| SPOTLIGHT |
A group of five parents have lost their bid to appeal against a High Court judgment which rejected their legal challenge against the Welsh sex education curriculum.
The Welsh government's new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum was launched in September and sees the mandatory teaching of topics of gender identity and sex to primary school pupils.
Campaign group, Public Child Protection Wales (PCPW), which funded the claimants, argued that the mandatory element of RSE means children “will be taught about sensitive and arguably inappropriate topics such as gender ideology”, and that parents were being disenfranchised by being denied their right to remove their child from sex education.
The parent’s legal challenge was rejected in the High Court by Mrs Justice Steyn in November.
In the two-day legal hearing at the Civil Justice Centre in Cardiff, Mrs Justice Steyn said: "Teaching should be neutral from a religious perspective, but it is not required to be value neutral."
Dismissing all aspects of the claim, she said: "In my judgment, the content of the code and the guidance is consistent with the requirement to take care to ensure that RSE teaching is conveyed in an objective critical and pluralistic manner and does not breach the prohibition on indoctrination.”
The claimants sought to appeal the decision, but permission was refused last week.
According to the BBC, Lord Justice Males told the Court of Appeal: "The applicants' various challenges to the code and the guidance all proceed on the basis that these documents mandate the teaching and promotion of particular sexual lifestyles in ways which amount to indoctrination.
"As the respondents point out, however, the fundamental difficulty with these challenges is that the code and guidance do no such thing."
Lord Justice Males reportedly added that it was "inconceivable" the curriculum's approach to the LGBTQ+ community and gender identification could be a breach of common law or the Human Rights Act.
One of the claimants in the case, Kim Isherwood, said on behalf of the group: “We are naturally disappointed the judicial system has agreed parents' rights do not exist. We exhausted the democratic process by way of consultation & petitions, whereby over 86% of respondents rejected the government's plans to teach unethical political ideologies, however the Welsh government once again go against the will of the people. Nevertheless, we are pleased we got the opportunity to address issues in the High Court & prove our information was fact. The fight continues.”
Also the Chair of PCPW, Isherwood noted that the community organisation will “continue to raise funds for other members of the public needing a legal challenge.”
Lottie Winson
