303.1 Every board shall support pupils who want to establish and lead,(a) activities or organizations that promote gender equity;(b) activities or organizations that promote anti-racism;(c) activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities; or(d) activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.

Ontario Legislature
The first week of December Charles McVety and friends, including his provincial political sidekick Rondo Thomas held a news conference sponsored at Queen’s Park by MPP Frank Klees to express his and their displeasure of Bill C-13,  Accepting Schools Act, or the anti-bullying bill, which is supported by the Ontario opposition parties.  As well the bill is supported by public and Catholic educators.

The religious right news conference was called because of upset over the last clause above – which gets twisted into the most God-awful anti-gay nonsense in McVetys fundamentalist world. His website, Stop Corrupting Children, set up to oppose anti-bullying, blends gay-straight alliances into persecution of churches using school properties to curriculum guides for Ontario schools. Never mind what one has to do with the other as long as enough outrage and confusion can be generated. Jack Fonseca, (Campaign Life Catholic) who is not a Catholic educator stated that parents are outraged.  Not so fast Jack. Stick with the legislation and stop attacking anothers Catholic  faith.

“With respect to the premier being Catholic, the Catholic Church has very clear moral doctrine … And it’s not changeable,” Fonseca said Tuesday. “Dalton McGuinty, nor any other person that wears the cultural badge of Catholic and goes to church in order to look good come election time — they don’t have the right to change Catholic teaching.

“So, Dalton McGuinty, unfortunately, he’s not a great Catholic on the moral issues. He supports abortion on demand, he supports taxpayer funding of abortion, he supports gay marriage, he opposes the traditional definition of marriage in law. That’s not a very strong Catholic.”

Rondo Thomas came out with some whoppers such as: The premier’s mother said to him, ‘Dalton, I didn’t raise you this way.’ I rest my case.” The Premier’s mother did no such thing. James Bow at Bow. James Bow. was outraged at the Rondo Thomas performance, but not for reasons the men at the table think. The media conference below did not get quite the outraged support that I think was the objective. The support of MPPs on both sides of the aisle is not there.

Akwwaaard.
This media conference is an education on the religious right, complete with buzzwords, the muddling and misinformation.

The next step is the email blasts, (the severe ‘backlash of the 10s of thousands’!) through the various groups McVety represents, including his Institute for Canadian Values. This one went out this week.

I want to personally thank you for taking a stand to protect children from Dalton McGuinty’s radical six gender education.

Your voice is making a difference.

Many people ask me why McGuinty is forcing every child in Ontario schools to question his or her gender and for Catholic Christian schools to have homosexual clubs.

I believe the answer is that he is giving in to very aggressive special interest groups that want to indoctrinate our children to their way of thinking.
Since we alerted parents to this problem the Premier has been flooded with calls and emails. He needs more.
MPP’s with last names starting with letters N – Z did not receive your email.

The ‘unstoppable groundswell’ for MPP’s with last names starting with the letters N-Z just hasn’t happened yet. Heaven only knows what MPP’s with last names starting with A-M have received, if online reaction at McVety’s Canadian Times is any indication, even McVety Institute for Canadian Values supporters are wary this go-around.

The Ontario legislature is in recess until February 21st.

This is a continuation of McVety’s campaign started last year against proposed revisions to Ontario’s sex ed program, including classic ‘family value’ false claims. A few:

-optional lessons aren’t mandatory
- like other Canadian provinces education is age appropriate
-teaching resource guide material is not curriculum

You can contact Enzo Loschiavo, Advertising Manager of The National Post.

The National Post’s manager of advertising sales Enzo Loschiavo says the newspaper has received many complaints about the ad and he’s not sure how it ended up in the newspaper.

“The Post wouldn’t generally run this,” Loschiavo says. “We’ll probably take a stance on not running it again.”

Xtra

You can contact Advertising Standards Canada  (14. Unacceptable Depictions and Portrayals)

Xtra:

The Canadian Values campaign is particularly disappointing given that the province has yet to restart consultations or reintroduce its new curriculum as it had promised when it postponed the launch last year.

I think Christians need to stand with GLBT and human rights activists in denouncing this latest attention grabber by McVety’s  Institute for Canadian Values. No other media outlet in Canada ran this ad (think about that for a moment), nor has any media outlet promoted the running of this ad.* (*See comments – BD)

Update: Kudos. The National Post apologizes.

