Jehovah's Witnesses train children to sabotage human rights education
May 7, 2016 - The Jehovah's Witnesses website has published a video that encourages small children to sabotage human rights education. The video, called "One men and one women" teaches their children that the teacher is wrong in saying that people can choose their own relationship. It also encourages them to challenge children from rainbow families and to practice with their parents how they can do this most effectively. It even implies LGB couples should be compared with terrorists.
Lesson 22
The video is part of a series for small children on how to live as a proper Jehovah's Witness. Each video is based on a Bible quote and illustrates what Jehovah's Witnesses consider lessons for life.
In lesson 22, based on Matthew 19:4, 5 the Jehovah's Witnesses child comes home with a drawing of her class mate Carry. The class discussed different types of families. Carry has lesbian parents and made a drawing of her family. The Jehovah's Witnesses child summarizes to her mother: "My teacher says that all that matters is that people love each other and that they are happy."
Her mother looks worried and explains people have "different ideas" about what is right and wrong. She then compares gay and lesbian couples implicitly with airplane terrorists by saying: "It's something like... what would happen when someone takes something on a plane that is not allowed? (...) Jehovah want us to live in Paradise, but we have to keep his standards to get there."
She convinces the child that gays and lesbian are substandard and asks how her child can do something about this wrongness in school. "So what can you say to Carry?" The child: "I can tell her about Paradise, about the resurrection..". the mother closes the video by exclaiming: "That's awesome, lets practice!"
Protests
The video was picked up a few days ago by the UK edition of Pink News. Pink News treated the video as a kind of creepy joke. A day later, the chair women of the Dutch LGBT organization COC Netherlands spoke out against the video as "heartless and damaging". Her main complaint is that the video says that sexual orientation can be changed, although the actual text only says people can change their behavior. This is the main current strategy of religious organizations who follow the original Catholic dogma on marriage.
The director of GALE, Peter Dankmeijer, is more worried. "This is not only ridiculous or mentally damaging. This "lesson" actually brainwashes little children to deny other children's rights and is a call to "practice" with parents how to challenge children in rainbow families and to challenges human rights education in schools. This video has been published in 43 languages. I call upon the authorities of the States where these languages are spoken to act up against this serious attempt to sabotage international human rights agreements."
Sources: lesson 22 on the Jehovah's Witnesses website, Pink News, COC Netherlands