“Given that all Australian schools, under the banner of the ALP’s
education revolution, will be made to teach a national curriculum after 2012,
it should not surprise if the Greens pressure the Gillard government to
incorporate a positive view of LGBTI [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Intersex] lifestyles in the new curriculum.”[1] (Kevin Donnelly, 2011)
Kevin Donnelly is a former teacher, and director of the Education
Standards Institute, a conservative think tank committed to Christian values. The above quote is from Donnelly’s chapter in a book
published in 2011, The Greens: Policies, reality and consequences,
in which Donnelly critiques the Australian Greens’ education policies. Donnelly argues that the Australian Greens
attempt to use the school
curriculum to assert their policies around anti-discrimination of gender identity
and sexual orientation. Donnelly, a
fundamentalist Christian, is unhappy about an embrace of diversity at the expense of his perfect Christian, white, heterosexual fantasy. In fact, his need to embrace the past makes him particularly paranoid about those individuals or groups that question the value of his opinion. Despite his fragile and dangerous mind, last week,
Education Minister Christopher Pyne appointed him as one of two ‘experts’ that
will be responsible for the review of National Curriculum.
Donnelly consistently claims the Australian Labor Party education policy was ideologically driven, a supposed attempt at a radical
moral and socialist agenda. Donnelly’s fear about positive representations
of LGBTI issues being taught in school is consistent throughout his
work. He argues that the majority
of faith-based schools would describe as unacceptable, a school curriculum that
provided age-appropriate information about the diversity of sexuality[2]. His grandiose delusions about
the destructive nature of diversity does not end at sexual and gender plurality. Donnelly suffers from a mind-numbing fear of different religions and non-Western cultures. Particularly threatening to a Donnelly are socialists and radical Islamists.
The Education Standards
Institute’s website and the ABC’s ‘The Drum Opinion’ provide avenues for
Donnelly to provide unnecessary detail of his thinking. He explains:
“at a time of international terrorism represented by radical Islam and
jihad there is no attempt to teach students about the liberal, democratic
institutions and values that ensure Australia's stability and peace…Christianity barely rates a mention and ignored is that there are some cultural
practices that are un-Australian and abhorrent to our way of life and that
values like tolerance, civility and a commitment to freedom are a
characteristic of Western, liberal democracies”[3].
Donnelly’s claims that Christian values
are not being emphasised in the National Curriculum has been strongly rejected by the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the national body
responsible for the curriculum. While conservative commentators and politicians
often claim that the curriculum has a left-wing bias, “thousands
of teachers, academics and members of the community actively and productively
participated in the development process and none of it became the Australian
Curriculum until the federal, state and territory education ministers endorsed
the final products”[4].
Donnelly’s appointment to review the National Curriculum is curious
considering his very vocal support for the exemption of religious schools from anti-discrimination
laws. Donnelly believes that Catholic and Independent schools should have the
right to be exempt from anti-discrimination
laws that would force schools to employ staff and admit students whose way of life
and beliefs contradict the Church’s teaching[5].
“The ability to discriminate was
once considered a worthy attribute, to be guilty of discrimination is now a
crime. To be conservative, on the basis that there are some things from the
past that are worthwhile holding on to, is to be old-fashioned, out of touch
and guilty of continuing past injustices.
Those critical of feminism are
labeled as misogynist, those who view gay/lesbian practices as unacceptable are
condemned as homophobic and anyone championing the traditional form of marriage
based on heterosexuality is guilty of discrimination and failing to respect the
rights of others”[6].
Donnelly goes on to argue that imposing
anti-discrimination laws on religious schools, “flies in the face of
international human rights agreements and conventions protecting religious
freedom”[7]. Ha ha.
Given that Donnelly was responsible
for critiquing the Australian Greens’ education policies in the aforementioned 2011
book, his almost exclusive obsession with the issues of sexuality and gender, is
curious. According to the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) the curriculum focuses, not on a particular ideology, but on how to best engage with students.
The curriculum is about teaching students to think and investigate[8].
A dysfunctional obsession with gender and sexual diversity and paranoia over the role of diversity in the
destruction of modern western civilization is not a good starting point for a
rational analysis of the National Curriculum. I am horrified that Pyne has appointed Donnelly as one of the two
reviewers of the National Curriculum.
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