Chief Rabbi Mirvis calls for people to stop making children believe being gay is a sin
The Rabbi made the comments following statistic of LGBT children attempting suicide
By Steve Brown
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has called for people to stop making children believe being gay is a sin.
Rabbi Mirvis urged staff to be more inclusive towards the LGBT community after concerns about homophobia and transphobia bullying leading to self-harm and isolation, The Telegraph reported.
In the document called The Wellbeing of LGBT+ Pupils: A Guide for Orthodox Jewish Schools – which was produced alongside Jewish LGBT charity KeshetUK – it reveals the alarming number of children who have attempted to take their life as a result of prejudice.
Schools have also been warned that the so-called gay conversion therapy has been “strongly condemned” by doctors with the Government announcing plans to outlaw it earlier this year.
Rabbi Mirvis said: “Our children need to know that at school, at home and in the community, they will be loved and protected regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.”
His welcoming comments come just months after an Orthodox Jewish school in north London censored textbooks which mentioned homosexuality.
The Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School came under fire after it redacted sections of its textbooks to remove any mention homosexuality and used a black marker pen to exclude references to them in a list of victims of the Holocaust.