Welsh government to investigate PinkNews exposé that Catholic schools promote anti-gay petition
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Robert in S. Kensington 712
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Well done, Wales! Thank you.
Wait until you hear them playing the victim card, abuse of religious freedom and all the other hysterical nonsense.
and threatening the kids with r@pe if they dont sign the petition.
No surprise. Despicable! I hope the people responsible are brought to justice and their bigoted and discredited ‘petition’ is torn in two.
Fortunately we live by the rule of law and any unworthy acts by Christians must be judged and penalised.
Dave please do not link all Christians with Catholic – Roman Catholics.
I am am out Christian in my Church. I was at Spring Harvest (a Christian workshop) a couple of years ago where gays and christianity was discust, There was a Chirch of England Bishop, two Bapist Minitster and Andrew Marin from the US. There was two sessions which completely full. I bought Andrew Marin’s book Love is an Orientaion.
Please do not judge all Christians to be the same as Catolic – Roman Catholics. I am am out Christian in my Church of England church where no body is all all concered.
I was at Spring Harvest – an inter-denominational Christian organization which provides a range of events, conferences, courses and resources, which discussed ” in 2010 where Gay and the Church was on of the topics. There was a Church of England Bishop and two baptist Ministers together with Andrew Marin from the US. There were two sessions where the halls were both full. After them I bought his book “Love is an Orientation”
This sort of story makes me so glad I founded PinkNews! It’s fantastic that the Welsh are investigating this and I expect the Department for Education will follow on and do the same. Well done to Stephen Gray for uncovering the story and the brave teenager who gave us an eyewitness account of what happened.
I think this also shows the power of the LGBT media to hold those in authority to account. It’s not just for lobby groups or charities to do so, but I’m glad that the National Secular Society, the British Humanist Association, PACE and Accord were so quick to offer us assistance in understanding the legal ramifications of what we uncovered as well as press releasing it to the mainstream media.
Yes good job. This is much better journalism than “reporting” that a child made a rude or homophobic remark on twitter to Joe McElderry, posting a photograph of a child that may or may not be the perpetrator and then encouraging pink news readers to go to the child’s Twitter account to “have a word….” or something similar.
As founder are you accountable for Pink News? I’m just curious about the governance arrangements for Pink News. How do we as readers find out your editorial policies etc? Are they publicly available?
Well done once again on exposing the Catholic Church in this way and please consider dropping the promotion of “tit for tat” tactics when a gay celebrity is insulted on Twitter.
Hmm, on the McElderry, it shouldn’t have been to have a go at him, it was to message the star to give him support.
To be honest, that sort of story is a very trivial matter for the PinkNews team. They spend most of the time working on stories like this which the editor Stephen Gray spent a week working towards. In terms of the policy. It’s on every page of the website! http://www.pinknews.co.uk/editorial-policy/
Also our political advertising FAQs are here http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/20/faq-political-advertising-on-pinknews-co-uk/ We are running some political advertisements right now
I’m glad I was in the loop that started looking at the validity of the C4M petition.
Ben
You and your team deserve a great deal of credit for your dogged determination regarding the issue of equal marriage.
I hope the comments, debate and strong stories that you have had recently continue up until the day we know that equality is won!
You have not been afraid of cross swords with people who condemn us.
I hope you have many more good scoops like this story which is growing in significance and undermines the reliability and integrity of the Coalition for Marriages bogus petition.
I wish you well in the future. Thank you for your work in this area and the leadership PN and other media outlets are giving to this important area.
However, we still need celebrities to endorse the campaign – ideally including some well known heterosexuals who are prepared to have (whether ghost written or self written) comments urging people to recognise the importance of meaningful equality.
Stu, hold that thought. PinkNews as an organisation, myself personally and some other campaigners are going to be announcing something very exciting, very soon on this!
