The Mail isn't homophobic but...

The typical Daily Mail reader, were they to believe all they read, would huddle at home in constant fear that a gang of obese, drunk, illiterate, drugged up and tooled up eight year olds would drag themselves away from killing prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto just long enough to smash the door down and stab them to death, before defecating on the dog.

So no surprise that the Daily Mail is concerned that our youngsters are being taught how to be gay. This is, let me stress, absolutely not that Mail journos are a bunch of homophobes stuck in the 19th century.

David Cameron might have recanted and, like the prodigal - if slightly camp - son, apologised for having opposed the scrapping of Section 28 (which prohibited Councils from promoting homosexuality in schools) but the Mail is having none of it.

After all, Jesus wasn't gay. No really, he wasn't. What do you mean surrounded himself with fit young men? He was playing hide the sausage with Mary. No, not his mum. Mary Magdalene. It must be true - I read it in a history book by a Professor Daniel Brown.

Sorry, where was I?

Ah yes, local authorities dedicating millions of pounds to convert decent heterosexual eleven-year-olds, happily rutting behind the bike sheds, into gays and lesbians. Not the Katy Perry type of lesbian either. Real lesbians. Crew cuts and dungarees.

This outrage must be stopped.

Such a shame, then, that reporter Harry Phibbs barely has time to get going before he arses it up.

Because, to maintain the pretence that he doesn't want all the gays put in a pit and stoned to death, Harry has to claim that it's not about queers, it's about all sex.

The argument is not, or should not be, about the moral argument over whether or not there is anything wrong with homosexuality.

It is just not an issue that councils should be involved with.

Sex should be a private matter. What goes on in our bedrooms is not a matter for Town Hall bureaucrats.

We expect councils to empty our dustbins - not to express preferences on the relative merits of different forms of sexual intercourse.

Still less do we expect them to tell our children about sex.

I rather think we do expect exactly that, Harry. Unless you're suggesting that every state school in the country should independently develop its sex education programme from scratch.

My local authority, like pretty much every other, works with its schools to develop sex & relationship education materials.

The Mail is horrified about

... books as Jenny lives with Eric and Martin.

It included photographs of Eric and Martin naked in bed.

Rimming, no doubt.

Sorry, Harry, but sex ed includes photos of adults in bed. In fact, these days it can include cartoons of couples having sex. Shown to primary school children. And I've seen them.

Most parents do expect schools - and the councils that support them - to tell children about sex. Go to any school and ask how many parents have opted their children out from sex-ed - the number will almost always be few or none.

At my local primary, where a significant proportion of the children are muslim, not a single child has been opted out.

Let's hear for councils and schools not just pretending to approve of gayers, like the Mail does, but actually giving children the opportunity to see that being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender isn't something bad, to be hidden away, kept secret, be ashamed of and be mercilessly teased and bullied about if discovered.