March 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Parents wondering what they can do to stop Premier Wynne’s controversial sex-ed curriculum slated for Ontario schools this fall have more clout than they might realize. LifeSite has accumulated from the leaders of organizations active on this issue the following 10 ways parents can fight for their children.
1. Sign petitions
Show where you and tens of thousands like you stand. Make sure you select “Keep me updated” to receive important information on this issue. Here are two of several worthy petitions currently underway on this issue:
- To Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, and Liz Sandals, Ontario Minister of Education
- To The Legislative Assembly of Ontario
2. Grow the resistance
Educate yourself, friends, relatives, and clergy about the problems with the updated sex-ed program.
- Print out this nifty page created by Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) summarizing the controversial elements of the curriculum.
- Bookmark this full list of LifeSiteNews' coverage of the Wynne government's explicit sex-ed program.
- Subscribe to Parents As First Educators (PAFE) emailed newsletter.
3. Activate your church
- Ask your pastor to include an announcement in the Sunday bulletin, and to make a pulpit announcement. Download a sample here.
- Make a presentation in your church. CLC can provide you a prepared Powerpoint slideshow presentation. Email CLC here to request the PowerPoint slideshow.
4. Email your local MPP
- Use CLC’s auto-email tool to send a well-written message to your MPP demanding that the sex-ed program be stopped. The variable messages are pre-written, but allow you the option of adding your own personalized comments which would be more effective. Your own thoughts are preferable to form sounding emails or letters.
5. Rally at your local MPP’s constituency office
It does not take a lot of people protesting outside the office to make a difference. Even 5-10 people will cause the staff to pause and report with urgency what is happening.
Homemade signs show your MPP that you care about the issue and lets passersby know where you stand. Make sure you rally during business hours of the office. A perfect time to get people together might be during March Break, or organizing a day off school or work with other parents.
6. Lobby your local school trustee
Educate your trustee about the age-inappropriate, overly explicit and, in certain sections, sexually radical and perverse nature of the curriculum, which undermines parental authority with respect to religious beliefs and values. Ask the trustee to join the fight in speaking out publicly against the sex-ed.
7. Use the media
Help increase awareness and draw more parents into the fight.
- Translate LifeSiteNews’ reports on this specific issue into your own languages so they can be carried in your non-English community papers. LifeSite grants a special permission at this time for all such publications and other similar media to do so. LifeSite must be credited as the source of the articles in all cases where this is done.
- Write letters to the editor of your newspaper.
- Call into your favorite radio talk show to express concerns about the age-inappropriateness, overly explicit and at times sexually radical nature of the curriculum. You have nothing to apologize for in making these comments. Do not give any credibility to intimidation and efforts to ridicule your reasonable family principles and the right of parents to determine the education of their childen.
8. Protest and Strike
- Join thousands of parents planning to protest the sex-ed program on Tuesday, April 14 from 10:00am – 12:00pm at Queen’s Park in Toronto. Bring signs. Join the official Facebook event page here.
- Join a group of parents refusing to send their children to school May 4-11 as a sign of protest against the sex-ed program. Join the official Facebook event page here.
9. Opt-out your child
Submit a traditional values opt-out form to your child's school principal and teacher telling them to give you advance notification of any sex-ed lessons, so that you can decide whether to opt-out your child from that lesson.
The organization P.E.A.C.E. (Public Equity Advocates for Christian Equity) has created an excellent set of Parent Communication Forms that make it easy for you to opt-out your child from controversial lesson plans.
Catholic form
Protestant form
Muslim form
Non-religious form
10. Elect a pro-family PC Party leader
Members of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party of Ontario can vote for either Monte McNaughton or Patrick Brown, who have both spoken out publicly against the curriculum. The vote takes place May 3 and May 7.
“This is admittedly a longer-term strategy in the event that the Liberals ram the curriculum through regardless of the growing parental opposition. But nonetheless, it's very important,” states CLC. “By electing either one of these pro-family politicians as Leader of the Opposition, parents will have someone who will actually respect their views and help them fight the curriculum.”
