A New Kind of Bigotry
December 2006
(Multi-Tasking Gay Rights Advocates are Granted License to Revise History while Over-Ruling Parental Rights)
By Rob Fedders
BRITISH COLUMBIA – There has been an ongoing political battle in British Columbia that receives scant attention by the main stream media, yet it concerns something that most decent Canadians would consider the most important issue of one’s life. It is the issue of raising your own child in the way you believe to be best. What would any parent deem more important than the proper raising of their own child? But this is exactly what gay rights activists are now after: the “right” to indoctrinate other people’s children with their own politically charged sense of morality.
Back in the late 1990’s, gay activists Peter Cook and Murray Warren filed a complaint against BC’s Ministry of Education for not adequately addressing the issue of sexual orientation in school curriculum. The complaint did not receive much attention until Bill C-38 was implemented in the summer of 2005, allowing homosexual “marriage.” Cook and Warren were among the first in Canada to be “married” and subsequently changed their surnames to the cutesy combination of “Corren.” Soon after C-38 became law, the new husband and husband team went into action by saying that because gay marriage is now legal, it is even more urgent to change the school curriculum to reflect this new “reality.” (Does anyone else remember the gay rights claim that allowing gay marriage would have absolutely no effect on heterosexual families?)
Murray Corren, who is an elementary school teacher in Port Coquitlam, told the Vancouver Sun, “There is systemic discrimination through omission and suppression in the whole of the curriculum.” Although further questioning forced Corren to admit that nothing in the present curriculum is actually anti-homosexual, he still claims that because the curriculum does not highlight prominent gays in history, this “has the effect of enforcing… the assumption that all people are or should be heterosexual.”
The BC Teacher’s Federation Union expressed their support for the Correns’ claim.
So, the Correns left the warmth of their marital bed and pressed forward by taking their activist mission to the BC Human Rights Commission where they were scheduled to have a hearing in April 2006. They never made it to the hearing, however, because the BC Government felt it would be prudent to capitulate to the Correns demands and settle the case beforehand. In exchange for dropping the complaint, the government agreed to make homosexual issues a mandatory part of school curriculum that will reflect “inclusion” of the homosexual lifestyle by portraying it in a positive light which asserts that homosexuality is normal and acceptable. The six page agreement also granted the Correns the exclusive right to appoint their own “experts” on homosexual issues for the revisionist activities. They will get to decide what material gets presented as well as deciding who will get the job of revising it.
Murray Corren has stated that the new K-12 curriculum will reflect the following: “Queer history and historical figures, the presence of positive queer role models – past and present – the contributions made by queers to various epochs, societies and civilizations and legal issues relating to (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gendered) people, same-sex marriage and adoption.”
Well, at least he has no intention of changing the curriculum for Foods and Nutrition classes – yet.
Susan Martinuk, of the National Post, makes a good point when she states in her column: “It is the ultimate in revisionist history to define its players by their sexuality and to assume that their sexual proclivities played a major role in determining their acts and contributions to history. (Could it be that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s heterosexual orientation led him to impose the GST?)”
While Ms. Martinuk makes a really good point, a fellow such as myself might find it easy to take the Correns’ homo-supremacist ideals and completely turn it against them by saying something like: Canada had the world’s third most powerful navy at the end of WWII because it was comprised of 100% heterosexuals. Or perhaps, by the Correns’ ideology, they will also acknowledge that former Member of Parliament, Sven Robinson, turned into a shoplifting thief because he was gay.
No, I don’t think they’ll go for that either.
However, the most disturbing aspect of this whole crooked backroom deal is that the Correns have somehow managed to strong arm the government into making the new material mandatory – parent’s will not be allowed the usual “opt out” course of action when dealing with sensitive materials. The Correns have convinced the government that allowing parents the option of removing their children from the new curriculum will not be “respecting of diversity.” (Yes, that’s right, read that sentence again). So as part of the agreement, the Correns have managed to remove homosexuality from the “sensitive issues list” which would have allowed parents to legally pull their children from classes when teaching these issues.
Murray’s husband Peter made the following statement to the Province Newspaper: “There’s no point in us making the curriculum more queer positive if people can take their kids out. This is the public education system. The School Act is quite clear… religion does not play a role in what is taught. We just want the policy to be followed.”
Of course, it doesn’t appear that the Correns are all that proficient in the respecting of diversity, does it? Apparently, the Correns fail to recognize that even many non-religious people may object to the forced homosexual desensitization and indoctrination of their children. They also fail to realize that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a hands down trump card over the School Act – and the Charter guarantees the right to religious freedom. Perhaps if the Correns wish to disregard the Charter guaranteed rights for religion, then they also won’t mind the general public disregarding the Charter guaranteed rights for sexual orientation? It was the Charter of Rights that granted gays the right to be married in the first place… disregard the Charter and well… Yeah, I didn’t think so either. It’s best for them to stick to blatant hypocrisy then.
These forced changes have not gone completely without notice, however. This past August, 900 protesters gathered at Premier Gordon Campbell’s constituency office in an effort to bring attention to the manner which the school curriculum was changed without input from parents or the public. K. John Cheung, of the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association (CASJAFVA) said to Life Site News: “We want the same opportunities to participate in the revision process and give input. We don’t want to see this process ending up completely one-sided.” CASJAFVA has gathered over 15,000 signatures on a petition which was presented to those in government and demanded of them “to defend and to preserve parental and children’s rights” and to “stop selling out to special interest groups.”
But the government has employed the “let’s do lunch” tactics with the CASJAFVA. They were promised a meeting with the Minister of Education on June 20th, but the meeting was postponed until July and then the minister “neglected” to show up for that meeting. CASJAFVA subsequently rescheduled another appointment for August 31st, but before that meeting took place, the Ministry informed the CASJAFVA that the minister would not meet with them until the middle of September – after the changes had already taken place.
Isn’t it great to see how the government values two gay people who can’t have children of their own over 15,000 concerned parents? Viva la democracy!
So, fellow Canadians, when you sit down at night to help your child study for that history test, don’t be surprised when you open the textbook to the French Revolution and read Marie Antoinette’s revised statement: “Let them eat pie.” After all, gay rights activists, the BC Teacher’s Federation Union and the BC Government seem to have forgotten the lesson which that story teaches.
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"A middle ground might be to fight for same sex marriage and its benefits, and then, once granted, redefine the institution completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution." -- Michelangelo Signorile, "Bridal Wave," OUT Magazine, December/January 1994, p.161
"It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea of change in how society views and treats us." -- Michelangelo Signorile, "I do, I do, I do, I do, I do," OUT Magazine, May 1996, p.30