Looking forward to it ;-)
I second that, Stu! Long overdue. We do need celebrities to become pro-active. I’ve been advocating that for quite some time. I contacted Conor Marron and his partner James Lattimore pf C4EM about that.
What we need is an independent panel of judges to oversee the Pink News Commenter of the year Award! That would encourage even more people like ‘Stu’ to stand up for our ‘rights.’
Thanks, Craig
There are far more deserving candidates than myself!
Yes, we could have a category for “biggest knob with most amount of time to waste”
The irony of the comment above
I second that, Ben! Well done, Pink News and kudos to Stephen Gray, a job well done too!
Have you seen the disgusting comment posted by Jerry further down?
Great to see the Welsh Government taking this seriously
Well done PN
Fantastic journalism
Lets hope the Welsh government investigation leads to similar action in England and Scotland.
Lets hope the legal actions also works.
In terms of the school in South London – perhaps the head teacher could also be referred to the General Teaching Council for bringing the profession into disrepute or breach of equality etc etc?
Thanks, I’m sure Stephen will be looking into these angles in the morning!
We are trying to find out whether this has happened in Scotland, where there is a separate Catholic Education Service. Most likely it would have been in Oct/Nov/Dec, when the Scottish Govt consultation was at the same stage as the England/Wales one is now. Didn’t hear about it at that time, but that’s not to say it didn’t happen or hasn’t happened since.
“….Experts anticipate that an investigation will also be announced by the English Department for Education…”
They better had! are you sure it didn’t get to Scottish schools as well?
Hi John, please see our reply to comment immediately above – we’re trying to find out whether this happened in Scotland.
“It is central to Catholic teaching that all individuals should be treated with respect and dignity.”
Really? By working hardly to keep up LGBT people’s second class citizen status, characterise them as unnatural and promoting this idea to pupils as young as 11?
The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church never ceases to amaze me.
Really? I always thought that hypocrisy was their SOP.
they beleive in Gobbels dictum – if you tell a lie often enough and outrageous enough, it will be seen as the truth.
BTW AHit, Goebbels, Dr. Mengele, Adolph Eichmann were catholic. All educated in catholic schools supported by the state.
BTW for ben cohen – I had an uncle by that name long ago, long gone. YOu might be interested in the following link. got any contacts in the Mossad for wet work?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/world/europe/25pope.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
We are constantly fighting the battle in the US to keep sectarian religious groups who accept government monies for a variety of reasons from discriminating against women, GLBTQAs, employees who aren’t members of their sect (vide the present flap about providing contraception to non-Catholic employees of Catholic businesses), etc.
Judging by the stream of comments on the original story, apparently from pupils, who support (in more or less vitriolic terms) the headmistress, I have to wonder if yesterdays RE lesson may have included instructions to the 11+ girls to get on PN comments and put the boot in.
benji, they are not genuine pupils. They are males pretending to be female pupils. I’ve called their bluff several times. It proves just how desperate the opposition is and to the extremes they will go to advance their evil agenda. They’re annoyed that Pink News broke the story that has provoked an investigation. Well done to the Pink News team, absolutely excellent job!
I see the CES on their wbsite states
“The Catholic Church’s view on the importance of marriage is a religious view, not a political one.”
and yet the C4M and this petition is completely political. I presume they already teach about marriage in the SRE polic, this petition doesn’t alter that. The whole point of it was political not educational NOR religious. It was soley an attempt to get signatures and influence govt.
he anti-Christ truly is the Christians themselves. They will only be responsible for their own destrution, with a little help from the gays to push them over the edge.
Been no one come forward to say that and the agency that admitted it only operates in England and Wales
Hi Ben, I’m guessing this comment is in reply to the comment asking about Scotland? We think we would probably have heard something by now via LGBT youth groups, if the anti-equality campaign has been promoted in any systematic way across Scottish Catholic schools. However, we might not! You’re right that the Scottish Catholic Education Service is separate from the England and Wales one. Now you’ve uncovered this going on in E&W, we and our partner groups are looking into it more closely to see what has happened in Scotland.
