Member of right-wing pressure group sparks outrage saying teachers shouldn’t come out
Katie Ivens got into a heated debate with two openly gay teachers after saying homosexuality is 'fashionable'
By Steve Brown
A member of a right-wing pressure group sparked outrage when saying teachers shouldn’t come out to students or teach them about homosexuality.
Katie Ivens, the vice-chair of the Campaign for Real Education – a group which attempts to keep LGBT+ content out of schools – joined Good Morning Britain today (August 2) and got into an heated debate after calling homosexuality a ‘fashionable issue’.
Ivens, who is also a self-professed child expert, was joined on the ITV breakfast morning show by two openly gay teachers, Pam Stallard and Luke Burgess, and caused outrage when she said: “They are teachers and their job is to teach.
“What children need is to be given a thorough knowledge of subjects so they can become independent critical thinkers [and] knowledgeable people, and that is the job of teachers.
“The job of the teacher isn’t to say: ‘me, me, me’ or ‘I’m that,’ whatever that may be; the job of the teacher is actually to teach and that’s what children need from the teachers.
“That’s where the focus should be, it’s not be all over the place taking up fashionable issues.”
Understandable, the two teachers argued back after they try to educate their pupils why homophobic hate crime is wrong.
Stallard lashed back: “We need to be educating them to be decent people, and part of that comes to saying we don’t like homophobic language; we don’t like gay used as a pejorative.
“And then one per cent of that assembly is saying that’s because I’m gay and because Luke is gay.
“I believe that’s teaching them something fundamental that they can’t quite get in a classroom.”
Two secondary school teachers announced that they’re gay at a school assembly to help teach students about diversity and homophobia.
Should teachers share their private lives? pic.twitter.com/1fn68UOWRl
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) August 2, 2018