British government attack on free speech for teachers

The Leftie Tories have launched another attack in their relentless war on conservatives with their new guidance to independent schools on what ‘values’ teachers may and may not mention in the classroom.

Schools and teachers are advised that they will be failed by Ofsted if they even suggest that they do not agree with same-sex marriage or civil partnerships. This new rule is buried in section 20 of a long document entitled The Independent Schools Standards: Advice for Independent Schools. It establishes a chilling principle: if you disagree with the government or do not toe the politically correct line, you will be out of a job.

It should never be a requirement that a person must agree with a particular law or idea in any circumstance. One of the fundamental purposes of freedom of speech is that all citizens are allowed to freely debate and discuss any laws, ideas, theories and literature. Freedom of speech should be allowed for teachers, and especially those in faith schools who would be prevented from teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman according to the tenets of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Baha’i and many other faiths.

If it were a requirement to agree with any or all existing laws, Parliament would grind to a halt as MPs could not debate or amend any existing laws. The whole campaign for Brexit would also be illegal, as it requires opposition to the European Communities Act 1972.

This government is highly duplicitous. Its modus operandi is to make an announcement one day which sounds conservative. As soon as this happens, however, you can be sure that it will say or do something else ten times worse in the other direction.

It would be easy to dismiss these new guidelines for independent schools and think ‘this only affects independent schools’ or ‘it doesn’t really matter’ or ‘this is not something I’m bothered about so it won’t affect me’. Yet one action leads to another and another, and before you know it freedom of speech will have been removed entirely.

As Edmund Burke said: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

SOURCE