Dale Wallace
The Alberta government has now passed Bill 44 into law. Yet there is still great debate about the new law. Liberal critics have said that the law “reinforces the stereotype that Albertans are backwards and intolerant.”
However, Conservative MLA Rob Anderson says that the legislation “is one of the most positive and meaningful advances in human rights that this province and this country has seen in many years.”
In fact, what Bill 44 does is make discrimination of sexual orientation officially against the law. As well, Bill 44 is controversial because it allows parents to exclude their children from public school classrooms when the topics of sexuality, sexual orientation, and religion are discussed.
Bill 44 presents some interesting challenges for teachers.
In schools, teachers are increasingly having students think critically about issues and to make decisions based on logic and reason. Yet Bill 44 is all about making decisions based more on emotional or doctrine than anything else.
In is important to examine the lack of logic and flawed reasoning behind Bill 44.
First, social science and experience have told humans that teaching young people to be strictly abstinent from sexual behaviour before marriage is a dismal failure. What happens is that kids are left with a deep sense of guilt or an unwanted pregnancy.
Perhaps Dali Lamas, Prophets and Popes are the few that can live a chaste life, but the majority of the population find it very difficult to be asexual before marriage.
Therefore, a healthy understanding of sex is needed by human beings. It is the parents’ job and responsibility to teach their children about sex. Yet, for what ever reason, there are kids who don’t learn the facts and are catching STD’s or getting pregnant.
Schools are helping parents out with educating kids about sex in a matter-of-fact, nonjudgmental way. STD’s and teen pregnancy will never be completely eradicated, but they can be reduced though education and a healthy understanding of sex.
If a person were to think logically, what is wrong with learning about religion in public school? Is it so wrong to learn what Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians believe?
It isn’t the job of a school to convert kids to doctrines, but they should be able to inform kids about the different beliefs. By keeping kids away from these discussions in school are we not promoting prejudice?
In other words are we not saying that it’s okay for them to believe one way and not to think about another? Yet in schools we should probably take even further steps to help kids be critical thinkers and not prejudice.
What is wrong with criticizing religion? Perhaps mankind has made past mistakes because they have been too quick to accept religious doctrine.
There have been some pretty nasty things done in the name of religion. If we thought critically about what our religious were saying perhaps certain atrocities and prejudices might not have occurred.
Also, when religion holds up some rather fantastical stories as truth (say a world-wide flood), is it wrong to say: “Where’s the evidence?” Show the geological proofs that accompany such statements and let them stand up to further scientific inquiry.
If religion is so right, they should have this rational evidence at their fingertips for all to examine.
But Bill 44’s unkindest cut of all happens to gay people. On one hand the legislation says that the Alberta Government recognizes gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but yet it’s still okay to hide our kids away from them.
Bill 44 is akin to giving black people access to an all-white golf club as long as they enter through the back door. So does this bill really grant gay people equal rights or is this just a new and more subtle form of discrimination?
If we are to truly and fully accept gay people as equal members of our society, then we should teach kids that they are equal members of our society and not hide kids from them.
So by allowing parents to remove kids from classes about sexuality, sexual orientation, and religion, this teacher sees it as a step backwards.
Sure schools should be sanctuaries for students, but when we start to cloister kids from the world we run into serious problems. Schools should not be considered sacrosanct. They are places of bustling humanity where thoughts, ideas, and issues are learned, debated, and discussed.
Just a few of the ideas that should be freely discussed are sexuality, sexual orientation, and religion.
Related posts:
- B.C. CATHOLIC SCHOOL LOSES MORAL HIGH GROUND BY FIRING LESBIAN By Dale Wallace In my column entitled “Apologies or Apologist?”...
- PROBLEMS WITH WILD ROSE ALLIANCE EDUCATION POLICY Dale Wallace With the recent by-election win and the election...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
There is so much to object to in your article, but I will isolate my response to this remark:
Also, when religion holds up some rather fantastical stories as truth (say a world-wide flood), is it wrong to say: “Where’s the evidence?” Show the geological proofs that accompany such statements and let them stand up to further scientific inquiry. If religion is so right, they should have this rational evidence at their fingertips for all to examine.
Yes. Yes, it is wrong.
My goodness! Is that really what happens in Alberta classrooms? The teacher brings up the teachings of a religion and says “Where’s the evidence?”
If the student who believes in his religion does not come to class equipped with sufficient “geological proofs that accompany such statements…at their fingertips”, of course that student’s side of the classroom debate will not “stand up to further scientific inquiry”. Then what? Will the religion then be ridiculed and belittled because of lack of scientific evidence? Now who is intolerant?
School is not the place to debate whether a religion is “right”. Religion is a matter of faith. A teacher is in a position of authority. Children have respect for their teachers. A grade 5 student who hears his well spoken university-educated teacher belittle his religion because there is no scientific proof is going to have his faith severely shaken. Parents must have the right to prevent this.
