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Church's bullying stance slammed

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Published Date: 03 February 2007
THE Catholic Church is abdicating its responsibility for children's welfare by refusing to target homophobic bullying in schools, a teachers' leader said today.
The Church rejected calls from ministers for every school - including England's 2100 Catholic state schools - to have a policy on tackling homophobic playground bullying.

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1

William King,

03/02/2007 14:00:35

Why would it tackle bullying - this is the church which 'hid' paedophilia amongst it's priests across at least four continents for many decades.

2

Derek Williams,

Edinburgh 03/02/2007 16:24:07

Students who have been bullied for any reason (including homophobia) may see fit to sue their schools (Catholic or otherwise) at the court for 'breach of duty of care' IF it can be shown that the school knew about the abuse but failed to act to prevent it.

A very common scenario is that the bullied child is withdrawn from the school by his parents to escape his harassers. This has the twofold effect of removing the immediate problem for the school, and demonstrating to others that the victorious bullies have prevailed and gotten rid of the 'faggot' child once and for all. There is very little likelihood after that of any other victims of bullying believing that they will receive sympathy from an administration that through egregious negligence effectively condones such a parlous state of affairs. Parents may be unaware of the homophobic component of the bullying or that their child is gay. Moreover a significant number of parents may go on to abuse the child themselves once they realise he is gay.

Homophobic bullying can be directed at any child who fits a putatively gay stereotype, irrespective of whether they are actually homosexual. Such children rarely reach their educative potential and frequently leave school as soon as legally possible, thereafter becoming unemployable, depressed and suicidal, all of which is a substantial burden upon the state that could have been avoided if proper care had been offered at the time when it was most needed.

Having personally handled numerous of such cases successfully (from the victim's point of view), I know for a fact that the Catholic Education Office, among others, will pay out hundreds of thousands in hush money to victims suing for breach of duty of care in order to prevent the scandal from reaching a court, which would carry with it considerable ignominy for the Church, set legal precedents and possibly judgments for far greater amounts. These lawsuits have now become so widespread that certain

3

alicia,

04/02/2007 18:59:25

It's amazing the lack of tirade about this appalling treatment of children. The postings slating gay parents was foul, yet here there is a clear letting down of these children, no support, allowance and tolerance of bullying.

I guess it's the old "if I don't acknowledge it then it doesn't exist ...."

4

alicia,

04/02/2007 19:11:20

The Catholic Church are therefore breaching the Education Authorities Anti-Bullying policies. No child should be bullied for any reason.

I don't see any tirade about "what about the children" here?

5

Alastair M,

Amsterdam 04/02/2007 22:38:26

As has been mentioned, it can hardly be a surprise that the Catholic Church wouldn't want to be too hard on anti-gay bullying. Their appaling antics over the last few weeks re adoption have been mental bullying of the worst kind.

Do these so-called pastoral leaders EVER stop to consider what effect their words have on potentially very vulnerable children. No, they don't - and until they do, they shouldn't be allowed to have anything more to do with children, whether it be adopting them out or educating them.

6

alicia,

05/02/2007 10:21:43

Absolutely shameful. I totally agree, it was mental bullying of the worst kind over the last couple of weeks. Absolutely disgusting that barely a comment has been made regarding this. It appears that the Catholics are quite happy to dole out their abusive behaviour to whatever section of society THEY think deserves it, and that children being subjected to homophobic bullying are not worth their consideration.

And so many had the cheek in their vile postings over the last couple of weeks to bring up why LGBT children/adults MAY suffer from a higher percentage of mental health problems than average? There is your answer above - they are subjected to the vilest comments and with little or no support of course more people will show the strain.

Disgusting.


 

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