BURNABY, British Columbia — A Catholic civil-rights group in Canada has published a parental-rights declaration as a way to assist parents in their struggles with school bureaucracies intent on normalizing homosexuality.
Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005.
Sean Murphy, British Columbia director of the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League, published the “Declaration on the Authority of Parents and Guardians in the Education of their Children” on July 6 and distributed it to parents’ groups around the world, several of whom have published it.
Murphy’s move was triggered when parents failed to stop a B.C. public-school district policy promoting homosexuality as a behavior that is equally acceptable to heterosexuality. The school board condemned what it called “heterosexism.”
“Our specific concern is public schools will force children to learn morally objectionable material,” Murphy said. And while public schools pay lip service to the notion that parents are the primary educators of their children, “they increasingly behave as if they can overrule parental authority whenever they see fit.”
The declaration argues that procreation itself places on parents an obligation under natural law to rear and educate their children in their best spiritual, moral and physical interests, and with this “natural obligation comes a primordial and inalienable authority to educate their own children that is neither dependent upon nor derived from the broader community or the state.”
Public schools have long delivered accepted values, including religious ones, on behalf of society, but lately, said Murphy, they have become ostensibly secular and actually teaching a new morality that is in conflict with the morality and spirituality of many religious people.
Gordon World, spokesman for Parents’ Voice in Burnaby, B.C., welcomed the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League declaration as he planned his campaign to get on the Burnaby school board and reverse the newly passed Policy 5.45, which effectively outlaws Christian sexual morality from the classroom.
“I’m a Christian, but we don’t like to emphasize our religious background, because it is used against us,” said World. “We have Christian members and atheist members and agnostic members.”
World said Policy 5.45 is disguised as an anti-bullying measure but is actually an expression of the homosexual-rights lobby in B.C.
In the past, British Columbia’s homosexual-rights activists have gone to the Canadian Supreme Court to force a neighboring school district in Burnaby to put homosexual readers in school libraries (such as Priscilla Galloway’s Jennifer Has Two Daddies, aimed at 7- to 10-year-olds), to make the federal government pay spousal pension benefits to homosexual partners, and have the provincial Human Rights Tribunal make the provincial government put positive homosexual material in the public-school curriculum, as well as a social-justice course promoting diversity and tolerance. In the last case, the government did not wait for a ruling but agreed to these demands in a settlement.
‘Sit Down and Shut Up’
It was this “Corren settlement” (named after the plaintiffs, an activist homosexual couple) — followed up by homosexual-pressure groups — that led to Burnaby’s Policy 5.45 and triggered the formation of Parents’ Voice. World says the policy is itself hostile to an identifiable group, namely religious believers.
“5.45 is not neutral,” said World. “It basically favors a certain segment of society; it places them on a pedestal and forces the rest of society to sit down and shut up.”
According to World, the program content accompanying Policy 5.45 extols the homosexual lifestyle as normal. It also ignores the downside of the lifestyle, such as the shorter life expectancy and other health risks.
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, recently affirmed that a majority of all new HIV infections are among homosexual men, even though they make up a small part of the population. “Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for just 2% of the U.S. population but represent more than half of all new infections in the United States,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, during a June 2 ceremony commemorating 30 years since the discovery of the AIDS disease.
In Burnaby, however, any student who raises moral objections to the teaching that homosexuality is normal will be sanctioned by the school, says World. And children will be sent home with values opposed to those of their parents.
World says Parents’ Voice has promoted an alternative response to the Human Rights Tribunal settlement: a policy adopted by the Peace River School District far to the north — and far from the homosexual-rights hotbed of Vancouver.
Parents’ Voice has also urged parents to write formal requests to their children’s principals requesting “accommodation” — leave to miss classes when objectionable lessons are taught.
But Burnaby assistant superintendent Kevin Kaardal states that parents with concerns about content have been invited to discuss their concerns with their children’s principals. But World is skeptical of the outcome, since Kaardal has also stated that any accommodation cannot stand in the way of “curricular outcomes” set by the provincial ministry of education.
For example, says Kaardal, students can be absent from a biology class where animals are dissected, but they still must perform the dissection by computer or using a model.
Kaardal added: “The board does not ask parents or families to abandon or change their religious or moral commitments. Rather, it respects the rights of families to their own beliefs. The board’s focus is on ensuring that all of its communities are respected and valued.”
The policy, at one point, defines “heterosexism” as “the mistaken assumption that all people are heterosexual and that heterosexuality is superior and the norm by which all other sexual orientation and gender identities are measured.”
Problems Throughout the Country
But World already has received a reply to his request from the district saying that “the curricular outcomes” desired by the provincial Ministry of Education must still be achieved by the students, even if they miss a particular lesson.
