VANCOUVER, August 4, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British Columbia court of appeals has ruled that teachers there are free to use their positions to criticize the government and its policies. The teachers, in different BC school districts, used parent-teacher interviews to criticize aspects of their collective agreement with the government and posted flyers critical of the government’s actions on bulletin boards in the schools.

The court decision is hypocritical, according to LifeSiteNews.com Managing Director Steve Jalsevac, when looked at in light of the recent censorship and subsequent suspension of a BC teacher for publishing his own personal views on another, politically incorrect matter in a local newspaper.

“What hypocrisy!” Jalsevac said. “BC teachers can now politicize the classrooms but teacher Chris Kempling, who expressed his religious views on homosexuality in a letter to a local paper and not even in the classroom, is persecuted mercilessly.”

Justice Peter Lowry dissented from the majority 2-1 decision. “If teachers are permitted to use public schools as forums to advance particular political agendas, they will undermine an open and supportive education environment and, ultimately, that will detract from the fundamental objective of the school system,” he wrote in his decision.

Justice Lowry, writing on behalf of the court, ruled in June against freedom of speech when he asserted that Kempling’s community newspaper editorials articulating his religious beliefs on the homosexual lifestyle were not deserving of Charter protection because the court considered them discriminatory and damaging to the integrity of the public school system as a whole. Justice Lowry and his colleagues upheld an earlier BC Supreme Court Decision to discipline and censor Kempling for his views.

One viewer, responding to the story in a Vancouver Sun feature called “Sound Off,” said, “So teachers may bring their views, however controversial, into the classroom after all! Perhaps this will provide some balance to the overall atmosphere, even allowing those such as Chris Kempling to voice their personal opinions and keep their jobs!”
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  Another reader named Daniel added, “They should’ve clarified that only pro-Liberal/NDP views will be allowed, because that is what this ruling ultimately means. Can’t allow hate speech (re: Conservative values) getting to our kids.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
  Freedom of Speech in Canada Quashed by Courts - Professionals Can be Disciplined for Speaking Against Homosexuality
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jun/05061503.html
  B.C. Teacher’s Union Caught In Free Speech Hypocrisy
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/nov/02112707.html
  Stand Of BC Teachers College On Homosexuality “Hypocritical”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/apr/03042506.html

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