishes of the parents.
I mean, so it's very clear that it's the parents that are being given, parents trump The right over the children's education as opposed to the state.
Well, they have to because it's the only way to preserve liberty, really.
I mean, the thing that I'm genuinely concerned about is the encroachment of the state into people's private lives.
And all I see is this as being a massive expansion of, honestly, state influence where it's not warranted.
I do think this should be a local and sort of community-managed affair.
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, in fact, I think every community around Britain, in fact, children are educated best in a school that reflects the community's ethos.
And that's how it should be around, you know, everywhere around Britain.
That the values that the community holds are reflected in the school.
And this is called, I mean, Parkfield School is called Parkfield Community School, but it has very little respect for the local community.
So I suppose it's worth talking about the conflicts of values then.
Because, I mean, when we say it's conservative, I mean, we're talking Islamic aren't we?
Yes.
Well, we are, although, you know, in my involvement in the campaign, I've not really bought religion into it at all.
Because, you know, even if you're an atheist, you would share the same moral, you could share the same moral values and same family values as I have, and as do the parents in this community.
So you're coming at it from a secular angle then?
Because everything that you've said to me in our conversation here and around it, I mean, you've never invoked the Quran or anything.
You've been invoking British law and the idea of the separation between the state and society, which are things I think are perfectly reasonable requests.
Well, yeah, because you see, on moral grounds and on family values, conservative, traditional family values, you could be of any religion or of no religion and hold those family values.
I mean, just like yourself, you mentioned that you don't have any particular faith values, but you've shared the same sort of family values as I've spoken about.
Well, yeah, I mean, I completely agree that children aren't sexual beings and so shouldn't be sexualized in these ways.
And it's hard to think of a person outside of the radical left that would disagree with that.
I mean, almost any kind of faith community or just parental community, community of, you know, even if they're secular parents, surely they'd share that kind of value just because it's the experience of children that everyone can see.
Well, yeah, I mean, you say, in fact, the radical left are the ones who have caused this to come about, this contention that we have here.
And they feel, it is extremist, I would say.
In fact, the way the left have behaved in this campaign and the LGBT community, it is extreme.
They've taken parents at Anderton Park School, they've taken them to the High Court.
Parents here at Parkfield School, after the mediations, they had police sent to their houses and they banned four of the mums that were instrumental in the mediations were banned from the school.
And what reason were they banned from the school?
They were banned because after the mediation, the school called meetings, general meetings where parents could come and attend.
I think they were divided into the school years and to introduce the new material, the curriculum.
And in those meetings, the school were practically, you know, they were being quite deceitful and dishonest with the parents.
And these four months spoke out and said, look, that's not how it was.
And this is not true.
And because they spoke out in those meetings, they were banned.
Right, okay.
On the guys that they were being disruptive, but they were not being disruptive at all.
It was purely prejudice and bias.
I don't want to just agree, but I can completely believe that that's the case.
I've seen these activists at work many times.
It's one of the things that's the reason I'm here is because I'm familiar with these people, you know.
Well, I mean, I suppose I accept that you don't know the facts, but just to say that they were banned and they were banned on no grounds of, say, on violence or intimidation or harassment, there was none there.
I think in one of the meetings, the police were present as well.
But it's just an extreme reaction that the school should have towards the parents.
It is just quite unbelievable.
I find it really interesting how they're so insistent in teaching children of such a young age about this kind of thing.
Because all I think about is, well, I wasn't taught about this when I was four or five, and I grew up to be a tolerant and understanding person of these things.
And is there any particular reason that if we don't teach our children these things, we will not be tolerant or understanding of these things.
And I just don't see why we should backslide in such a way.
I think that it's understood that there are gay people, there are transgender people, and that's their lives.
That's exactly what I've, you know, I've been giving my own example that I've never been disrespectful, whether it's been in this campaign or previously in any part of my life, been derogatory towards the LGBT community.
I've never done that.
And whenever I've met any members of any individuals who are LGBT, it's always with respect and dignity that I've dealt with with them.
And that's because of the way I was brought up and the way we were educated.
So we didn't have no outsiders' programs or programs or anything like that at that time.
Yeah, in our generation, we were lucky enough to not have that imposed on us, aren't we?
Okay, so what do you think you should do going forward?
Well, I mean, we have got a change in government.
And I hope that the new government is a more listening government as far as parents are concerned.
And they don't just give in to the LGBT lobby.
I mean, we are going to carry on the campaign into September, into autumn, and the campaign will widen here in Birmingham because the issue hasn't disappeared.
