Scottish Family Party to focus on education in council elections
- Published
We will listen to the needs of local people says Richard Lucas
The Scottish Family Party is putting reforms to education at the heart of its council election campaign.
The pro-marriage, anti-abortion party was set up in 2017, and is standing 84 candidates in the election on 5 May.
It is particularly opposed to the sex education currently taught in schools and wants councils to do more to push back against policies set at Holyrood.
Leader Richard Lucas said the party was "in it for the long term" and hoped to build a platform for future contests.
The party - which is fielding council candidates for the first time - does not have a national manifesto for the elections, instead giving local candidates freedom to build platforms around priorities in their area.
Mr Lucas said he wanted to "listen to the genuine needs of local people", claiming that local authorities were "totally out of touch" during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He also said councils faced "huge disadvantages" because of education policies set at Holyrood, calling on councillors to "challenge the government policy and try and promote deviation from it".
The Family Party is particularly opposed to the sex education currently taught in schools, and is also against the LGBT-inclusive education advocated by the government and many other parties.
Mr Lucas said: "We feel that introducing LGBT political campaigning and symbols to five-year-olds in primary schools, we just think that's not right.
"Partly because they're not old enough to understand those issues, partly because these are controversial issues in some ways, and if you're just presenting one side of the story to them from the very beginning of primary school, we feel it's highly inappropriate."
He later told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that he backed the teaching of sex education in schools, and had taught it himself when he worked as a teacher.
But he added: "The objection we have to the Scottish government's sex education resources is that they are vulgar, there is often an immoral message, it is a dangerous message.
"For example endorsing pornography use among children, saying this is nothing to feel guilty about. We just don't think that's the right message."
The socially conservative party has courted controversy in previous campaigns, having projected anti-abortion messages onto an Edinburgh sexual health clinic and the Scottish Parliament during the 2021 elections.
It has also opposed to the NHS giving fertility treatments to anyone other than heterosexual couples, and says preference should be given to married couples in fostering and adoption decisions.
Mr Lucas said his focus was "on what children need, not what adults want", adding: "We are not against any particular group, we are just for children being brought up by their own parents wherever that's possible."
However, he said that this "ideal" situation was not always possible and insisted that his party's policies would help any households that are raising children.
'In for the long term'
The leader accepted his party had a "mountain to climb to achieve electoral success as a new party".
He said: "For most of our candidates it will be a matter of raising the profile of the party and giving people the opportunity to vote for what they believe in.
"Still a lot of people in Scotland haven't heard of us, don't know what we stand for, but through this election process thousands and thousands more people will hear a little bit about us, and that helps to build up awareness of the party.
"We are in this for the long term and ultimately we want to see Scottish Family MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, filing the void in Scottish politics and bringing a distinct voice into the national debate and this is a step in that process."
Elections to all 32 of Scotland's councils are being held on 5 May, with counting to take place electronically the following day.