Has the ‘Janet and John’ family vanished?

Nothing has sparked such a passionate debate about ‘the family’ as the contentious proposed legislation to repeal Section 28 concerning the promotion of homosexuality. It seems that everyone has an opinion about it, and the heated and impassioned arguments range far and wide. Where do you place yourself in this debate?

The climax was reached when peers in the House of Lords threw out an attempt by the government to lift a ban on local authorities promoting homosexuality in schools. The Government’s stand is that they are committed to repeal Section 28 which has ‘caused confusion in schools ... and has been a barrier to building a supportive and tolerant society.’

Those opposing such a change in the law maintain that our children will be at risk, and that appalling material has already been prepared inviting 14-year-old pupils in the Bristol area to pretend to be married men caught cottaging. A video from the same health authority features a 13-year-old advising pupils to try both boys and girls until they find out who they feel most comfortable with. There is no doubt that extreme material of this kind causes many thoughtful and rational men and women to have grave doubts about the wisdom of a change in the law. They believe it will ‘open the flood gates’ and the message to our children will be ‘anything goes’.

Lady Young, urged her fellow peers to preserve the law so as to protect schoolchildren. She reminded the House of Lords that ‘the centre of this debate is children’. I agree and this is a point which has been lost in the passionate discussions about acceptance and tolerance of homosexuals in society. This is a different matter altogether.

This debate raged most heatedly in the same week as New Labour’s most influential think-tank urged Tony Blair to stop supporting marriages and the two-parent family: Demos urges the Government to switch its resources to caring for parents regardless of their family status. We read that Helen Wilkinson - its main family researcher - advocates ‘sell-by date’ marriages, in which couples agree to split up after a certain number of years. At the same time Ed Straw, chair of Relate, writes that marriage is a turn off for young people, and campaigners for the traditional family are ‘nuclear family supremacists.’ And yet, in contrast David Blunkett, the Education Secretary, has new guidelines stating that ‘marriage and the family are the key building blocks of community and society.’ He is quoted as saying about his new proposed guidelines ‘It is the first time we have set into a framework that pupils should be taught about the importance of marriage, family life, love and stable relationships in bringing up children.’

Many liberal open-minded people are very concerned and perplexed about the correct way forward. How can we decide what is ‘best’ for our children. It is true that religious leaders from all denominations have joined together to back the blocking of this proposed change in the law. It may be painful for some men and women who do recognize that in today’s society we must all live alongside families made up of different groupings, to find they are against the repeal of Section 28. Today divorce and family breakups are a fact of life, albeit a sad one, which deeply affects all the children of those families. Lesbians and gay men often do have children within a heterosexual marriage before acknowledging they are gay, with the result that there are many children living with and cared for by gay parents. That, too, is a fact.

But does acceptance of all the different patterns of the makeup of families have to go hand in hand with explicit explanations of the intimate details of homosexuality. A large majority of the population are uneasy, to say the least, about the Government’s proposal, but is it right that anyone who opposes this change is seen as a ‘crank’ or ‘bigot’ or worse still, as prejudiced against homosexuals. I do not believe this to be the case. Society does need to be sensitive to different family patterns just as teachers need to be aware of the distress caused to those pupils who do not come from a traditional ‘Janet and John’ family. I understand that Section 28 as it stands has not prohibited teachers discussing the dilemma caused by differing family patterns.

A MORI poll (reported in the Daily Mail) showed a big majority for keeping the law. It showed how most of the population deplores prejudice, but still wants to safeguard Section 28. So where do you stand? Are you clear about what message to give our children? Surely the bottom line about sex education in schools is about respect, not only for the children themselves, but for everyone else.

In the children’s reading books Janet and John worried only about stepping in puddles or caring for the dog, to-day’s children have much more on their plate. It is up to the adults to make sure that what is there for them is as palatable and healthy as possible. And we all carry the responsibility for that.

© Jill Curtis 2004