Roberts out to tackle biasBy Barbara Walton (Brisbane Sunday Mail, 10 May 1998) Cowboys rugby league star Ian Roberts has backed calls for schoolchildren to be taught how to deal with discrimination. He proposed the development of an education kit to be made available in all schools. "If people read the letters I've had about kids being suicidal, and knowing people who have committed suicide, you know it wouldn't be a problem to be introduced," he said. "People think it is acceptable to be biased against gay people because that is a social thing - well it is not acceptable. " Roberts, 32, skipper of the North Queensland Cowboys, was with Manly in 1995 when he came out. His experience was detailed in the book Finding Out, launched last May. He said since then he had received about 1000 letters - half from young people - detailing instances of discrimination. In one letter, a 16-year-old Queensland boy said he was suspended after he gave a speech about sexuality. Roberts said he was so concerned about it that he discussed the letter with North Queensland Cowboys management and together they helped the boy and his mother find a counsellor. He said many of the young people who wrote to him were in desperate situations and many letters detailed physical abuse. One letter told of parents who had thrown their children out of their home after they talked about their homosexual feelings. Roberts said his efforts to gain backing from the NSW Education Department for an educational kit had failed. The idea was now with NSW independent politician Clover Moore known for pushing equal opportunity for homosexuals and her work for HIV/AIDS sufferers. He said the kit, to include issues about sexuality, had been deemed "too delicate" to warrant a response. A spokesman for Queensland Education Minister Bob Quinn said Roberts was free to provide Queensland schools with an educational kit, but it would be up to individual schools as to whether the material was made available to students. |
