New homophobic bullying measures welcomed by CES

BY MARK GREAVES
THE CATHOLIC Education Service (CES) has welcomed new government guidelines saying schools should take an “active approach to bullying, including homophobic bullying”.
Oona Stannard, CES chief executive, said: “Any form of bullying is intolerable, and we are united with the Government in our desire to make schools and colleges safe places for all.” Ms Stannard said the CES had been pleased to work with the Government in developing an anti-bullying strategy.
She said: “The Department for Children, Schools and Families is aware of our already successful strategies to eliminate bullying in Catholic schools. At the heart of a successful school lies respect for the dignity of the individual and bullying has no place in such communities.” Catholic schools score more highly than other schools on “freedom from bullying” measures, according to Ofsted figures released in 2006.
A report issued by the CES showed that 55 per cent of Catholic primary schools scored “excellent” or “very good” in this category, compared to 44 per cent of other primary schools. In Catholic secondary schools the figure was 41 per cent compared to 28 per cent in other schools.
Ms Stannard also reiterated the Catholic Church’s condem nation of homophobia. “The Church is very firm about this,” she said. “It was made clear, for example, by Cardinal Hume in 1997: ‘Nothing in the Church’s teaching can be said to support or sanction, even implicitly, the victimisation of homosexual men and women. Furthermore, homophobia should have no place among Catholics. Catholic teaching on homosexuality is not founded on, and can never be used to justify, homophobic attitudes’.” Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, head of the CES, told the Commons education committee in December that there was no need for specific measures to tackle homophobic bullying.
“If you begin to pick out particular sections then the list of special policies is going to get very long and there probably would not be too much room on the walls to accommodate it,” he said.
Instead he recommended a robust general policy that would tackle all forms of bullying. The archbishop also defended the right of Catholic schools to teach that active homosexuality was sinful, arguing that classrooms should not be a “morally neutral” zone.
But he stressed the Church’s distinction between a person’s orientation and their sexual behaviour.
“The Catholic Church would stand very firmly for the equal dignity and rights of a person no matter what their sexual orientation,” he said.