And we will be approaching government a lot more.
And we are fighting a legal case with Birmingham City Council regarding the ban that they've imposed at Anderson Park School.
The hearing for that is middle of October.
So that's going to be tackled.
But Basically, the fight is going to continue and it's going to widen.
Our support is growing.
It's never actually, it's been growing for the past six months.
It's not just here in Birmingham.
I mean, we've had groups in Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Nottingham, London.
There are groups cropping up all over the country.
Why do you think there's such little opposition to the LGBT movement, or at least their activists in this regard?
Because one of the things I've noticed is in many different walks of life, these activist groups find themselves in opposition to organized groups that already exist, essentially infringing on their right to act as they please.
And the LGBT group always seems to win.
Why do you think that is?
I think that they're politically very powerful now, these groups.
I think after Tony Blair's government, well, so not after, but when Tony Blair came into power, became prime minister, in his government, he had a number of LGBT individuals in his government.
And then you had the legalizing, I think, of gay relationships and gay marriages.
And over the course of the last two, three decades, they've gained a lot of political influence.
And this is very evident here in Birmingham with the fact that the people who have taken us to court are Birmingham City Council.
And Birmingham City Council have a very strong, it's a Labour-led council, and Labour have a very strong LGBT lobby.
And they are very vindictive.
I mean, we've had a psychiatrist called Dr. Kate Godfrey Fawcett, who was going around the country giving lectures on seminars on SRE.
And the secular society, I believe, were instrumental in having her suspended.
So they're very vindictive.
And I think a lot of people in the civil service and in local government and in central government are in fact quite afraid to speak out in case they may lose their job.
This was actually reported in The Guardian of all places, which is usually very friendly to this kind of radical left ideology.
What's the name of the transgender unit?
There's a unit of the NHS, there's one in England that deals with transgenderism.
Tavistock.
That's it, Tavistock, yes.
Yeah, and one of the managers of that has spoken out against this kind of left-wing bullying, as far as that's how I would describe it, where people were being afraid of being called transphobes for speaking out against the push of this on children.
And he was concerned that there was a lot of a great number of safeguards and checks that should be made that were not being made in order to further push children through the pipeline.
And this is something that even The Guardian has had to report because it seems to be the case.
And so when you say they're vindictive, I can completely believe it.
And it seems that we've got lots of evidence to suggest that in other areas they do the same thing.
And I think this is a very concerning thing because it's the public response or the social media response, really, it's not even the public response to these sort of allegations is always overwhelmingly loud and influential from the left.
And I find it very concerning that they're able to gain such control over the system and intimidate people in the system who have an ethical duty to speak out against this kind of stuff.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I mean, this is very worrying.
Actually, it's a threat, in a sense, it's a threat to our freedoms.
And democracy doesn't work like that.
Because if you don't have the ability to have that check and balance between state and the public, then democracy effectively fails.
And the civil service, for a very long time, I've always considered our civil service a body that safeguards something in between the government, the politicians, and the interests of the public.
But where you have civil servants who feel threatened, that their job may be threatened, then they can't play that sort of role where they're safeguarding the public from a push by politicians to influence in this sort of way that we've seen here with LGBT lobbying.
Yeah, I mean, the concern for the civil service is they're meant to be politically impartial.
Yes, that's where their good reputation came from, is the idea that they were politically impartial.
Like you say, they were serving the interests of a neutral system.
But as you say, this is a political issue.
Whether they want to acknowledge that or not, there's no question that it's a political issue.
And the activists who write these books will tell you this is political.
So we may as well accept them at their word that they're doing this for political reasons.
And if people in the civil service are being intimidated into silence, then essentially they're going along with that political agenda, whether they should or shouldn't.
So what we're looking at is the corruption of the civil service by these people.
It is, yeah, absolutely.
It is a very blatant corruption.
It's a bias and prejudice at the highest level, in fact.
And it's not good for British society.
It's not good for our democracy.
And I think this is why it's probably even more important that although we parents here are fighting for their children, for the well-being of their children, but it is actually the well-being of British society as a whole.
And I think a point that we haven't really sort of touched on is the nuclear family itself.
There has been an erosion of the nuclear family over the past several decades.
And this is just sort of putting a government stamp on it.
It's sort of hammering it in.
And there are serious consequences for our society if you carry on eroding the nuclear family.
I completely agree.
I think it's well documented in psychological literature that children who come from broken homes tend to have psychological problems.
They've got, I mean, even physical problems, they're less healthy and they've got lower IQs, they've got less opportunities in life, they're less emotionally stable.
