The Australian
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
Primary school students in Adelaide’s south have worn dresses and costumes to school to raise over $275,000 for charity despite facing backlash from Australian Conservative senator Cory Bernardi.
The conservative politician criticised Craigburn Primary School’s fundraising efforts earlier this month saying that by allowing students, both male and female, to come wearing a dress to raise money for girls in Africa, they were engaging in “absurd gender morphing”.
Senator Bernardi questioned why the traditional “casual” day had been replaced with a “wear a dress” day.
Prominent gay ABC comedian Josh Thomas tweeted his support for the fundraiser, with a link the school’s blog, and donated $2000.
Outrage among Twitterati followed, with gay activists and the subsequent publicity helping drive up donations to the school’s fundraiser to more than $275,000, smashing the original $900 target.
Senator Bernardi last week said the school’s timing of the fundraiser was poor.
“In the hypersensitive time where we’ve got same-sex marriage debate, we’ve got people concerned about gender ideological training in schools, I think this is entirely inappropriate,” he said.
“As one parent put to me the other day, if your son doesn’t wear a dress to school are they demonstrating their lack of solidarity with the cause (poor girls in Africa), which is an admirable one.
“Why can’t kids just be encouraged to wear casual clothes and not be forced to change the time honoured tradition in favour of what I think is a political statement.”
But South Australian Education Minister Susan Close, from Labor’s Left faction, accused Senator Bernardi of acting in a “disgraceful” way by asking questions about the fundraiser.
“I think it’s actually disgraceful to take something that’s innocent and student led and turn it into something that plays out a whole lot of adult concepts that the kids don’t need to be involved with,” Dr Close said.
“The idea is to inject a little bit of fun, raise some money and do a good thing and it is entirely innocent. To take such an innocent and well-meaning idea and bring it into our world of grown-up politics I just find disgraceful.”
Dr Close told The Australian that Year 5 students at the school discovered the charity One Girl during an “inquiry project” and the idea developed from there.
You need to be a member of 1Eyed Eel to add comments!
Replies
Nothing wrong with wearing dresses, sounds like a good cause