OPINION
Helen Houghton
Co-leader New Conservative
The Ministry of Education needs to explain why they are deceiving parents.
Parents have not had input into the appalling new sexuality guidelines that the MOE published in 2020, which have several alarming elements around privacy and parents’ rights. This is a stark contrast with the New Zealand national curriculum, where the Secretary of Education, Karen Sewell, explains how the curriculum was created –
A widely representative reference group oversaw a development process that included trials in schools, collaborative working parties, online discussions, and an inquiry into relevant national and international research…the MOE received more than 10 000 submissions in response. These were collated and analysed and were taken into consideration when the document was written.
Not only was the Relationship and Sexuality document not widely discussed with parents, but many school leaders were not aware of its existence.
In fact, it was hidden from parents, as well as from many schools who knew nothing about the first guideline release. For a few years now parents have not been informed when teaching staff have been overt in talking about their own sexuality, and encouraging children to identify how they feel. Likewise, it has been kept from parents when children succumb to this insidious agenda and choose a different persona than what their parents are aware of.
This is an abuse against parents’ authority and an abuse against children, where those in positions of power have failed to provide protection around a child’s well-being.
Mental injury is legally a criminal act.
It should not be a surprise that there’s been an exodus from public schools, with thousands more parents choosing to homeschool.
For those who have remained, I suggest boycotting schools until they scrap gender ideology indoctrination from classroom instruction. And we at New Conservative call for the guidelines to be scrapped and for an independent investigation into how a minority political pressure group has been given control of the content taught to New Zealand children.
I alerted the government four years ago to the harm that will be caused by teaching unscientific “gender theory” to vulnerable minds. Since then many teaching staff have seen the outcome of students now identifying as anything they choose, regardless of the reality. It has become a contagion, and it is criminal that this was sanctioned by government ministers.
It is because of this contagion that other countries have now reversed all teaching of gender ideology in schools. While New Zealand is affirming the diversity of sexuality and gender identities in the school community, other countries have banned any affirming of gender ideology. Even yesterday the UK government ruled that schools “will be ordered to tell parents’ if children start using a different gender identity and ‘bar them from opposite sex changing rooms“.
Surely NZ citizens didn’t approve of their taxes being used to hand over all family matters to the school – personal, sensitive concerns that were previously considered normal childhood development – and to now feed children this “progressive” sexuality nonsense.
Sexualizing children with confusing complex adult content is child abuse. We have allowed the government to ruin state education.