The Daily Telegraph had an article in yesterday’s edition about the Tillman Park’s Children’s Centre in Tempe. It is a day care for kids aged from 6 weeks to 6 years. Just recently they started a circulum that basically teaches kids that being gay and having gay parents is OK. Considering the area it is in, which is where I swear all the lesbians come to settle down and have kids, it is a damn good idea.
A COUNCIL-run childcare centre is teaching toddlers that gay, lesbian
and “transgender” parents are normal in a bid to “challenge the
perception” of young children about sexuality.
The Tillman Park Children’s Centre in Tempe — which receives council
and government funding — has devised the gay-friendly curriculum for
children aged six weeks to six years.
Marrickville Mayor Sam Byrne said the centre had “successfully
adopted several strategies to encompass lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and inter-sex issues”.
These included ensuring images were reflective of “diverse families”
and “actively affirming the identity of lesbian and gay families”.
He said the centre challenged “children’s perception of what
is ‘normal’ gender and sexual identity”.
The centre uses controversial Learn to Include books, which feature
Jed and his Dads and The Rainbow Cubby House.
Mr Byrne applauded staff and families at the centre for “broadening
the minds of our future generation”.
“At Marrickville we believe in offering children and families an
inclusive program based on social justice,” he told The Saturday
“These are reflected through an open environment where alternative
perspectives, values, beliefs, lifestyles and people’s identities are
respected and accepted.”
The Daily Telegraph last year revealed the books — produced by a non-
profit program run by the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of NSW –
– were funded by the Attorney-Generals Department, which provided
$33,000 over two years.
The Saturday Daily Telegraph can reveal the Learn to Include books
are also being used in private childcare centres across the state.
Child Care NSW president Lyn Connolly said there was no book list for
centres to draw from, but in order for centres to meet “high quality”
they relied on a variety of resources, including the Learn to Include
Marika Kontellis , whose three-year-old daughter Jasmin attends the
centre, said although she was in a hetrosexual relationship she had
no issue with the material being taught.
She said she could understand how some families might find the topics
confronting or uncomfortable “but for us it is important to know that
families come in different shapes and sizes and that’s okay and
“Every day the kids are being told that it is okay that you are
black, it is okay that you are gay, it’s okay that families don’t all
look the same,” Ms Kontellis said.
National Party Leader Andrew Stoner — who last year forced former
premier Bob Carr to investigate the use of the books in public
schools — said yesterday he was opposed to children
being “brainwashed by a political correct agenda”.
“It’s just crazy. Children that young have no concept of these issues
of sexuality,” he said.
“Whether it is heterosexual sex or homosexual sex, it is the choice
for parents to talk about it with their children — not for an
institution to start some political correct campaign.”
Psychologist Lorraine Corne said yesterday it is essential the
concept of gay and lesbians was introduced to young children in a
“You would introduce the concept like you would introduce the concept
of sex,” she said.
“It would be done at a level that they understand. It could be as
simple as some people have a father and a mother and some people have
two mothers and some have two fathers.
“It would have to be put in a very simplistic way otherwise it is
beyond their comprehension and it would go above their heads,” Ms
It is not too bad for an article in the straight media. However, what followed it was truly appauling. It was an editorial – and honestly is one of the most homophobic pieces of crap I have ever had the misfortune to read.
There is, of course, a more powerful basis for condemnation —
Marrickville Council is guilty of virtual child abuse in treating a
community-funded centre as a venue for gay education.
Couched in the stupid syntax of modern “inclusiveness”, the council
excitedly announced this week that the Tillman Park centre “has
successfully adopted several strategies to encompass lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and intersex issues”.
This means children aged six weeks to six years will be taught that
having two dads, two mums, or a couple of “transgender” parents who
change sex like other people change socks is routine.
The council has also stated that it aims to “challenge children’s
perception of what is considered normal gender and sexual identity”.
This is plain creepy. Do they seriously believe that young children
are even aware of issues of sexual identity, to adopt their clumsy
It is a conceit that a council would dare to usurp the role of
parents in providing their kids with this kind of education —
education which most sensible people believe should start beyond the
childcare age. It is an outrage that this council would fund its
conceit at ratepayers’ expense and with the assistance of taxpayers.
The parents who go along with this experiment should ask themselves
how necessary this kind of education is at such an early age —
whether colouring, or making animals out of egg cartons, is
preferential to dissertations on gay love.
With its intersex and transgender parents, Tillman Park sounds more
like a cult than a childcare centre. Its funding should be cut off.