Alberta’s Bill 44
Posted on June 7, 2009
“Alberta legislators passed legislation early Tuesday that will give parents the option of pulling their children out of class when lessons on sex, religion or sexual orientation are being taught.”
Apparently parents are the better educators when it comes to these contentious subjects, compared to teachers, says the article. Any parent willing to pull their children from classes that discuss these topics are just perpetuating a cycle of misinformation and bigotry, and I can’t believe that the Alberta government would formalize (into Bill 44) what has been going on informally for years now.
I still can’t believe people can opt out of government-approved education and still be allowed to pass the course. I remember hearing about Muslim girls in my high school being allowed to skip sex. ed. class (like sheltering them from that will have any effect) and I remember vegetarians opting out of dissecting fetal pigs in biology. The vegetarians getting off really pissed me off since all they had to do was write a report instead of doing the lab, although I didn’t think twice about it since the experience of dissecting the pig was so cool.
I beg to disagree that parents are the better educators in these cases. Instead of teaching their children about proper condom usage, they would pull their children out to teach them Biblical morality and abstinence. Abstinence does not work. Humans have hormones and people are getting married later, which means more horny young adults going at it.
And pulling their children from classes discussing religion or sexual orientation? What’s the worst that could happen – children thinking for themselves and questioning beliefs that were crammed down their throat? It’s pathetic the level of bigotry that is condoned by the supposed “majority of Albertans”. The evil atheist isn’t going to turn your Christian children into hellspawn and the gays aren’t going to hump your son.
I hate how social conservatism is lumped in with fiscal conservatism under the conservatism umbrella. In fact, reading the quick Wikipedia summary of issues social conservatives hold dearly just pisses me off to no end – “traditional marriage”, denying of gays their rights to just about everything, drug use, prostitution, euthanasia, stem cell usage, etc., etc.
I always considered myself a conservative, but I guess I have to clarify that as a fiscal conservative now. According to the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, I’m a Libertarian. I wouldn’t be surprised if I took a slightly more granular political quiz I’d score more in the centre right. I’m not a fan of huge government, but at the same time I probably don’t share the no government ideology true Libertarians hold.
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3 comments
In terms of practicality, Bill 44 is an absolute nightmare.
But if anyone is going to be teaching morally-loaded topics to children — such as religion, sex or sexual orientation — parents have the right to be able to decide what their children are taught about it, and how.
We don’t have to like it, but we do have to respect it.
Posted by Patrick Ross on Jun 8, 2009 at 6:08 pm.
I agree that religion is a loaded topic, but I disagree that sex. ed. and sexual orientation should be censored. When we have recent news articles talking about the need for more sexual education for children and teenagers, the last thing we should be doing is letting sexually repressed parents sexually repress their children.
I see where parents would see this as invading their rights as parents, but as a country whose sexual values are somewhere in between Europe and Saudi Arabia, we should do something to educate children.
What I’d be interested in reading is specific examples of when parents would be allowed to remove their children. If they were learning about the customs of a religion, I’d deny the parents; if they were… um… being forced to partake in said customs, fine. If they were learning about STDs and proper condom usage, I’d deny the parents; if they were learning about the benefits of oral sex in a relationship, I’d still want to deny the parents, but I get where they’d be coming from. I think you get the idea.
Posted by Richard Shih on Jun 8, 2009 at 9:59 pm.
This further proves that Alberta is Canada’s Texas. That being said, I’m still surprised that this kind of bill can be passed in Canada, even in the most (socially) conservative region of this country. And without repeating everything you’ve already mentioned, yeah I pretty much agree with your post, other than the fact that I don’t consider myself a fiscal conservative either, of course.
Posted by Sunny Ng on Jun 9, 2009 at 11:29 am.