Update: The Toronto Sun runs McVety’s ad, slightly altered.

Update: During the Ontario provincial election the Tories put out flyers with similar claims to the McVety ads. The Toronto District School Board asked for an apology, the Conservatives say they won’t give one. A formal complaint will be filed, with the option of a lawsuit.

An international religious group that claims to help men and women “overcome” their homosexuality is generating controversy because of its charitable status in Canada.

As part of its mission statement Exodus Global Alliance, based in Ajax, Ont., says it is “serving people affected by homosexuality through counselling, support groups and other services.”

“Our issue is that they purport to be able to cure homosexuality. Homosexuality is not an mental illness,” said Matthew McLauchlin, co-chair of the federal NDP’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Committee.

“If all we were talking about was promoting a certain religious view of homosexuality we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said. “They are promoting something that’s directly against the public interest.”

McLauchlin, who ran for the NDP in three federal elections, said the Quebec wing of the NDP unanimously adopted a position to strip the organization of its charitable status at a convention in Gatineau on Nov. 20.

Can’t hurt to have a provincial wing of a party take note, but acampaign has been going on since September to have Exodus Global Alliance based in Ajax Ontario investigated for false claims and have it’s charitable status revoked.

In August of this year New Zealand had the balls to refuse Exodus Global Alliance charitable status. Exodus Global Alliance has operated in Canada since 1999. As far as I’m aware there is one cure the gay ministry left under the Exodus Global/International umbrella called Living Waters and located in Winnipeg.

Exodus has a long history of denying it’s role and hiding it’s agenda and Exodus Global Alliance has not been forthcoming with the Charity Directorate.

“Our goal is to help people dealing with homosexuality,” said Bryan Kliewer, the executive director of Exodus Global Alliance.

“Our particular focus is to help people who want to live a life that is congruent with their Christian faith,” said Kliewer, who went on to defend his organization’s charitable status.

“We provide educational services, connect people with churches and professional counsellors and those activities satisfy the rules the Canada Revenue Agency has for charitable purpose.”

However, Exodus does not mention homosexuality when describing the work it does on its CRA application form. It does mention it provides help dealing with abuse and other family issues and Kliewer maintains it has nothing to hide despite the omission.

There are Christian ministries in Canada able and willing to assist people struggling with sexual identity which do not exact thousands of dollars from clients, make false promises and claims, who do not lie, use discredited and false information or practice counselling without qualifications. Exodus is not one of them.

The constant in the Canadian branch appears to be Rev. Jack Hannah, a Baptist minister and creationist who is the Canadian representative of CreationResearch.net . Exodus started in 1999 with

CBC
St. John’s Telegram (via Christian Governance)

Who is blogging?
pretty random – Lord Help Us

Update: I’ve set up a sub-page to help organize a campaign. Visit http://www.slapupsidethehead.com/action/

On Wednesday, I posted a story about how Exodus Global Alliance—a religious organisation that offers “freedom from homosexuality” through prayer and something they call sexual reorientation therapy—was denied charitable status in New Zealand.

This piqued my curiosity, and a quick search of Canada’s registered charities showed that Exodus is, indeed, enjoying tax benefits as a registered charity here in Canada.

Since Wednesday’s post, a lot of people have emailed me in agreement that “curing” gays should not be considered a charitable activity in Canada and have been asking what they can do about it. Here’s what I know, and what I think can be done.

First, though, a bit about Exodus Global Alliance and what they do.

What is Exodus?

Exodus is a U.S.-based religious organisation whose slogan is “proclaiming freedom from homosexuality.” Despite all scientific evidence, Exodus claims that homosexuality is a mental disorder and that gay people can change through prayer and reparative therapy.

Exodus, in association with the American Family Association, a U.S.-based, anti-gay lobby group, is mainly responsible for the Love Won Out conference, held several times a year across the U.S. and Canada. This conference includes unaccredited counseling sessions, seminars for dealing with gay family members as if they are disordered, and prayer sessions.

Why is this a bad thing?

