KOZHIKODE: Reigniting debates on gender neutrality and homosexuality, Muslim organizations have come out strongly against the handbook provided to teachers interacting with school students during the seven-day National Service Scheme (NSS) camps organized across the state, alleging it injected immorality into children’s minds.
IUML state general secretary P M A Salam said the handbook contained thoughts rejected by the West, the initial propagators of homosexuality and gender neutrality.
“The booklet says homosexuality is not wrong. Why is the government courting unwanted controversies? NSS camps should be a forum for developing students’ skills,” he said.
Salam said the Russian supreme court had recently declared the LGBTQ+ community as extremists and held they should be jailed. “Are we bigger communists than the Russians,” Salam asked, in an apparent jibe at the state government. He clarified that it was not a religious issue but a moral problem that had become a concern for people. In a Facebook post, Sunni Yuvajana Sangham (SYS) state secretary Nazar Faizi Koodathayi termed the module in the NSS handbook “extremely dangerous.”
“The government agreed to withdraw references to gender neutrality when it sparked a row earlier. However, teachers are forced to teach such superstitions as part of NSS camps,” Faizi wrote. He said the module titled samadarshan presents all immoralities as sexual orientations and asserts they are genetic.
Do not use schools for experiments, says Faizi
“The handbook says sex and gender are two different things and gender can be changed as per a person’s wish,” he said, alleging that the handbook even encouraged students to undergo gender change.
Maintaining that those who wanted to propagate such ideas could have their way, Faizi said, “However, schools should not be used for experimentation. You can have camps, guides, and modules of your own, but we will not allow you to teach them using government resources.”
Dr Abdulla Basil C P, vice-president of Wisdom Students, the feeder organization of Wisdom Islamic Organisation, said even scientific facts are distorted to make homosexuality acceptable. He said the argument in the handbook that it was scientifically proved that homosexuality was genetic has been punctured by scientists themselves.
“The theory about the presence of the ‘Gay Gene’ has been rejected by scientists. Propagators of LGBTQ are pushing their agenda though it is found to be unscientific,” Dr Basil said. He said theories about LGBTQ have been presented in the module without acquainting students with counterarguments. Dr Basil said the public education system should not be used to propagate the agenda of some vested interests.