Frothy Jerry: the issue is CIVIL marriage. There is no religious component the majority of the UK are happy to see equal rights. If you are adamant about this the why have you to already signed the C4M petition? No matter now since we now know it most likely full of fraudulent signatures of goodness knows how many underage pupils.
The Catholic Church is maintaining that Parliament has no authority to legislate on this matter as marriage is ordained by god as the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation. I have heard one Catholic priest say that he would refuse to marry two people who told him that they intend not to have children.
The solution is simple – abolish recognition of all religious marriages, making it a fully civil affair. If churches wish to hold their own rights then they are free to do so, but only civil marriages will be recognised by the state.
I prefer to let things be as they are and let the vicar decide whether he or she will marry someone….I’m fed up of the govt doing the church’s dirty work …at the moment it doesn’t matter wether a vicar wants to do ,say, a religious CP or not…the govt has legislated to specifically not allow him to do it unless he gets permission from the synod..that’s not freedom of relgion thats getting the govt to impose the will of a homophobic body of people on other people.
Similary why should the catholic church and CofE etc impose anything on any other religion. Why change what the Quakers do for the sake of what the Catholics refuse to do.
All religion is man made sh!t.
Too right.
I honestly don’t know if this correct. It may be consider “sh*t” – but “man made”? I suspect it is a reflection of “man”, as in it comes from what it is to be a human being. This does not mean it is good, bad, correct, or illogical.
Also suspect it sounds like much of human nature. So, may agree with the actual sentiment, but cannot (for now unless convinced otherwise) the actual statement.
I’m with you 100% with “bad” and “illogical”.
A call to arms from these people……..
http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/social/respond-to-marriage-consultation
Just as most of the western EU countries do. France was the first i believe before the formation of the EU. Only the civil marriage is recognised there, a religious ceremony after the fact is not mandatory. The way it should be across the EU. The fact that the Roman cult maintains that marriage is ordained by god for the purpose of creation is moot. There is no evidence for that, not in the old or new testament. The creationist fairy tale in Genesis regarding the bringing together of Adam and Eve, the premise upon which religious nutters construe as marriage, doesn’t really prove anything either. Creating a woman from the rib of a man is absurd. If the world is only 6000 years old as fundamentalists believe, then that only confirms how utterly ridiculous that is considering that the human species is far older having it’s origins in the African continent, a proven scientific fact. The bible is a collection of writings of fallible, unsophisticated men, not some deity.
This story is a fantastic exclusive.
Well done Pink News.
These anti gay Catholcs are criminals They are the same Catholics who persecuted women for being Witches by killing them. They continue their Holy War on people only today they use any way they can to destroy people and children They are using psychological means to turn people against LGBT people and destroy gays.
Sorry to be a pedant – as itr is not the main theme – but the persecution of woman as witches was a problem of Protestant Christianity. It came about with the rejection of the religious feminine (the Mother of God) and the rejection of a diversity of spiritual and religious practices (individual acts of devotions were deemed superstitious) as well as the fear of unmarried women (Protestant Christianity attacks the idea that not everyone needs to marry and have children – whereas in Catholic Christianity the unmarried life was always an equally valid way of life).
Apologies, as said, it is not the main theme – but if we are going to get our argument right we have to be as tight as possible.
What’s the Welsh Government? What authority does it have to investigate a school based in outer London? The last time I checked, London was in England, not Wales.
The Welsh Government is investigating because the letter was sent to Welsh schools. The story may have broken in an English school but it also affects schools in Wales.
Note to Pink News, its generally deprecated to use the term Principality to describe Wales. The English Principality of Wales only covered a fraction of the territory of the Welsh Nation. Its regarded as being slightly patronising to use the term principality in relation to Wales.
The Welsh government are the devolved government of Wales.
