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It is ironic, and a touch pathetic, that those waging a hysterical campaign against the Safe Schools anti-bullying program on the grounds of a false claim it is ideological are doing so from a rampantly ideological perspective.
Safe Schools, designed during the Gillard government and then introduced without apparent concern by the Abbott government, simply gives schools resources to help students, parents, carers and teachers understand the discrimination and bullying experienced by non-heterosexual young people.
It has provoked an outcry by conservative ideologues who ignore evidence and claim the program is some form of radical social engineering because, in part, it recognises the reality that sexuality occurs along a normal spectrum, and is not strictly binary.
That is hardly radical; what's strange is that it has taken this long to develop this important adjunct to the curriculum. The Safe Schools website shows the program to be sensible, sober and decent. The central element is eight lessons for year 7 and year 8 students. It merely encourages them to imagine what it can be like to be attacked for being other than heterosexual. Safe Schools is about combating injustice by raising awareness.
Yet, amid the furore, NSW and Tasmania have moved away from it, and the Turnbull government is ending funding. Victoria, to its credit, has embraced it as appropriate for all schools, and has vowed to fill the funding gap. We urge Premier Daniel Andrews to maintain his resolve in the face of the silliness.
And there's indeed been much silliness. One media commentator ranted: "It was obvious that a program about sexual and gender diversity was never about bullying, only about ideological brainwashing with its roots in a sick Freudian-Marxist philosophy popular with German Green revolutionaries of the 1960s." Another denounced Safe Schools as part of a historic, existential threat to "the Western secular democratic state". Tony Abbott, whose ambition seems renewed and rampant, is now describing Safe Schools as "a social engineering program dressed up as anti-bullying".
Particularly staunch opposition to Safe Schools – and to marriage equality – has come from The Australian Christian Lobby, which says it wants Australia to become "more just and compassionate". Apparently, though, justice and compassion do not extend to the LGBTIQ community.
For evidence shows Safe Schools is needed, and the LGBTIQ Â community is rightly alarmed by its axing in some states. Why? Because this is literally a matter of life and death. Queer young people are up to six times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual peers.
A study by the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre, Growing Up Queer, estimated 16 per cent of queer young Australians had attempted suicide, while a third had harmed themselves. Why? Primarily because of homophobic harassment – two-thirds of them have been bullied about their sexual orientation. They suffer homophobic harassment and violence in schools, at work and at sporting events. It found 42 per cent had thought about self-harm or suicide.
This is what should be concerning people. The heightened risk to these young people compels a program focused on that risk. It complements, not undermines, the general anti-bullying programs available.
This is not an ideological issue; it's about fairness and decency, it's about the human condition and equality. It is not about "political correctness". It is about progressing from baseless, appalling prejudice towards a more enlightened society. Yet many are putting prejudice and politics ahead of the welfare of young people. That, not Safe Schools, is the shameful thing.
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