There is a huge list of things that affect children if they are brought up in broken homes.
And it is, in my opinion, again, irresponsible for the government to be encouraging that.
And like you say, it seems to be putting a stamp on that, the government's seal of approval, that the nuclear family can be effectively ignored.
But that's always been the building block of civilization.
That's where it begins.
And I completely agree with you that it's very concerning that the government seems to be okay with that going, becoming a thing of the past.
I think that we're not prepared to deal with the fallout from that, frankly.
Yeah, and I think people are not being able to make a free choice because of this, the politicizing of this issue.
Parents are not fully informed.
I think that a lot of schools are Ofsted is pushing this heavily.
And a lot of schools don't feel free to sort of speak out against it or to inform their parents exactly what is happening.
And this agenda is being pushed in a very surreptitious manner.
Agreed.
Because one argument that, for example, Sarah Hewitt Clarkson at Anderson Park says that, oh, I've been teaching this for many years.
Parents haven't protested.
is just, you know, a small number of radical parents.
Well, actually what she has been doing is- Radical parents?
That's a funny term.
It's not a small number of parents and they're not radical either.
Yeah.
What she has been doing is she has been deliberately hiding, teaching this in a surreptitious manner, and so is Andrew Moffitt, where parents were not fully aware of what was being taught.
And those parents who complained would have the Equality Act slapped on them, saying that, oh, this is the law, we have to do it.
Whereas that's an absolute, that's deceitful and dishonest.
It is not the law for them to teach that.
There's nowhere in the education guidelines does it say that you have to teach the Equality Act 2010.
So that was basically, they were using that as a stick to quieten parents down.
So it has been done in a surreptitious manner.
And the worst thing is as well, it's so aggressive.
And again, I'm not intimately familiar with the details of necessarily this case, but I've seen it in other spheres of life, other communities, other activities, where the intersectional sort of LGBT ideology lobby have come in very aggressively.
And I mean, effectively, they seem to want to run democracy by coercion.
And like you say, I really do think that that is the main problem.
I don't even, like, you know, the age I oppose, but I mean, you know, I'm not against children being aware that this is an aspect of life.
But it's the method by which it's being done that I just can't stand.
It's like nails on a chalkboard.
You know, you shouldn't be intimidating people in the civil service or in the schools to not speak out.
It's obviously harmful to democracy, like you say.
Yes, absolutely.
It is.
I mean, they're not coming to an arrangement where both sides are happy.
That would be a natural sort of thing, you discuss things and each side would put forward their opinion and you try and work out something that is in the middle and something that everyone is having.
A compromise.
A compromise, an accommodation, a sort of reconciliation of the differences.
And just to be clear, I think that if the parents are saying, well, look, we don't want it in primary school, but we're happy with you teaching this in secondary school, I think that's a fair compromise.
I think when they're sort of like 11 or 12 or something, when they're starting to go through puberty, maybe they do need to know this kind of thing.
But definitely not at the earlier ages.
That's right, yeah, absolutely.
I think it was a fair request from the parents.
And it seems unreasonable for the schools to not at least even listen to that.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, and it's because in fact, see, when you start being deceitful and dishonest, then you try and do all sorts of things, gymnastics, to try and hide that, right?
And this is what I think is happening, has happened here.
And because they're a more powerful lobby than the parents, they are getting away with it, in fact.
So, one of the things that went viral at these protests was the clip of a Muslim man on a truck saying you can't be gay and a Muslim.
So, while I completely agree and appreciate your very reasonable perspective on this, I feel that he might have a slightly less reasonable perspective and maybe a more ideological opinion of his own.
What do you make of that protester?
Well, okay, I'm not asking you to answer for him, but like, how does he fit into the scheme that you're yeah?
No, I mean, that was at Parkfield School, I think you're referring to.
One of the protesters, what he was referring to was that Andrew Moffat was telling children here at Parkfield School that they can be gay and Muslim.
Now, that is not for Andrew Moffat to say that.
I agree, yeah.
And for him to interpret Muslim scriptures or the jurisprudence and say that, look, that's his religious opinion, that is just wrong.
And that is what, in fact, that was his contention in what he said, that Andrew Moffat, we have a term for a religious scholar called Mufti, and it rhymes with Moffat.
And he said, Moffat can't be a Mufti in that he can't be, you know, he doesn't have the qualification to make that judgment.
And also, that's something for the parents to teach their children or decide upon.
And in fact, to be honest, as far as the rights and wrongs of being gay from a religious perspective are concerned, I have never entered into that in this campaign because that's altogether another debate.