World said Parents’ Voice is considering taking the school district to the Human Rights Council, asserting their children’s religious and free-speech rights are being violated.
World is also contesting a seat on the school board in the fall elections and hopes other Parents’ Voice parents will join him.
Elsewhere in Canada, the issue has also arisen in Catholic schools. In Ontario, Canada’s largest province, and one whose Catholic school system is fully taxpayer-supported, the Halton board ran into public disapproval in January when it banned “gay-straight alliance clubs,” which the province’s public boards had adopted to meet government requirements for diversity. A storm of criticism from homosexual-rights groups led the board to reconsider its ban, but this sparked another storm of protest, this time from Catholic parents, who complained such clubs would flout Catholic doctrine. The board resolved the dilemma by creating clubs to bring students from many different backgrounds together. The dispute led to many pundits questioning the existence of the tax-supported Catholic system, but Catholics, many of whom are bloc-voting, recently arrived immigrants, have daunting political clout.
In Alberta, where Catholic schools are also fully funded by taxpayers, the Catholic system has also incurred public displeasure for modifying ministry of education teaching goals to fit Church teachings.
Quebec Catholic parents have also resisted the provincial government’s ethics curriculum, which they claim teaches a relativistic worldview. But Catholic observance in Quebec is the lowest in Canada, giving Catholic parents less political clout than in other provinces against a more aggressively secular government. The best bet of Catholic parents is in a lawsuit challenging the government’s authority to force children to take the ethics course. The suit was argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in May, and the Court is still considering it.
Commented Douglas Farrow, professor of religious thought at Montreal’s McGill University and a witness in a previous parents’ rights case against the Quebec government, “The government of Quebec no longer believes, apparently, that the state exists in the service of civil society. It does not seem to recognize that its part in vital matters of civil life, such as the pooling of resources for the care and education of children, is a secondary rather than a primary one.”
Register correspondent Steve Weatherbe writes from Victoria, British Columbia.
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It is a shame how left-wing parties, like the Liberals and the NDP want to dictate their policies to Christian groups in Canada…. this drives me nuts
How many kids do you want committing suicide because of homophobia? Your opposition to sex education and protection from bullying is shameful.
Wow. Quite a stew of issues there.
By placing quotation marks around words and phrases like same-sex marriage and gay-straight alliance clubs, you suggest that these are not valid or real. This is just the sort of attitude that anti-homophobia policies seek to address. While you may, as Catholics, choose to believe that teaching intolerance to your children is something that Jesus would do, you cannot ignore the fact that gay and lesbian school children are 7 times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers as a result of anti-gay bullying. If suicide is a sin in the Catholic Church, surely Catholic parents would want to prevent it at all costs, for all of God’s children?
‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25-40
Sarah S. has said it well. Your denial of facts concerning homosexuality reminds one of your church’s attitude toward Copernicus and his theory which denied the church doctrine which claimed the Earth was the centre of the universe… We all know how silly that was! You can never prove anything by simply denying the existence of other ideas or refusing to let other ideas be even looked at. Your attitude concerning children and their education is nothing short of child abuse.
So I guess when federal requirements to teach southern white children about the history of slavery and the equality of blacks it’s a legitimate affront to the “religious freedom” of Klan families too.
It is a shame how right-wing parties, like the Conservatives, want to dictate their policies to non-Christian groups in Canada…. this drives me nuts
As a parent, Catholic or not, I want to teach my child to avoid risky behaviors, whether he or she is straight, gay, lesbian, or whatever. I don’t want them to smoke, take drugs, or have anal sex. All of these things correlate with disease and shortened life spans. If that concern makes me a bigot, I guess I am.
None of the pro-LGBTQIALMNOP peopleon this thread have addressed the fact that there are significant health risks associated with gay sex. Don’t sidetrack the conversation by talking about the ill-effects of promiscuous heterosexual activity. No one is condoning skanky behavior of straight people. The facts are that monogamous heterosexual behavior correlates strongly with robust health.
David Smith: I think you are confused. Copernicus was a Catholic cleric and was not suppressed or punished by the Church. You evidently have him confused with Galileo, and that case was far different than the popular myths would have it. Also, it WAS NOT church DOCTRINE that the Earth was the center of the universe. It was widely held by clerics and scientists of the time but it was not doctrine, i.e. an official dogma of the Church. Galileo got into trouble because he claimed that his findings contradicted Scripture (the Old Testament) and he refused to present it only as a theory (which at the time it was). I suggest you do your homework instead of wallowing in these discredited myths about the oppressive church. Catholicism was the principal supporter of astronomy for over six centuries. Many astronomers were Catholic priests, including over 25 Jesuits whose names have been given to places on the Moon. The great Catholic bishop, intellectual and saint Augustine of Hippo once wrote in the early 5th century that Scripture teaches us how to go to heaven and not how the heavens go.