They clearly are concerned at the possibility that Welsh Catholic Schools may also have had similar presentations at the request of CES.
The English Dept for Education should launch a similar investigation.
This story completely discredits the C4M Petition. Frankly- it’s not worth the paper it’s written on- and should be disregarded when the Government is considering it’s responses to the Public Consultation.
As I said in a different post, C4M’s signatures are way under 1% of the British population which is roughly 60 million. It’s a drop in the ocean and not significant considering that the majority of the public do not worship and do not really believe in a deity. Conversely, I wouldn’t worry too much about the C4EM low turnout either. For C4M to have any significance in the outcome of a marriage equality bill passing, they’d have to gather at least 50% (30 million signatures). NOT going to happen, impossible. That’s why they want a referendum which they’re not going to get. It would fail anyway simply because their petition has proved that 30 million people aren’t interested in signing it or even bothered about it. How could they possible get that amount before June 14? The petition was the next best thing they could come up with and it too will fail. Petitions are just another form of referenda anyway.
Anyone who has read the torah, bible, and koran knows that every culture in these books practiced widespread polygamy (the Christian god’s hand picked annointed one, King David, alone had 800 wives and 900 concubines for crying out loud). And the people in these books all practiced slavery proclaiming it a “god ordained” institution. Having these religions dictate “morality” on anything is objectively absurd.
Hip Hip, Hooray to the PinkNews …
“The Catholic Church” in my view … equals the biggest promoter of prejudice and discrimination in Scotland! this religious apartheid, is the single biggest cause of religious bigotry in Scotland. Hope this link works.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2012/03/06/full-text-english-and-welsh-bishops-letter-on-same-sex-marriage/
Religion is the greatest provider of pain, poverty, war, murder, despair and bigotry.
It always has been.
Religion is a cancer on every society it touches.
Good to hear it. Well done to Pink News for exposing this travesty and abuse of position by the Catholic Church – it’ll remind them the days of impunity are long, long over.
Shock story! Catholic school promotes Catholic values!
The problem is that in a democratic society people hear both sides of the debate.
But they didn’t hear both sides in the school – that’s what this is about.
I noticed that Ben Cohen didn’t mention Stonewall in the charities that helped PinkNews with this story. It’s notable it hasn’t said anything at all on this in public or on its website, Twitter or Facebook. Why is this? The only news story it has tweeted today is a GayStarnews story about its equality walk.
Is it disinterested in homophobia in schools?
I want you all to know that I support calling civil unions marraiges. However, I do go to this school, and I want to clear a few things up. Firstly, the comments made by the sixth former here, were completely blown out of preportion. The word “unnatural” or other such words were never used. Miss Noone simply echoed the messgae of two of the archbishops. Secondly, most of the hysteria caused by this petition came from year 9′s and below, who not only are too young to sign the petition themselves, but are also too young to fully understand what theyre being asked. I don’t know a single person in my school that signed, or wants to sign that petition. And our school isn’t homophobic, we have teachers and pupils who are bisexual and gay, and they are fully supported by everyone. I don’t understand what it is that makes us a “homophobic cult” we just follow the bible, like every other catholic school around.
Catholics have been getting away with murder or at least raping children for so long they think they can do anthing and be above the law. Such are some evil people in the church. Thank God the Welsh Govenment is going to investigate but more investgation needs to be done by independant investigators who can not be influenced by the wealth and power of the Catholic Church
I work in Journalism on freelance, and the Press Office told me today, there are no plans for an investigation at the moment, also confimed, according to the statement that I was emailed..
It is important to note that we are taling about Catholic – Roman Catholics.
I am am out Christian in my Church. I was at Spring Harvest (a Christian workshop) a couple of years ago where gays and christianity was discust, There was a Chirch of England Bishop, two Bapist Minitster and Andrew Marin from the US. There was two sessions which completely full. I bought Andrew Marin’s book Love is an Orientaion.