Mail, you owe me a new bullshit-detector. Mine just exploded.

We all know that the Mail's headline writers have a somewhat... uncomfortable relationship with reality. So when I saw an article entitled "Gay messages built into maths lessons for children as young as FOUR", my bullshit-ometor immediately went into hyperdrive.



These are the first two lines of the story: "Young children are to be taught about homosexuality in their maths, geography, science and English lessons, it has emerged. As part of a Government-backed drive to ‘celebrate the gay community’, maths problems could be introduced that involve gay characters".

Oh, and look - there's a big picture of two men holding hands, with the caption "Same sex: Geography lessons will explain why homosexuals move to cities and language classes will teach gay vocabulary (picture posed by models)".

Right, that makes it perfectly clear what's going on then, doesn't it?

Oh, wait. This is the Mail.

What this story is actually based on is the fact that Schools Out, a LGBT pressure group, are to offer free downloadable lesson plans that mention LGBT people, as well as so-called 'normal people' for use in schools, to coincide with LGBT History Month.

Because Schools Out received some money from the Training And Development Agency For Schools (TDA) to help develop these lesson plans, and the TDA are a non-departmental public body (FYI Mail, nobody calls them 'quangos' any more), that makes these plans "[g]overnment backed".

I read the TDA's PDF file about their role and remit, and how they hope to implement it, by the way - and at no point is any plan along the lines of  "Step 3: Indocrinate small children into becoming morally-degenerate, godless deviants by letting them know that not all families are headed by two heterosexual WASP parents, thus facilitating the downfall of the UK" mentioned. Just so you know.

Of course, the Mail then go with the traditional contradiction of the headline, when half-way through the article, they admit that it's all bollocks: "Although the lesson plans are not compulsory, they are backed by the Department for Education and will be available for schools to download from the Schools Out website.
Sue Sanders, from Schools Out, said: ‘All we are attempting to do is remind teachers that LGBT people are part of the population and you can include them in most of your lessons when you are thinking inclusively.’ David Watkins, a teacher who is involved in the scheme, said: ‘When you have a maths problem, why does it have to involve a straight family or a boyfriend and girlfriend? Why not two boys or two girls? It’s not about teaching about gay sex, it is about exposing children to the idea that there are other types of people out there,’ he added." (Sensible parts emphasised)

Of course, the rest of the article is like a Mail reading bigot's wet dream. For no reason whatsoever to do with the story, it mentions

• 'And Tango Makes Three', which for some reason, they view as 'the Left's' version of 'Mein Kampf'*.  
• A frothing soundbite from their favourite rent-a-gobs, the Tax Payers Alliance, as John O'Connell popped up with this little pearl of knee-jerk stupidity: "‘Parents will wonder if this is a right use of funds and time, particularly when we keep hearing how tight budgets are". 
• "British schools tumble down international league tables in maths, English and science". 

The article also contains lots of lovely phrases like "[t]hey will also mean youngsters are exposed to images of same-sex couples", a line which is so full of both stupidity and malicious bile that it made me wince upon reading it.

The comments aren't a pretty sight either. At 07.15 on 24/1/11, the best rated comment was this:

"Over my dead body would that subject have been taught to my son when he was four. That's too young, sex in any form has no place in the minds or the environment of young children. They'll have time enough in their lives to have to think about it, they should be allowed to have their childhoods in peace." - Rose, Ireland, 23/1/2011 22:35 (375 green arrows). You have to applaud Rose's commitment to ignorant-twattery that she managed to miss the entire story in the article by a country mile, really.

Equally worst rated, with 162 red arrows each were:

"So whats the problem?"- chelsie, london,england, 23/1/2011 22:32, and

"Oh please...just give this gay bashing a rest DM.......it really is getting boring!!!!!"- Gary, Surrey, 23/1/2011 22:33

In fact - the six worst rated comments, all with a minimum of 80 red arrows, were all people pointing out that the story is bullshit. Think about that. There's at least 80 people who read this article online and either a) failed to see the glaring contradictions in the headline and article, or b) are that opposed to acknowledging the existence of LGBT people to children, that they're prepared to ignore it.

*Seriously, they hate those damn penguins.

EDIT: No Sleep 'til Brooklands has covered the paranoid and shockingly bigoted ramblings of Melanie Phillips here. So go read that too.

Also, Press Not Sorry has covered the levels of homophobia and transphobia at the Mail in just the past seven days here.