Wow. I couldn’t agree more with your article. I’ve a 21 year old university student who grew up in a catholic community and went to a catholic school in northern Alberta. Frankly, in my school we couldn’t give “other” opinions on issues like religion or homosexuality without being ridiculed or hushed. What happened to me? It taught me to think for myself. I came from one of the most conservative places in Canada and I’m now a “liberal” atheist who goes to university in Vancouver. Keep it up Alberta, you are just proving all of us people you scared away, right! There is nothing but ignorance and intolerance in the Texas of Canada!
May God (Or the flying spaghetti monster, my preferred God) have mercy on your intolerant, narrow minded souls.
Dale:
Thought-provoking article as always. Unforuntately, associating sexual choices with colour of skin is comparing apples to oranges. I was born heterosexual but I choose to act on my sexual urges. To say that people can’t control sexual urges is to make us out to be animals. The other day in my community, there was another attempted abduction of a girl after she got off the school bus. Thankfully, she was able to run away. This predator no doubt has some perverted sexual desires, but he chose to act on them in chasing this young girl.
United we stand, divided we fall.
Once again religion’s intolerance of anything that contradicts a book written by regular men(not god or the son of god) thousands of years ago has forced a divide between the people, and now there is a criminal bill that can restrict thoughts, discussion, and critical thinking. That is too bad…sad day indeed. Well written article.
I couldn’t possibly disagree more with this article. Bottom line – it’s up to parents to decide how to raise their children, including education. Rob Anderson has a great point.
I haven’t voted PC in the past but I’m going to next time because of Bill 44.
Yeah, what a biased article. The legislation has nothing to do with scientific facts like evolution.
So that was a interesting read. I grew up in a typical “Red Neck” town and when the conversation came up about something or someone different, giggles would soon ensue. We didn’t know what “gay” was or even that we had human rights. What a bunch of naivety we had. I am now a proud parent of a gay son. Even though I was lucky to escape the stigma of the small town mind I find it is still alive and well every where I go.
Bill 44 was a well kept secret until it was way too late to have it brought down, but that may still happen.
Intolerance is unforgivable.
If the parents have the right to pull their children from a class because they might learn about sex education, or a different religion or evolution, then doesn’t that show them nonacceptance of others? Do you really want your child to look at others with questions or even perhaps hatred because they don’t know who they are or what they are about or where they came from?
Do we want to go back and live in the 50′s?
Do you really want to have your child to learn about sex and babies when she’s pregnant? Do you want to have to hear “I am so sorry but your son has HIV?”
Where do you really want your children to be educated? Wouldn’t you rather have some one teach them that has gone through the years of schooling and is up to date on all the latest STD’s or would you rather have them learn through the “school of hard knocks?”
I think that the parents should go back to teaching their children the “rights and wrongs” like it is NOT okay to pound on some one who is different just because you can.
I consider myself well educated, and yes some of it came from the hard knocks school but I was smart and luckily for me I had older persons who recognized that I needed guidance and gave it to me.
Leave the education to the professionals, don’t close off your kids to all of the wonders this amazing world has to offer. The world is not just this place, it is all countries and their peoples, it is the languages we all speak, it is the different foods we eat, it is the gay person sitting next you on the bus or the student who escaped a horrifying life experience to come here and get education To be a productive member of society.
Because we live in such an amazing diverse world we need to learn what is around, what the beliefs are and how we all live.
Taking this away and putting our kids in a box is NOT the way to go.
Unwanted babies-life altering STD’s or——–Education.
Bill 44 is not the answer
I have always liked to believe that education begins in the home. I am a teacher and I have some major reservations about this bill in that it takes responsibility away from the parents to be be active and engaged participants in the education of their children, positioning them as passive, reactionary bystanders merely observing the formation of their children’s belief system. As a parent I like to believe that I have instilled my beliefs and values in my child well enough that I am not threatened by his exposure to other points of view. As a parent I rely on the school to provide a forum for discussion, disagreement and consideration of the beliefs and views of other cultures and communities within our own, so that my son will develop critical thinking and come to understand his own value system. Tolerance is the lowest form of acceptance and if we can not tolerate questions, discussion and inquiry about matter’s that have been marked by religion as “theirs” I fail to see how schools can foster an atmosphere of acceptance, compassion and understanding.
Bottom line is that homosexuality is not a race, this is no different than saying that farmers or hockey players are a race of people. Most people don’t like lawyers but I don’t see them having parades or rallies. I believe that parents should teach their children tolerance of all people, but I strongly disagree with schools forcing it on them. There is no difference in a teacher imposing their belief system on a child than a parent or church doing the same thing. I applaud bill44 and I will make use of it if the need arises.
Lee I’m not sure you’re 100% correct when you say that homosexuality is not race. It seems that science is beginning to disagree with you. As a matter of fact much scientific thinking is in fact leaning towards homosexuality as something we are born with like our skin color. Take the example of psychiatric diagnosis. for a number of years now homosexuality has been removed from the list of abnormal behaviors or illnesses. In psychiatry homosexuality is not treated any longer and is considered a normal sexual drive. Plus, geetic scientic is presently looking for the gay gene as we speak.