Papers attack school for tackling homophobic bullying

A primary school in Kent has been the latest unfortunate victim of the homophobia rife in most of the media.

Bromstone Primary held a thirty minute assembly on bullying for its 5 to 11 year old pupils. It covered, according to the Mail, issues of 'race, language and weight' and sexuality. Here's how it has been reported:

Anger as school tells children aged five about gay issues...to the sound of Elton John (Mail)
Outrage over gay assembly (Sun)
Primary school children given gay assembly with Elton John song (Telegraph)

None of the headlines mention to any other element of the assembly, indeed in referring to it as a 'gay assembly' suggests there was no other element to it. Why did none of them call it a 'fat assembly'?

No doubt Littlejohn is already firing out his column for next week about this: 'PC gone mad' and how the PC brigade want to turn all your children gay. And that seems to be gist of these stories too.

There are three mothers who are quoted as being upset in every story. The school's head reveals 'many parents had congratulated the school in tackling the issue in such a sensitive way' but this doesn't get anything like the same coverage as the mothers' 'outrage'.

And there seems to be some dispute over whether there were four year olds in the assembly too. The Mail (and a commentator in the the thisiskent site) say not, the Telegraph says yes and the Sun breaks out the bold caps to say 'some of them as young as FOUR'.

Only a week ago Stonewall Cymru launched a report saying 65% of secondary school pupils in Wales had been bullied because of their sexuality. When the schools attempt to tackle this, certain disgraceful newspapers lambast them for trying. It is almost impossible to comprehend how the media can attack schools for attempting to save kids from the horror of bullying.