Editor:
Re: Bullying policy puts us at risk, Oct. 24 letters.
Letter-writer Marlene Penner’s statement that Surrey School District regulation 9410.2 is a misuse of public schools to “propagandize a particular viewpoint without regard to the wishes of parents” is ridiculous.
This regulation ‘propagandizes’ nothing but a safe and caring learning environment for all students – something every Christian parent should want.
Does her idea of the UN Declaration of Human Rights giving parents “prior right to choose the kind of education given to their children” apply only to her?
What about the parents of gay and lesbian children? Is it not also their right? Is it not their right to know that their children are receiving a safe, unbiased education?
As a Christian parent – as I am – I find it abhorrent that blatant ignorance be represented in the guise of a child’s safety to be shielded from the promotion of an “unhealthy lifestyle.” The only positive point is that it certainly highlights the shortsighted underpinnings of the writer’s logic.
These children are not “choosing” to be gay or lesbian. What child would “choose” to be alienated and ostracized by ignorant people? To suffer, struggle or even die from a sexual identification that gives them no benefit in our society?
Penner says “kids with traditional values will be subject to bullying.”
Again, ridiculous.
Gay and lesbian children do not promote discrimination against straight children; they do not harm, ostracize or exclude them, because of their sexual orientation.
The enormous irony in the letter is that while it claims to be promoting an idea that would increase a child’s safety, instead it is promoting a concept of elitism, violence and hatred that has been highly documented as having resulted in the physical and mental harm of children.
If some insist on harbouring such views, perhaps they should consider creating their own school system.
All children have the right to safety during the time of their public education – regardless of race, sexual orientation, etc. – and district regulation 9410.2 is absolutely a positive step in the right direction.
Jason Johnson, Surrey
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It is worth noting that the policy, according to www.dailyxtra.com, “…mandates training for teachers, support for GSAs, specialized counsellor training and inclusion of supportive books in libraries and curriculum, among other measures.”
This means there will be training for teachers and counsellors to be instruments of propaganda, support for “Gay-Straight Alliances” (GSAs) that spread propaganda among students, and the altering of curriculum to make sure that the pro-homosexuality message permeates it.
It is a pattern that is all too familiar to those of us who have studied the reports of such activism in school districts in Canada and in many other parts of the Western world. The program involves re-education for parents as well as teachers, and mandates the use of positive images regarding the homosexual lifestyle.
Judging from what has happened in other school districts, students will be taught: to question their own sexual orientation; to admire homosexual heroes; to regard homosexual unions as equivalent to traditional marriage; and to despise religious teaching that prohibits homosexual behaviour.
Ted Hewlett, Surrey
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What a terrible lapse in good judgment printing Marlene Penner’s letter was.
Intolerance poorly guised in the strawman argument of reverse bullying and “traditional values” is intolerance all the same.
That she suggests folks Google the “Centre for Disease Control” on this topic should have been your first hint not to publish such dreck.
Nathan Roeters, New Westminster