Images via YouTube

THE controversy in Birmingham over the teaching of relationship lessons took a remarkable turn at the weekend when the city’s Pride festival, which attracted tens of thousands of people, was led for the first time in its 23 year history by Muslim community groups.

This would have delighted British anti-extremist campaigner, Maajid Nawaz, inset, who earlier used his slot on LBC Radio to encourage Muslims to show support for schools who have been under siege by mainly Muslim zealots who claim that “No Outsiders” lessons taught in line with the UK’s Equality Act of 2010 are “teaching children to be gay.”

Saying that “schools are not mosques”, Nawaz claimed that the main victims of the homophobic extremists were gay Muslims. He pointed out that the outpouring of homophobia outside the Birmingham schools needs to be halted immediately as it was sending a message to the thousands of homosexuals in Muslim communities that they are loathed with a passion.

In a recent UK survey, he revealed, 52 percent of Muslims said they wanted homosexuality made illegal. With disbelief in his voice he said:

Not just same-sex marriage, but homosexuality itself.

Image via YouTube

Describing this statistic as shocking, Nawaz strongly defended lessons that advised children that it was perfectly OK to be gay, saying that such lessons may well bring about a fundamental change in attitude among Muslims towards homosexuality.

And he went as far as to encourage Muslims who disapprove of the protests in Birmingham to show their solidarity with the schools by joining the city’s Pride parade, which was led by gay teacher Andrew Moffat, above, who started the “No Outsiders” lessons at Parkfield Community School.

Moffat – assistant head at the school – was one of 10 teachers from around the world who made it to the shortlist for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2019.

Moffat was selected from more than 10,000 nominations from 179 countries in recognition of his work promoting inclusivity and tolerance among schoolchildren, in particular for “No Outsiders”.  (The winner, announced in March this year, was Kenyan science teacher Peter Tabichi.)

He was joined by Khakan Qureshi, founder of Birmingham South Asians LGBT and Saima Razzaq, from Supporting Education of Equality and Diversity in Schools (SEEDS).

In the phone-in the followed his LBC slot, Nawaz expressed further disbelief over the baloney being spouted by mainly religious callers siding with the protesters. One imbecile, calling from Texas, even suggested that teaching tolerance would lead to children being told that it was OK to beat one’s wife!

Nawaz is seldom at a loss for words but this stunned him to such an extent that he abruptly terminated the call.

The Texan’s opinion was as stupid and outrageous as the one by one of the Birmingham protesters who said that being gay was:

Not acceptable in Islam. God created man, then he created women for man’s pleasure and companionship – not another man.

But one of Nawaz’s callers was highly supportive of the “No Outsiders” programme, saying that she reluctantly intends returning from Madrid to the UK because of the lack of relationship teaching in the Spanish school her kids attend. Not only was there an absence of such lessons, but her children were being exposed to racism. An example she cited was a teacher calling a Japanese child Chinese. When the error was pointed out to her, she retorted:

What’s the difference?

At the Pride event, Moffat received the loudest applause of the morning after reading an emotional speech from a 10-year-old supporter.  The award-winning teacher said:

Children, you know that we are different and we can get along.

This post was cross-posted from the Freethinker.