Reinforcing the idea that people should detest their natural sexual orientation can lead to demonstrable harm, but more basically, sexual orientation is not a recognised disorder and cannot be changed. There are simply no peer-reviewed studies to support it. The best that Exodus can cite are participant surveys likeJones and Yarhouse, published in a non-scientific journal by InterVarsity Press, a Christian publishing company; Schaeffer, et al., published by the in-house press of Biola University, a private Evangelical Christian school in Los Angeles; andPonticelli, who hand-selected a statistically unusable sample size of only 15 participants for her results. As participant surveys, none of these are objective studies. (A participant survey of suicide cult members, for example, would suggest that joining such a cult is a life improvement because the members would report satisfaction and believe that they’re doing the right thing. It’s an extreme example, but it demonstrates the flaw.) And yet, even these surveys largely show that a majority of participants were unsatisfied with their experiences at Exodus!

While Exodus likes to spin the same argument around and claim that the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that means) is harmful even if gay people don’t agree, this is not backed up by the medical and psychological community. The world’s largest and most well-respected medical organisations have all gone on record to say that homosexuality is not a recognized disorder, that gay people are not inherently worse off than straight people, that sexual orientation is unchangeable, and that attempts to change it often result in serious psychological harm. These organisations are easily citable and instantly recognisable, including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Counseling Association, and many others.

The consensus from the medical community is further evidenced by Exodus’ spectacular failures, including the coming out of two of its founding members and several former Exodus leaders, as well as the countless private members who have left their organisation confused and distraught.

Do Exodus’ activities violate Canada’s rules for charitable status?

Probably. All registered charities operating in Canada must provide what the Canada Revenue Agency calls a “public benefit.” This is a long legal definition that I can’t claim to fully understand, but, of particular note, a charitity’s activities must be “regarded as valuable by the common understanding of enlightened opinion,” and such value “must be weighed against any harm that may arise from the proposed activity and a net benefit must result.”

Since homosexuality is not a recognised disorder by any respected medical organisation, it’s questionable as to what benefit could come out of trying to treat it as one. Moreoever, the consensus in the medical community is that all attempts to treat homosexuality as a disorder may cause serious psychological harm. With no clear benefit, and demonstrable harm from Exodus’ actions, I think there’s a strong case to argue that Exodus’ activities do not meet Canada’s criteria for charitable status.

Exodus has already been awarded charitable status; can it be revoked?

Yes. Charitable status can be revoked for one of three reasons: Voluntary revocation (unlikely in this case), Revocation for failure to file taxes (also unlikely), or revocation for a cause other than a failure to file. The latter is complicated, but states that charitable status can be revoked for “a failure to comply with the requirements of registration,” which may include the “public benefit test.”

According to Revenue Canada, claims of public benefit by any charity “may be [...] rebutted by concerns raised,” and there is definitely legal precedent of this.

How do I raise a concern with Revenue Canada?

Contact Revenue Canada’s Charities Directorate at 1-800-267-2384 and ask for your concerns to be directed to the Charities Compliance Division, or write to them:

You can also submit your concerns via email. CharitiesComplianceDivisi.LPRA@cra-arc.gc.ca

While you’re at it, contact the Office of the Commissioner and Office of the Deputy Commissioner of the CRA:

I recommend simply stating something along the lines of the following:

I’m concerned that the activities being performed in Canada by Exodus Global Alliance, a registered charity, do not meet the criteria of a public benefit as defined by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Exodus’ primary activities include the promotion and treatment of homosexuality as a mental disorder—a notion not supported by the medical and psychological community. Since homosexuality has not been listed as a disorder in medical literature since the mid 1970s, it does not require treatment as promoted by Exodus. Several respected medical and psychological associations, incuding the American Medical Assocation and the American Psychological Association, have issued official statements attesting that such treatments may even result in serious psychological harm.

For these reasons, and in the interest of Canadians, I believe Exodus Global Alliance’s charitable status should be re-evaluated according to the Canada Revenue Agency’s public benefit criteria.

I think it’s reasonable to expect that, with enough expressed concern, and backed by a supply of evidence that Exodus simply can’t refute, the CRA will launch the process of revocation for a cause on Exodus Global Alliance. But they need to hear our concerns first. Slap into action, share this story with your friends, and let the Canada Revenue Agency know that “curing” gays shouldn’t be a charitable activity in Canada.

Where can I learn more about these gay “curing” societies?

The activities and distortions of several Exodus-like organisations are well-documented. I strongly recommend visiting Truth Wins Out, an organisation dedicated to exposing the myths and political motivations behind organisations like Exodus. Box Turtle Bulletin also regularly posts exhaustive investigations into these organisations, exposing the deliberate distortions used to back up their claims.

Take Action! “Curing” gays shouldn’t be a charitable activity in Canada. Help put a stop to phony charities and Slap into Action!

Slap Upside The Head

Update: Xtra has an article on Mark McIntyre’s campaign, including the benefits Exodus Global Alliance receives from having Canadian charitable status. Ex-gay group’s charitable status questioned

In a 39 page ruling this week Justice E.C. Wilson of the court of Queen’s Bench gave the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission a sound legal thrashing in overturning a 2008 ruling that a 2002 letter to The Red Deer Advocate by Steven Boissoin misapplied provincial law.  The acerbic Colby Cosh in Macleans:

The Charter of Rights can’t be used willy-nilly by content creators in magazines and newspapers as a shield against tribunal oversight, but

The tribunals have to confine themselves strictly to the powers granted them by statute, defer to Charter values, respect the presumption of innocence, and in general act a lot less like a cross between a military junta and a three-ring circus.

Interveners in the appeal were The Attorney General of Alberta,  Canadian Civil Liberties Association and  Canadian Constitution Foundation.

xtra
Canadian Constitution Foundation
Steven Boissoin website

Who is blogging?
BigCityLib Strikes Back
Equipping Christians for the Public Square
Persecuted Church Weblog
Catholic Dialogue
GayandRight

As part of the Marquee program, various festivals received larger amounts in funding. There are a number of Marquee festivals and events in Canada and $100m has been allocated over the two years of the program to boost them. As a Tier One festival (i.e. with attendance of more than 250,000) Pride Toronto qualified for 20% of last year’s expenditure budget up to a maximum of $3m. The figure of $397,500 constitutes 20% of the 2008 festival budget and this was the criteria for the program. Significant funds are needed to achieve enhancements that will substantially increase attractiveness to tourists, and all funding was allocated specifically for enhancements that encourage tourism. It was understood from the outset that the program would be managed by Industry Canada.

Pride Toronto is thrilled to have been able to participate in this program and we believe that the recent success of the festival shows that the funding was justified and the expenditure will prove to be worthwhile. As for the issues surrounding Minister Ablonczy, we have no ability to comment on the workings of government. We appreciate the Minister’s time and attention to this issue, and we wish her well at all times.

Pride Toronto in response to MP Brad Trost (C- Saskatoon-Humboldt) at Lifesite News.

“The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it’s safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs. This was a very isolated decision.”

The Toronto parade is in it’s 29th year. Macleans Magazine looks at the Conservative claims of fund allocation shifting from The Ministry of Small Business and Tourism to Industry. Applications for summer festival funding closed May8th. Diane Ablonczy’s name is still on the applications for Small Business and Tourism.  The Marquee Event Funding Program is part of the January federal economic stimulus package.  The spokesman for Industry Minister Tony Clement now says Ablonczy’s office wasn’t equipped to handle the 100 million dollar program.

David Aiken says out of 12 Conservative MP’s contacted only two would go on record.

“It’s a tourism event, like any other tourism event,” said Calgary Conservative MP Lee Richardson. “It attracts as many people in Toronto as the Molson Indy.”

Dona Cadman, a first-term Conservative MP from Surrey, B.C., said she supports Ms. Ablonczy’s decision.

“I’m proud to see this reaching out to all sectors of the Canadian mosaic,” Cadman said in an e-mailed message.

Charles McVety made an issue out of this two weeks ago.
McVety=Campaign Life=LifeSite

 Diane Ablonczy C- Calgary Nose-Hill

Who is blogging?

Montreal Simon: The Bigot Burning of Diane Ablonczy
Accidental Deliberation: Irresponsible
BigCityLib:  Has Diane Ablonczy Been Demoted For Being Too Gay Friendly?
Canadian Soapbox: Harperites Object to Money Offered Providing Homosexuals Or Bisexuals with Equal Status
Impolitical:  Governing Ugly
Baptist Potluck: Another reason to pray for PM Harper

Liberal Arts and Minds:  Think the Religious Right Has No Voice in Government?
The Galloping Beaver: The Reform Party Long Knives seem to be out
God Keep Our Land: Good on you Brad

Below the fold: The gay, lesbian and bisexual events funded by the federal government including in Brad Trosts area.

Saskatoon Star Phoenix – The Saskatoon Diversity Network received $9,000 from Canadian Heritage this year for last June’s Pride Festival.
David Akin’s On the Hill:

• Recipient: Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives
  Minister: Hon. James Moore
  Funding received – $175,000.00
  Purpose: Arts in Communities
  Date: 2009-03-26
• Recipient: Vancouver Out on Screen Film and Video Society, Vancouver, British Colombia
  Minister: Hon. Josée Verner
  Funding received: $32,000.00
  Purpose: Project: 20th Anniversary Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Programming
  Date: 2008-2009, March 4, 2008
• Recipient: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender Pride Toronto
  Funding received: $21,000.00
  Date: ** Last modified, 2008-02-19
• Recipient: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Transgenderal Pride Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  Minister: Hon. Josée Verner
  Funding received: $35,000.00
  Purpose: Arts in Community
  Date: 2007-04-23
• Recipient: Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Inc. Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  Funding received: $20,000.00
  Purpose: Project: Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, Programming
  Date: 2008-2009
• Recipient: Winnipeg Gay & Lesbian Film Society Inc, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
  Funding received: 4,000.00
  Purpose: Project: Reel Pride Film Festival, Programming
  Date: 2008-2009
• Recipient: Reelout Arts Project Inc., Kingston, Ontario, Canada
  Funding received: $7,000.00
  Purpose: Project: Reelout Queer Film & Video Festival, Programming
  Date: 2008-2009
• Recipient: Queer City Cinema Inc, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
  Funding received: $13,000.00
  Purpose: Project: Queer City Cinema 7, Programming
  Date: 2008-2009
• Recipient: Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Inc.Funding received – $26,000.00
  Date: 2008-2009 Last modified, 2008-02-19
• Recipient: Darren McAllister, Ontario Canada,
  Minister: Hon. Peter MacKayFunding received – $550.00
  Purpose: To allow Darren McAllister to present his short film “Confessions of a Drag Queen” at the Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Los Angeles, California from July 6 to 17, 2006.
  Date: 2006- 2007
• Recipient : Michael Mew, British Columbia, Canada,
  Minister: Hon. Peter MacKayFunding received – $900
  Purpose: To allow Michael Mew to present his short film “Peking Turkey” at the London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in London, United Kingdom from March 28 to April 6, 2007.
  Date:2006-2007

…Jim Hughes, president of our own Campaign Life Coalition, said that “Those of us in the pro-life movement do not want to see abortionists die, we want to see them convert.”

A charming, coy thing to say, no doubt, but the everyday rhetoric of the CLC would have us believe that abortion is murder, and that abortion clinics are therefore ethically equivalent to concentration camps. The Coalition strongly supports, for example, the so-called “Genocide Awareness Project” being run on Canadian campuses by the California-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. Are we to believe that if Mr. Hughes stumbled across Auschwitz, he would try to “convert” the guards first? Is he opposed to taking up arms against “genocide”? Can he consistently condemn someone who did so?

No: Like most pro-lifers, he is simply a purveyor of beliefs whose literal truth he does little or nothing to act seriously upon. (As I’ve pointed out in this space, you can make Henry Morgentaler a member of the Order of Canada, thus offering the grossest provocation imaginable to Catholics and evangelicals who have received the honour, and literally 99% of them will suck it up.) But, very occasionally, some ardent religious loner is confused enough to hear those beliefs, conclude they are true, and follow through. And a doctor somewhere ends up maimed or dead. And we blame only the individual who pulled the trigger

When copy/pasting the link to this article, I noticed with some amusement that the original title of this post was “Don’t Blame The Shooter”.  I guess the editors considered that a little too hot for the socons in the audience.

Cosh is 100% right:  we are all influenced to varying degrees by external stimuli and input from our information sources.  If those sources repeatedly deliver the message that “So-and-so is a depraved maniac of a baby-butchering killer”, that will eventually flip someone’s batshit switch.  The worst thing is, these people know it.  Their hollow, weasel-worded denunciations of Dr. Tiller’s murder, always qualified with a “but he had blood on his hands” kind of statement, prove it.

Look at it this way:  if Dick Cheney ever kicks the bucket, the only people who’ll be talking about the “blood on his hands” will be the ones cracking open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate.

Now somebody go log in to the NatPo and tell them the news.