@Beth: While smoking certainly correlates with “disease and shortened life spans,” I would challenge you to prove that anal sex does this. Two healthy, STI-free gay men in a relationship are at no greater risk of a “shortened life span” than two healthy, STI-free straight people are. By “skanky behaviour,” I assume you mean unprotected sex with multiple partners? This does, I agree, carry a much greater risk of disease, but the problem is with the “unprotected” part, not whether the participant is gay or straight. And while being concerned for your children doesn’t make you a bigot, believing the falsehoods the church and conservative political leaders continue to spread about gays and lesbians does. Your last statement is false as well: “The facts are that monogamous heterosexual behavior correlates strongly with robust health.”
While monogamous behaviour correlates to a lower incidence of STIs (in gay or straight people), I think you might find the following study interesting: “A recent MSNBC report shows that gay men are healthier than straight men. After scrutinizing a health survey of more than 67,000 Massachusetts residents between the ages of 18 and 64, the researchers found that 14 percent of gay men were obese versus 21 percent of straight men.” So, Beth, being heterosexual doesn’t “correlate strongly with robust health,” nor does monogamy (there are plenty of obese, heart disease-suffering monogamists out there) , but a healthy diet, exercise, and practicing safe sex is good. If you really want to help your kids, do some reading of your own (preferably not “scare” materials produced by the church or Michelle Bachmann), donate to your local gay-straight alliance, and eat more veggies…robust health will be yours for the taking, not to mention an open mind.
Gee
Do you think that maybe allowing gays to actually have relationships might reduce the risk of gay sex? Monogamous homosexual behavior would show the same results. This method of maintaining the ability to blame the victim has gone on for one too many centuries and gays just are not going to take it anymore.
How do you think you’re children would conduct their sex lives if they were told their feelings were a clear path evil and should never express them in any way?
How would you react if it was you?
What effect would that have on your life?
Would you give up all chance at any sexual expression or the ability to form a family if someone from another church diagnosed defined and sentenced you to such a life?
NO.
We are not going to take it anymore.
“.....to force a neighboring school district in Burnaby to put homosexual readers in school libraries (such as Priscilla Galloway’s Jennifer Has Two Daddies, aimed at 7- to 10-year-olds).... etc.”,
Just a thought, mind you, but this kind of material, placed in school libraries over parents’ objection, has been known to have a nasty habit of quietly disappearing from the shelves.
As I said, it’s only a thought…
Obviously, quite a number of heterophobes read this article….
@ Arnold. No, Arnold, I am NOT confused; you are! Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. Copernicus’ epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published just before his death in 1543, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution.
Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as “false and contrary to Scripture”, and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
The point being that Copernicus’ theory was considered heresy even though we know it today to be absolutely true. C’mon Catholics! Wake up and smell the coffee. I am just as “normal” as anyone else on the planet! I AM EQUAL!
@David Smith, given your familiarity with words of over two syllables, I’d say you are more than “equal” to the average homophobe, dear… :)
back to the original issue…
is saying that children perceived as gay should not have emotional support or be physically safe really the Christian way to go?
James,
Why do you attack Christians?
This is not a matter of homophobia. It is a matter of forceful planting of unnecessary information into a child’s undeveloped brain. Do you think it is fair for an innocent 6 or 7 year old child to be thinking about sexuality at all at this age? It is enough that media stimulates all the subjects that should really be discussed when a person turns into a young adult and is no longer that easily manipulated. Let the children play and enjoy their childhood and leave the politics out of it. You won’t stop the so called homophobia by these actions, rather you will create a sad society of really confused people. It seems to me that the so called gay rights movements are confused themselves. First they claim that homosexuality is in the DNA makeup and then turn around and try to force children to make that decision by themselves by confusing them with different types of sexuality at a time when they are very vulnerable. So is it a degenerative DNA makeup or is it a learned behavior? In any case, bullying has nothing to do with this. It is a an attack on Christianity and you are being drawn into it perhaps unconsciously.
Regards,
“Why do you attack Christians?
This is not a matter of homophobia.”
Homophobia is an irrational fear of homosexuals. I pointed out that children who are perceived as homosexual need physical protection that your church is refusing.
You don’t want to protect children and are willing to rationalize it by the claim that they’re going to be streamlined into homosexuality. I’d say you have irrational fears about homosexuality. Yes you are homophobic and what you perceive as an attack is the plain truth.
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