UK: Gay teacher resigns after parents complain children ‘might learn it’s OK to be gay’
A gay primary school teacher in Birmingham has resigned, after parents complained they did not want him teaching their children.
According to the Sunday Times, Andrew Moffat was assistant head at Birmingham’s Chilwell Croft Academy, where he designed several pro-LGBT resources, including a pamphlet called ‘Challenging Homophobia in Primary Schools’.
However, after coming out in an assembly, and teaching a literacy lesson using a book in which a gay family attends a picnic, he was besieged by protests from parents.
He told the newspaper: “I did come out at school in an assembly after a group of 11-year-olds held up a poster they made, with the heading ‘Gay is good’. It seemed like the right time to let the children know that they knew a gay person.
“Following my coming out, some parents from different communities complained to the school, but I maintain that my decision was the right one at that time.
“Some Christian and some Muslim parents have told me they don’t want their children learning that it’s OK to be gay.”
After the protests, Moffat resigned from his post at the school, and has since found a teaching post elsewhere.
A statement from the school said: “A minority group of parents objected to some of the resource books being used in literacy lessons with some of the oldest children in the school, which explored relationships in different families.
“The objections were primarily voiced by those whose own religion took an opposing stance to homosexuality.”
