Search icon

News

30th May 2019

Esther McVey says parents should be able to take children out of LGBT lessons

Tragic

Oli Dugmore

Tragic

One of the candidates to be your prime minister wants parents to be able to pull their children out of lessons about being gay.

Age appropriate, as relevant as maths, science and literature to the world around children – but some parents in Birmingham have been protesting outside a school for weeks on end, forcing some teachers to tears, because it teaches its students that gay people exist.

Esther McVey, a Conservative leadership candidate, wants parents to have the final say on whether their children participate in LGBT lessons.

The former works and pensions secretary said “parents know best.”

I wonder if she would have the said the same thing if flat earthers were protesting physics.

Her comments prompted Justine Greening, the first openly gay female cabinet minister, to respond: “You can’t pick and choose on human rights and equality.”

McVey condemned the protests but said today: “I believe parents know best for their children.

“While they’re still children – and we’re talking primary school age – then really the parents need to have the final say on what they want their children to know.

“The final say is with the parents.

“If parents want to take their young children – primary school children – out of certain forms of sex and relationship education then that is down to them.”