When Mr and Mrs Farrugia found that the sex education that was being taught to their 10-year-old daughter at school went against their beliefs, they asked that their daughter not participate in these lessons. As is their right under the law. Furthermore, since that which was being taught had been done so without their permission or prior knowledge, they went public to ensure that other parents were aware of the issues.
As it turns out this issue did worry other parents. Parents wanted to be informed of what was being taught to their children and didn’t want it imposed without their consultation or consent. In just 48 hours, the Exodus TV programme that covered the story and short videos by the parents on social media had 150,000 hits.
The Minister of Education should have intervened to ensure that these parents – and indeed all parents – were informed of the issue and gave their consent. Instead the ministry had kept the books and curriculum secret, even from classroom teachers, and once exposed the ministry instigated a grim smear campaign directed at the parents that had raised the alarm. The intention was to protect the minister and detract attention from the ministry’s handling of this matter.
The secrecy and smear campaign was not there to protect the children or ensure the legal rights of parents.
State-controlled media was used to ridicule the parents and spread lies about their action, motives and character. A teacher’s union was coopted to report the parents to the police. Naturally, the police found nothing wrong, but the intimidation tactics that these parents have had to endure shows how little the legal rights of individuals count for and to what length the government will go to protect its own. And, all the parents wanted was to claim their legal right to protect their daughter from something they deemed harmful and to speak their mind in public.
Stephen Camilleri, the bureaucrat at the Ministry of Education who co-authored the workbook(s), has been doing the rounds on State-controlled TV. This merits comment since it attempts to justify the ministry’s position with wrongheaded utilitarian arguments. Camilleri argues, without providing evidence, that their approach ‘saved’ victims of child sexual abuse. But he does not pause to consider if the entire package of teaching 10-year-old children about wet dreams and masturbation and (later) how to wear condoms is necessary to reach that goal.
Nor does he pause to consider if a school is the right place to teach children how to react if someone touches them, or to consider the damage it could do to families to teach children to be suspicious of their uncles. A true utilitarian argument would also weigh the damage done by instilling suspicion of our religious institutions and relatives that in the overwhelming number of cases is both misplaced and harmful.
But, even if every argument in Camilleri’s article is correct – and they aren’t – the law is not based on a utilitarian approach. The Minister of Education’s unbalanced utilitarianism does not trump the legal rights of parents. Or, to put it differently, just because the government has a strong ideological conviction it cannot take away the legal rights of citizens without changing the law. The minister, the ministry officials and the employees of the school are all bound by the law.
Section 6 of the Education Act is clear about the duty owed by educators and the State to parents. It says: “It is the right of every parent of a minor to give his decision with regard to any matter concerning the education which a minor is to receive.” This section is linked to our legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Protocol 1, article 2 of the ECHR states: “In the exercise of any functions, which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”
Thus, schools are under a legal requirement to respect the parents’ religious or philosophical worldview. And it is the duty of the Minister of Education to ensure that the schools act in accordance with the law. This same requirement, in nearly identical language, has also been ratified by Malta in no less than five other international treaties. It is this law and these obligations that schools violate when they seek to keep their teachings regarding sexual orientation and gender issues secret from parents (and classroom teachers) and consciously avoid ensuring the consent of the parents. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly held that “it is in the discharge of a natural duty towards their children parents being primarily responsible for the ‘education and teaching’ of their children that parents may require the State to respect their religious and philosophical convictions. Their right thus corresponds to a responsibility closely linked to the enjoyment and the exercise of the right to education.” The court has also held that “a balance must be achieved which ensures the fair and proper treatment of minorities and avoids any abuse of a dominant position”.
It is clear to all that exposing pupils, particularly young pupils, to LGBT campaigning materials would worry some parents. If the ministry didn’t think it would, there would be no reason to keep the material secret
The Ministry of Education, as well as individual schools, being the organisers of the curriculum, are therefore prohibited from abusing their position to force a specific view on sexuality, gender or family on children if the parents object. And keeping the teaching secret is to abuse that position. The court has stated that “the second sentence of article 2 (P1-2) implies on the other hand that the State, in fulfilling the functions assumed by it in regard to education and teaching, must take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner.
The State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. Article 2 of Protocol 1 does not permit a distinction to be drawn between subjects and other school activities. It enjoins all schools to respect parents’ convictions, be they religious or philosophical, in all educational activities. That duty is broad and implies a positive obligation on the part of the school to ensure that parents’ wishes are duly taken into account.
It is clear to all that exposing pupils, particularly young pupils, to LGBT campaigning materials would worry some parents. If the ministry didn’t think it would, there would be no reason to keep the material secret. The material that has been developed, and is being taught in our schools, is in conformity, with the State’s LGBTIQ Action Plan. This Action Plan seeks to impose cross-sectional gender analysis on all segments of the population including school children. This is an extreme ideological position.
Even if Alleanza Bidla fundamentally disagrees with these extreme LGBTIQ views, we recognise that it is legitimate for the PL and government to hold them. But what is not legitimate is to use an ideological product like the Action Plan to undermine the legal rights of parents. The Action Plan does not trump the law and international obligations. If the government want to force these inappropriate teachings on young children under the pretence of promoting equality, the government will have to change the law and leave the conventions.
It is parents that determine what teachings go against their beliefs and are within their rights to reject teachings which they deem harmful. Parents that do not want their children taught that the biological sex isn’t a true marker of gender can ask that their children not be taught that. Parents that don’t want their children exposed to the promotion of alternative sexual lifestyles in a manner that extends beyond the simple principle of loving one’s neighbour and respecting that all people are born with equal dignity because of our common humanity, are within their right to do so.
Parents that do not want their children taught from books which can confuse or manipulate children to accept teaching that the parents reject can do so. And, parents that reject early sexualisation of their children or the teaching of subjects of an adult nature, are within their rights to ask that their children be taken out of class for those lessons. Many, if not most, parents do not wish that gender indoctrination be imposed on their children in schools. Parents of this persuasion are invited to go to our Facebook page ‘Fight against Gender Indoctrination – Malta’ where they will find a letter to sign and present to the heads of their school in order to remove their children be such lessons. The letter outlines the parents’ constitutional, legal and human rights.
Mr and Mrs Farrugia were quite right to act in the manner they did in order to protect their children. The harmful and unacceptable indoctrination must cease, all material made public and the Minister of Education and his officers must unconditionally stop harassing parents that demand their legal rights and use their right to speak out against what they deem to be wrong.
Ivan Grech Mintoff is leader of Alleanza Bidla.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece