Today (26 June), over 6,000 schools across the UK, without the knowledge of most parents, will take part in an extreme LGBT diversity week.
Just Like Us, which has links to Stonewall and the Civil Service and which does not share their teaching materials online, has provided resources and encouraged schools to run the diversity week at schools from Monday 26 June.
Pronoun badges for 7-year-olds
With faith schools specifically targeted, pupils as young as seven will be encouraged to wear a badge which displays whether they use male, female or non-binary pronouns.
Lesson plans reveal that children in Key Stage Two – which covers seven to 11-year-olds – will be taught about being non-binary.
They will also be encouraged to wave rainbow flags and wear a badge which displays whether they use male, female or non-binary pronouns.
The group have produced slides and activities for most subjects in the curriculum, integrating their ideology throughout the day in all year groups, which makes it very difficult for parents to withdraw their children, should they even be informed by the school that the teaching is taking place.
The group explicitly markets itself as available to come and speak to schools and offer support for setting up Pride clubs.
Misleading children about faith
The resources have been developed in collaboration with LGBTQ+ faith organisations Keshet, One Body One Faith, Hidayah and Quest.
One Body One Faith is a revisionist Christian charity that campaigns for the Church to change its beliefs about sexuality and gender by adopting LGBT ideology.
Resources in the materials focus on affirming LGBTQ lifestyles and barely reference the traditional view of marriage as taught by the major world religions.
Through a series of video testimonies, Just Like Us materials promotes what it is like to be an ‘LGBT+ person of faith’. The aim is to influence school children that LGBT identities can be seen as readily compatible with the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
In Religious Education lessons, they show the children the stories of Ruth who identifies as a ‘non-binary lesbian’ and a ‘Christian’, Taliya a ‘bisexual woman’ who is Jewish, and Sam who is Muslim and gay.
With no mention of the Bible, Ruth says in her testimony that: ‘I wanted to form my own belief’ on human sexuality.
Slides for this part of the material say: “We hope the videos will encourage young people to empathise with our ambassadors, and to see the different ways in which it is possible to be an LGBT+ person of faith.”
Other resources include videos produced by an interfaith panel which ask ‘Can you be a person of faith and LGBT+?’ and videos on ‘What does Judaism say about LGBT+ identities?’
English and Maths lessons
Materials for English lessons for children as young as seven will explore the use of pronouns. Learning how to use the gender-neutral pronoun ‘they’ in the English language, pupils will then explore how pronouns are used in different languages around the world.
Pupils will be told that there are as many as seven pronouns and will be shown a Gender Pronouns video by Pop’n’Olly linked to the YouTube channel ‘Queer Kids Stuff.’
Children will then take part in activities where they practise using gender neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ and ‘theirs’ and will then make a badge for their preferred pronouns to wear around school.
Teaching materials reveal that Maths lessons will be used to normalise families that have same-sex parents, including Maths problems involving the celebration of same-sex weddings.
Notes for the lesson plans show that the materials could be used to teach nursery aged children.
Funding
In 2018, Just Like Us secured the political support of major political leaders, with video messages from the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Facebook and JP Morgan generously sponsored their School Diversity Week in 2020 and Heokel, Travers Smith and Fidelity international also made donations in support of the week.
Annual accounts show lots of corporate funding from organisations like Blackrock, and outlets in the USA.
The founders of Just Like Us, include current or former high-level civil servants and former employees of Stonewall.
‘Extortion of reality’
Judith Nemeth, Executive Director of the Values Foundation, said: “To present “Just like us” as representing an orthodox faith view is not fully representative. For example, the Jewish view described here depicts a branch of orthodoxy that is not representative of all who believe in the fundamentalism of authentic sources from a religious perspective. Espousing these views as traditional and a fundamental truth is very misleading.”
Steve Beegoo, Head of Education at Christian Concern, said: “What is most concerning about the Just Like Us resources is that they are targeted specifically at people of faith and even faith schools.
“The teaching materials are designed to train the thinking of children away from the traditional beliefs of the Christian faith. They present school children, through almost every subject in the curriculum with the view that same-sex sexual relationships and gender ideology is an accepted orthodox belief in the major world religions.
“This is another attempt to undermine Christian teaching on marriage and the biblical and biological understanding that we are born male and female.
“Targeting children at such a young age without the knowledge of their parents is wrong. Schools must not bow to or feel pressured to engage and implement this diversity week. Parents must urgently and consistently ask what their children are being taught on these issues in schools and which organisations resources are being used.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: “The Just Like Us teaching materials expose how thousands of children will be indoctrinated with extreme gender ideology this summer without the knowledge of their parents.
“The government needs to allow parents to withdraw children from relationships education until the gender and political ideology has been rooted out of these lessons.
“By encouraging our children to make up their own personal truth we lose all sense of reality and leave them confused and hurting. Dignity comes from our God-given humanity, not pronouns and gender identities.”
