Friday February 11, 11:24 AM
Yahoo! News
The Scotsman
MINISTERS yesterday won the overwhelming backing of the Scottish parliament for their controversial plan to repeal Section 28.
They achieved a resounding vote of confidence in their intention to scrap the ban on promoting homosexuality in schools after MSPs threw out a Conservative motion to put the move on ice.
The result was the clearest indication yet that Scotland will pave the way for the rest of the UK.
The executive sought to shore up the outcome of the vote with the announcement of the membership of an independent working group charged with reviewing advice and materials on sex education in schools.
It will produce a package of safeguards which will be introduced before Section 28 is abolished.
Members will include a representative of the Scottish School Boards Association, which was worried about the proposed guidelines.
The SSBA recently distanced itself from the pro-Section 28 "Keep The Clause" campaign, bankrolled by the Stagecoach tycoon, Brian Souter.
Mr Souter's wife was one of several people interviewed by the police yesterday after staging a silent protest on the public galleries of the parliament.
Wendy Alexander, the minister for social inclusion, told the chamber: "Repeal will not leave a vacuum, but it will take away a symbol of intolerance and a source of confusion.
"On the practicalities of safeguards we are seeking consensus - but on the principle of repeal we will not delay,for justice delayed is justicedenied.
"[Section 28], when all is said and done, remains a piece of legalised intolerance. The passage of time will neither healit or help it. It needs to go."
Ms Alexander also appeared to hold out an olive branch to Cardinal Thomas Winning, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, who has been a vocal opponent of the plan to scrap Section 28.
She said new guidelines would "reaffirm the specialposition of denominational schools, particularly in those areas where church teaching bears most clearly on the curriculum".
The Tories had attempted to halt the repeal by moving an opposition debate motion calling for the legislation relating to it to be removed from the Ethical Standards in Public Life Bill.
Annabel Goldie, deputy Tory leader, said the inclusion of Section 28 in the wide-ranging bill, due to become law later this year, had provoked "an ugly and undisguised homophobia".
And she accused Ms Alexander of railroading through the repeal on the basis of political correctness.
Miss Goldie said: "Before the minister for communities made her announcement last October, nobody had raised with me Section 28, nobody had expressed the fears or the difficulties which the minister seemed to harbour."
She said the repeal had not been contained in either the Labour or Liberal Democrat election manifestos or the partnership for government agreement.
Miss Goldie added: "I can only conclude that this is the naive afterthought of an executive zealously obsessed with the politically correct rather than the mature and measured consideration of an issue profoundly sensitive and potentially hurtful to so many people."
The Tories insisted that Section 28 allowed teachers to instruct children on all areas of sexuality, but protected them from being indoctrinated with homosexual propaganda.
The Scottish National Party yesterday gave its broad support to the executive, although it has expressed doubts about the plan to replace Section 28 with non-statutory guidelines.
Michael Matheson, the SNP deputy justice spokesman, said: "Having pressed for the need to ensure full and proper consultations on the issue of guidelines, we believe that it is essential we ensure that this takes place in the most open and inclusive a manner possible.
"It's for this reason that we believe that the consultation exercise should include looking at the status which is given to those guidelines."
However, Ms Alexander appeared to rule out giving the guidelines formal status on the grounds Scotland does not have a statutory national curriculum.
Nora Radcliffe, the Lib Dem equal opportunities spokeswoman, hushed the chamber with an eloquent appeal for MSPs to abolish Section 28. She said: "Section 28 has been portrayed as the bulwark preventing our schools from being flooded with homosexual propaganda.
"This is arrant nonsense, education departments, teachers and parents run schools - not gay activists."
Last night, a spokesman for Cardinal Winning said: "Some of the content of today's debate was disappointing. The principles of political correctness were once more to the fore. The concerns of the now not-so-silent majority seemed to be barely understood by many speakers.
"However, we welcome the significant introduction of a question into the Scottish executive's amendment, asking whether further reassurance is required before any repeal of [the section]. The answer to that question is very clear. Further reassurance is required."