Use of ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Too “Homophobic”, Scottish Nurses Told
By Gudrun Schultz
EDINBURGH, Scotland, February 16, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland’s National Health Service recommends.
Issued in conjunction with the country’s leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall Scotland, the publication is entitled Fair For All - The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT Practice in the NHS. Americans for Truth reported Feb.11 on the publication’s release.
The booklet calls for a “zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language” among Scotland’s health care system. Included in discriminatory language is the use of terms that assume a traditional family structure of mother, father and children, according to the NHS directive.
“LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered] people can and do have children, sexual orientation or gender identity has nothing to do with good parenting or good child care,” the booklet states.
“Individual circumstances lead to varied family structures and parenting arrangements. It is important to be aware of this. When talking to children, consider using ‘parents‘, ‘carers’ or ‘guardians’ rather than ‘mother’ or ‘father‘.
Along the same lines, the directive points out, use of the terms ‘husband’, ‘wife’ and ‘marriage’ is not acceptable since such terms exclude lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Instead, health care workers should use the terms ‘partners’ and ‘next of kin’. Since ‘next of kin’ is often understood to mean nearest blood relative, however, the booklet recommends that it may be preferable to use ‘partner, close friend or close relative’ to avoid confusion.
“This allows the patient to identify and choose who is important to them.”
Other recommendations include ensuring the health care environment is visually reassuring to LGBT people, with posters and magazines on LGBT issues on display.
“Posters with positive images of same-sex couples, alongside similar material depicting opposite-sex couples, should be displayed in all areas e.g. waiting areas, hospital wards.”
In order to better ensure the comfort and security of LGBT people in the health care environment, the NHS calls for sexual identity “monitoring forms” to be included in all registration procedures for both staff and patients. The booklet recommends five reply options to the question of sexual orientation, including ‘Lesbian‘, ‘Gay‘, ‘Bisexual‘, ‘Heterosexual‘, and ‘Other‘. Sections recording gender should be changed to have three reply options, ‘Male‘, ‘Female‘, or ‘Other, “where people can define their own gender.”
Among guidelines for implementing pro-LGBT policies in the health care system, the directive requires that management or team leader job descriptions include a mandatory commitment to combating any “discriminatory” language or attitudes among staff.
The booklet was funded by taxpayers through the NHS Education for Scotland, as part of the Equality and Diversity program.
(news tip http://americansfortruth.com/index.php )
View the full NHS publication here:
http://www.lgbthealthscotland.org.uk/documents/Good_LGBT_Pra...
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Scotland to Indoctrinate School Children with Anti-Homophobia Education
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061902.html
Scottish Schools to Instruct Children How to Engage in "Safe" Homosexual Sex
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/may/06052306.html"http...
Homosexual Activists Target UK Faith Schools, Adoption Policies
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060203.html"http...
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
More of The Lost Plotter's Plans...
Sheesh, can someone find these people a real job...
A divisive paradigm
Visiting children's rights advocates are in New Zealand this week, promoting the integration of children's rights education into the school curriculum. Children are vulnerable and need protection, but teaching them about their value in a rights paradigm only serves to introduce a feeling of entitlement and an environment of critique into families, risking increased conflict.
Katherine Covell and Brian Howe, from the Children's Rights Centre of Canada's Cape Breton University, are in favour of rights based education to be taught in all schools, and have been integral in formulating proposed curriculum to meet this goal. They have been brought here in response to concerns that "only three 11-12 year olds out of five classrooms in Auckland had heard about children's rights, as had only 15-16 percent of school children surveyed across the country." The Building Human Rights Communities in Education, a joint initiative in New Zealand between organisations such as the Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, is also in favour of bringing in such education.
The curriculum designed by Covell and Howe includes various scenarios and sets of questions that are given to children to initiate discussion. One question, targeted at 10-12 year olds, asks them to compare the following three scenarios: a boy suspended from school for sexual harassment after he kisses a girl on the cheek; a two-year old who is spanked by her mother following a tantrum in the supermarket; and a group fined and banned from a beach for leaving behind rubbish. The question states "these scenarios demonstrate the fact that abuse can take many forms," and asks the children to rank the examples according to "the most appropriate outcome." Another question asks whether children should be removed from their parents if the house is left "extremely dirty" and they do not give their children "any rules to live by."
Some of the topics addressed by the curriculum are important ones and the intention behind it may be to empower children, but the framework in which it is set actually politicises them. Children are young, susceptible members of our society, and should be treated as such; instead the underlying ideologies of this curriculum encourages children to be critical of their parents and introduces uncertainty into their thinking about their family. Such questions go beyond the capability of children and fail to present to them a helpful picture of the nature of relationships. Healthy families and communities are made up of relationships which involve compromise and selflessness; focusing on rights creates absolute expectations, as opposed to needs which encourage us to consider other people. In an individualistic society such as ours, we need less focus on individuals and more on the give and take which makes long-term relationships viable.
A divisive paradigm
Visiting children's rights advocates are in New Zealand this week, promoting the integration of children's rights education into the school curriculum. Children are vulnerable and need protection, but teaching them about their value in a rights paradigm only serves to introduce a feeling of entitlement and an environment of critique into families, risking increased conflict.
Katherine Covell and Brian Howe, from the Children's Rights Centre of Canada's Cape Breton University, are in favour of rights based education to be taught in all schools, and have been integral in formulating proposed curriculum to meet this goal. They have been brought here in response to concerns that "only three 11-12 year olds out of five classrooms in Auckland had heard about children's rights, as had only 15-16 percent of school children surveyed across the country." The Building Human Rights Communities in Education, a joint initiative in New Zealand between organisations such as the Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, is also in favour of bringing in such education.
The curriculum designed by Covell and Howe includes various scenarios and sets of questions that are given to children to initiate discussion. One question, targeted at 10-12 year olds, asks them to compare the following three scenarios: a boy suspended from school for sexual harassment after he kisses a girl on the cheek; a two-year old who is spanked by her mother following a tantrum in the supermarket; and a group fined and banned from a beach for leaving behind rubbish. The question states "these scenarios demonstrate the fact that abuse can take many forms," and asks the children to rank the examples according to "the most appropriate outcome." Another question asks whether children should be removed from their parents if the house is left "extremely dirty" and they do not give their children "any rules to live by."
Some of the topics addressed by the curriculum are important ones and the intention behind it may be to empower children, but the framework in which it is set actually politicises them. Children are young, susceptible members of our society, and should be treated as such; instead the underlying ideologies of this curriculum encourages children to be critical of their parents and introduces uncertainty into their thinking about their family. Such questions go beyond the capability of children and fail to present to them a helpful picture of the nature of relationships. Healthy families and communities are made up of relationships which involve compromise and selflessness; focusing on rights creates absolute expectations, as opposed to needs which encourage us to consider other people. In an individualistic society such as ours, we need less focus on individuals and more on the give and take which makes long-term relationships viable.
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