And as far as I'm concerned, if a Muslim wants to be gay, he can be gay.
And those who believe that that's not right, they can have that view, but they can both tolerate each other.
I mean, what is important is that we respect each other as human beings and we tolerate our differences.
And that doesn't matter whether it's within a religious set within Islam or it's outside a religious context.
Are you concerned about these people hijacking your legitimate concerns with sort of hardline religious views or anything like that?
No, no, not at all.
In fact, you see, because as I said, I've campaigned now at probably over 10 schools.
And you have people with different varying views on this from a religious perspective.
But I've always never engaged in the religious debate on it.
People, I mean, the general view is that it's one of our traditional family values where you have a mum and a dad in the house.
And that's as far as I've left, I've left it.
So our campaign isn't going to, no, we have kept religion, practically we've kept religion out of it, to be honest.
Right, okay.
I think that's sensible.
And I think dissuading any kind of highly religious proselytizers at these gatherings and protests, I think that's probably wise.
I think these people essentially provide ammo to those in the radical left who will say, see, the only objection is oppressive theocratic dogma and therefore.
Whereas from what we've discussed, I'm in complete agreement with what you've laid out here.
This is inappropriate for children of this age.
As a parent, I think that's the case, regardless of any kind of religious ideology or anything like that.
I think that that's something to be concerned about because I'll gain the attention.
I think they will say that anyway.
The far left will say that anyway.
Because back in early February, when Fatima and Mariam spoke out in the media that they didn't want their children taught given this education, and they called them, oh, these are homophobic mums.
And so they will label that.
And I don't know if they did make any reference that they were Islamic hardliners.
But actually, we haven't had too much on that said in the media that these are Islamic hardliners or anything like that, because we haven't been.
But we have been referred to as homophobic, and that's only because we disagree on a moral ground, not because there's any disrespect or lack of tolerance.
In fact, Andrew Moffat, he's been there as an openly gay teacher for many years now at Parfield School.
He has been treated with equal respect just as any other teacher has been treated in the school.
So the tolerance is certainly there.
And in fact, Andrew Moffat says in his book on No Outsiders, he describes that there is no more homophobia in schools.
Now what we want is acceptance.
So we've gone past the stage.
So we've gone from tolerance to tolerance, that's right.
Now we want it to be acknowledged and affirmed and celebrated.
And that is the contention actually that parents have that he has no right to sort of be pushing this on the basis of celebration and affirmation.
And when he says that he's teaching the Equality Act, that belies his intentions.
He says that in his book, he's being quite deceitful.
And this is not saying this lightly.
He's pushed his ideology so aggressively that it's gone far beyond being respectful and tolerant.
And yet he uses the Equality Act to say that it's the law, we have to teach this.
That is being deceitful because the Equality Act does end at being respectful and tolerant.
It does not determine our values.
People around Britain can have any value that they wish, but we have to respect and tolerate each other.
And that's the extent of the Equality Act.
And then to use the Equality Act to push this sort of affirmation and celebration.
That's wrong.
Yeah.
I completely agree.
I mean, the value shouldn't come from law anyway.
Value should inform law, in my opinion.
But right, okay, well, Amir, good luck in the protests.
Thank you very much.
I've got no doubt that I'll come down and see you and interview some people when you're doing them because I think there are many other interested groups of people who would like to essentially support your cause, trying to push this kind of agenda back somewhat because it seems to have gone far too far.
Well, you know, actually, Carl, I think what I'm finding is that we do live in a very secular society and a very sexually liberal society as well.
though there are it seems to be it's a growingly smaller number of of our of our society that uh hold to those you know traditional family values yeah and and uh and i think uh uh it's and what i have found is that it seems the far right have more uh uh people who
I mean, these labels aside, but I'm referring to people who are media will label far right.
The people who media will be labeled.
Absolutely.
They do hold the same family values as us.
And we do want to reach out to them.
Because on this issue, we are on exactly the same page.
And it is in our interests actually to reach out to each other and try and safeguard these values that seem to be under deliberate attack.
There's no question of it.
They openly wish to do damage to the nuclear family.
And they're very clear about that.
Yeah, they are.
Actually, they are clear about it.
It's only clear, actually, for those who search for this.
But in the media, it's not.
They are pumping a completely different narrative.
They have wonderful PR, don't they?
Yeah.
Completely biased and prejudice.
Yeah, of course it is.
But it is amazing PR from their perspective.
From their perspective, anyway.
▲
Export Selection