Spaniards participate in one of many protests against the controversial civics course.
February 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Spain’s new government, swept into power in November after seven years of socialist rule, has announced the elimination of a controversial program to indoctrinate students with homosexualist and socialist ideology.
The government’s new Minister of Education, Culture, and Sports, Jose Ignacio Wert, says frankly that the civics course, which was imposed on all public and private schools, “became a course that was charged with indoctrination.”
“Education for Citizenship has been accompanied, since its birth, by controversy and created a serious division in society and in the educational world because it went beyond what should belong to a true ‘civic formation’ in accordance with the directories and guides formulated by the Council of Europe,” Wert also stated.
“Education for Citizenship and Human Rights,” also known in Spain as EpC, provoked a massive protest by Spanish citizens who said that their right to educate their children according to their own values was being violated by the government.
Course materials suggested that teachers have students make a “critical evaluation of the social and sexual division of labor and racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic social prejudices” and said that teachers should strive to “revise the student’s attitude towards homosexuality.”
In one manifestation of the course, students were told that “sex is for enjoyment as much as we can or want,” and “so and let others do whatever they wish,” according to Forum Libertas, a Spanish Catholic news source.
Despite resistance from large numbers of families, the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party refused to back down, and even attempted to impose the program on Spaniards living abroad.
Wert, a member of the now-ruling Popular Party, says that EpC will be replaced by a program that is limited to teaching the text of Spain’s constitution, rights and responsibilities, and “pluralism, liberty, democracy, and knowledge of European institutions” in the words of Europa Press.
The suppression of EpC was hailed by numerous pro-family organizations, including Forum for the Family (Foro de la Familia), Make Yourself Heard (HazteOir), the Family Policy Institute (Instituto de Politica Familiar), and Professionals for Ethics (Profesionales por la Etica).
Jaime Urcelay, president of Professionals for Ethics, called the news “a joy that compensates many years of effort and struggle for freedom against an educational indoctrination imposed by the government in power.”
“There have been many years of objections (55 thousand objections presented) of suffering and judicial processes (around 3,000 in Spain and 400 Spaniards in Strasbourg suing),” he added.
Professionals for Ethics reports that Jose Ignacio Wert was receiving a 1,000 messages a day urging him to fulfill the campaign promise of the People’s Party to eliminate EpC, prior to the announcement.
Regarding the new civics program to be announced, Urcelay said that it would be “welcome” if “it does not intend to insinuate itself into the values of students and mold their consciences and thinking against the values of their parents.”
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