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| Antonia Tully is interviewed by Polish national TV |
The Polish government has backtracked on introducing explicit sex education into the nation's schools after parents started to mobilise. Polish parents gathered in Warsaw in their thousands last Sunday to protest against proposed changes to the current pro-family school subject WDZ (Family Life Education).
A coalition of 26 pro-family groups came together to oppose changes to WDZ, announced on 9 July by Education Minister, Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska. Polish family groups want to keep WDZ as it is. "Upbringing for Family Life" is a more literal translation of the Polish and, say the family groups, expresses the good values which currently underpin the subject, which prepares young people for marriage and family life.
Before the rally took place, Ms Kluzik-Rostkowska told the pro-family coalition to "stop misleading parents"; that the government is "not introducing WHO standards" and that "work on changing the WDZ curriculum hasn’t started yet", (emphasis added).” However, Polish parents have not been pacified by the Education Minister and are under no illusion that their children remain at risk.
Ministry officials from the education department have already met with LGBT activists to talk about introducing so-called "anti-discrimination" education. As elsewhere in the world, education claiming to tackle discrimination is a smokescreen for introducing teaching programmes which promote contraception, abortion, premature sexual intercourse and homosexuality. This, say the family campaigners, is destroying young people for family life.
The coalition of family groups came together under the leadership of Magdalena Trowanowska, who has been running a campaign to protect Polish children from sexualisation in the classroom for the past two years. She has a website - stop-seksualizacji.pl - and organises local campaigns around Poland to raise awareness among of the sex education menace.
Polish parents are staying on their guard as the gender lobby pushes forward with a conference scheduled for 10 September convened by the Equalities Minister on the theme of "Gender in Text Books". Other participants in this event are the research group which produced a report with the conference title and the Feminoteka Foundation, which is behind the "Equality in Nursery Schools" project in which pre-school children act and dress up in clothes of the opposite sex.
Estimates put the number of people supporting the rally, "Stop! Deprawacji Edukacji" ("Stop! Corruption Education"), at around 14,000. The organisers counted 140 coaches which brought in people from all parts of Poland.
The pro-family demonstration in Warsaw began with the Holy Mass, during which there was a re-enactment of St John Paul ll's dedication of the world to Divine Mercy in 2000. The church was packed and hundreds more knelt outside. It certainly was an inspiring sight to see so many families with their children, coming together to make a powerful statement to protect their children.
I was privileged to share a platform with expert speakers from Poland, France, Germany and Italy. My main message to Polish parents was to resist school sex education right now.
I also spoke of a "revolution of parents". I told the rally about UK parents whose opposition to compulsory school sex education in British schools has resulted in a government report, published in July 2015, which confirmed that sex education would remain a non-compulsory school subject. We achieved this despite huge pressure for change from the powerful, government-funded sex education lobby.
In the ever-present shadow cast over Poland by St John Paul ll, I asked Polish families to continue to uphold the values we have lost in western Europe. All eyes were on Poland on 16 October 1978. We are looking to Poland now.
The rally was covered on Sunday 30 August on the 6pm national news and included Antonia talking about the damaging sex education in UK schools. (See picture above)
The picture to the right shows the vast rally protesting against World Health Organisation (WHO) standards of sex education being introduced into Polish schools. WHO standards advocate, among other things, sexual rights for children and sexual experimentation in young people.
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