by Hilary White
VANCOUVER, August 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Changes to the BC high school curriculum are under fire Saturday by parents who picketed the constituency office of Premier, Gordon Campbell. Over 900 protested the lack of public input in the proposed revision to the curriculum to include information on homosexuality.
After a long effort through the Human Rights Tribunals, two homosexual activists have succeeded in having the high school curriculum revised to include endorsement of homosexuality as a normal lifestyle. The CBC reports that classroom materials will also be used to assert that homosexuality is normal and acceptable.
Parents however, do not want their children indoctrinated in the sexual orthodoxies of the gay movement and have demanded input in the curriculum revision.
LifeSiteNews.com spoke with K. John Cheung, head of the Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association (CASJAFVA), who said that the rally was to bring to public attention the fact that changes will be implemented by the end of September without significant public input.
“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,” Cheung said.
15,000 signatures were collected on a petition this weekend, to be presented to the ministry. The CASJAFVA has called on the provincial government to “to defend and to preserve parental and children’s rights” and to “stop selling out to special interest groups.”
Cheung told LifeSiteNews.com that the BC government is misleading, saying that there is plenty of time and opportunity for public input and that the changes will be only to a course in social justice, a grade 12 elective. Not so, says Cheung. “they say the course changes will not come into effect until 2007, but the changes are being made now.”
In the settlement, the two men, a “married” homosexual couple named Peter and Murray Corren, are the only ones mentioned to give input. The two men have exclusive right to recommend to the ministry of education their own “experts” in homosexuality for the revision process.
Cheung said that amendments to the education policy, to go into effect by the end of September, will bring homosexual material into the curriculum for “health and planning” classes from grades 7 to 10 and that parents may lose the right to withdraw children from the class.
In addition, says Cheung, principals may choose to quiz students on the material whether they attend the class or not.
Cheung said, “The public have no rights or opportunities to participate in the process. Towards the end of the document it mentions in passing that the end result will be disclosed to the public, but that is after the fact.”
The Alliance for Social Justice was promised meetings with the Education Minister for June 20. That meeting was postponed to July but the Minister did not show. The meeting was rescheduled for August 31, but now the Alliance has been told it will not be able to meet with the Minister until the middle of September at which time the first of the changes will come into effect.
Cheung said, “We plan to put pressure on the government to see that we, the silent majority, will be given the same opportunities and entitlements in the consultation process. That’s all. Our views should be given equal weight as the Correns.”