A review by eliselawrence19
Moral Panic 101: Equality, Acceptance and the Safe Schools Scandal by Benjamin Law

5.0

A refreshingly objective examination of the debate over Safe Schools in a media climate of reactionaries and mud slinging. I can't imagine the hundreds of words of hateful garbage that Benjamin Law must have waded through to write this, and it speaks to his integrity as a journalist that he presents both sides of the argument - not to throw mud at the anti-Safe-Schoolers as they have done to him since QE came out but to prove that the misinformation they continue to spread is factually inaccurate by interviewing people who were instrumental in designing and implementing the program. He also interviewed LGBTQI kids about their experiences - some whose schools were signed up to Safe Schools, some not - which is something that the outlets decrying the program did not do, despite focusing their criticisms on the effect Safe Schools might have on kids.

In his closing of the essay, Law says something that really sticks with me: "People have become so frightened of phantom hypotheticals lately that we're asking the strangest questions, with little bearing on reality. That has paralysed and distracted us from asking the simplest and most important questions of children: what do you need of us? And how can we help?"