Children as young as eleven should be asked about their sexual orientation and parents need not know, research for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says.
The contentious proposal, which is likely to alarm many parents, has been branded as “sinister”.
A report published by the Commission claims that children should be asked if they are homosexual, bisexual, questioning or heterosexual in a bid to curb discrimination.
Phase
It also warns against assuming adolescents’ homosexual feelings are a “passing phase”. Homosexual activists have desperately campaigned for underage homosexual behaviour not to be treated as a phase.
And while the report admits that getting parental consent for kids to be questioned is “considered good practice”, it also says “there is no clear legal requirement in relation to social research”.
But Graham Stuart, the Conservative chairman of the education select committee, has branded the recommendations “invasive, sinister and threatening”.
Safety
He said: “School should be a place of safety, not a place where they are picked over for the purposes of some quango; and many children won’t understand what they are talking about.”
The report says “some young people begin to question their sexual orientation as early as age eight and may begin to identify as LGB from early adolescence”.
But a spokesman for the EHRC said it did not think kids should be “routinely” asked about their sexuality. The spokesman added: “This is independent research produced to help the commission inform its policy direction.”
Stripped
Last week the Home Secretary revealed that the EHRC was set to be stripped of a number of its responsibilities.
Proposed changes to the Commission have been published as part of a three-month Home Office consultation.
The troubled EHRC funded the case of a same-sex couple who sued Christian B&B owners over their double bed policy.
Infecting
The Commission had to make an embarrassing U-turn earlier this month when an attempt to demand more compensation backfired. It said the move was an “error of judgment”.
In the previous week the Commission had been forced to apologise after claiming that Christian foster parents may harm children by ‘infecting’ them with their moral values.
Last year the Commission was criticised by Home Secretary Theresa May for its “track record” of misusing taxpayers’ money.