Used by permission. June 2, 2009 unrepentant old hippie

If “religion” was going to be defined in the broad Gary Goodyear-ian sense, then it wasn’t hard to imagine what sort of trouble could result from this legislation: sexists objecting to women’s equality, atheist parents with kids in Catholic schools, or just “legal and administrative chaos.” In retrospect it’s not surprising that the government decided to cut its losses and get out of the “evolution is religion” game before things got out of control.

Even if evolution was out of the picture, though, “parental rights” – and by implication family authority – is near and dear to the religious right, so it wasn’t surprising to see a swarm of enthusiastic endorsements from that sector. The Canada Family Action Coalition is now in the game, for example. Equipping Christians has also leaped to the government’s defence.

There is, however, a deep irony here. The parental rights law is being introduced via the Human Rights Act, so presumably it would be enforced – if necessary – by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The Chumir Foundation, to its credit, has opposed the amendment for this reason. However, the Christian right is going to run smack into a wall on this issue.

The Human Rights Commissions first attracted the ire of the religious right on gay rights issues, and many organizations have more recently hitched their wagons to Ezra Levant’s public relations crusade against the Commissions. With the fallout from Shakedown, it actually looked like the anti-HRC battle was beginning to make some gains. The Commissions haven’t been totally discredited yet, but they’re probably closer than ever before. And now the religious right might have to defend the Commissions, after all!

Just this morning, Catholic right-writer Raymond de Souza was expounding on the “abuses” of the Commissions in the National Post. He also points the way to a factless but possibly effective way out of this problem for the religious right: he advances the rather paranoid notion that on the basis of “parental rights” the Alberta Human Rights Commission might be pushed by gay activists or other evil-doers into “radicalizing the curriculum.”

Cross-posted at Birchbark Bible.

BD describes the context and what came next:

For a small conservative evangelical Canadian ministry to tell the mighty Focus on the Family they can no longer walk together is not a small thing. To do so means facing retaliation, be it financially or in US religious media.

The men running Exodus play political hardball. They do not accept or tolerate disagreement, their ministry is about conflict, their politics are about conflict and their lives are conflicted. God help anyone who in their eyes and parlance “err too much on the side of grace”. If evangelicals keep doing that, they’ll be out of the spotlight and out of a job.

Now I read that if New Directions hadn’t made a thoughtful and I think theologically wise discussion to leave the umbrella of Exodus, they would have been kicked out. Good. I’m glad to read the New Directions board made the choice they made when they did. They are now free to help those they are meant to help and carry their own knapsack. The games and bullying of politicized fundamentalism do not have to weigh them down.

Read more at Benediction Blogs On.

Religious Right Alert and Slap Upside the Head have in the past couple weeks been covering some surprisingly petty social conservative policies of Ed Stelmach’s government, like the official statement that the government is not going to recognize public-sector employees’ same-sex spouses as legally married because it believes gay people shouldn’t have that right. Now, however, it’s getting even more bizarre. And I thought creationism was just something that Americans had to worry about.

Years behind everyone else, the provincial government is only now getting around to passing an amendment to the Human Rights Act to protect sexual orientation from discrimination. Culture minister Lindsay Blackett offered the odd explanation that the move is being done to promote tourism and that much of the Conservative caucus was opposed to the move altogether. (Despite the fact that according to the Supreme Court the province has no choice in the matter anyways.) So, a compromise was reached. A particularly Orwellian one.

You see, in the midst of the bill that would grant equality to gay people is a clause that would require schools to give parents advance notice, and an opportunity to pull their kids out of the classroom, if any of the following topics will be discussed (see text of Bill 44 here):

1. Religion
2. Sexuality
3. Sexual Orientation

It should go without saying that if your sexual orientation is something that can’t be discriminated against, it doesn’t make sense to say that parents are going to be allowed to yank their kids from a school classroom where the issue is just being discussed. Using a human rights bill to chill classroom discussion of sexual orientation is pretty Orwellian, and pretty terrible.

In the title of this post, I mentioned creationism. I did that deliberately. You might think that this list of parental rights is irrelevant – science is still science, after all, and not religion. The Albertan government, however, does not agree. Blackett in fact has specifically stated that, at least under his interpretation of the law, “parents would have the right to opt out of evolution classes.”

Are there connections between the religious right and the Stelmach government in Alberta?