Presentation on Bill 18 to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Room 255 Manitoba Legislative Building -- Saturday, September 7, 2013

I am grateful for this opportunity to address the members of the Standing Committee that is presently considering The Public Schools Amendment Act for Safe and Inclusive Schools. What we are now considering in Bill 18 is already considered to be well short of the mark of what is needed, if we are to take into account the education-policy recommended by the Manitoba Teachers Society at their general meeting last May, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press on May 27, 2013.

Page 1 headline:

Teachers support adding sexual-orientation themes to all curricula

What is now being demanded is that the province would reflect sexual orientation in all curricula. The resolution would call on the department of education to "ensure that same-sex families and LBGTTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, two-spirited, queer) people and themes are reflected in all curricula." 1 Donn Short, an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Manitoba, must be pleased that Bill 18 in Manitoba does not seem to have the same limitations as Bill 13 in Ontario, of which he wrote: My position is that the answer to transformative possibilities, in fact, lies in an even more comprehensive queering of schools than what is proposed in Bill 13. As much as I welcome this bill, its scope is, arguably limited to first steps. One limitation of the bill is that it applies only to high schools and not to elementary or primary schools. I have argued elsewherethat cultural transformation must include and begin at the earliest grades. 2 To put things into historical perspective, the sexual revolution, and the modern sex-ed movement began in the 1960s using Alfred Kinseys model of modern sexuality as a foundation. In a nutshell, Kinsey was convinced that traditional morality is irrelevant and destructive. This mans personal sexual philosophy has been institutionalized within modern sex education, and now the pressure is on to extend this pansexual philosophy to all curricula in our schools. Today, all over North America, the influence of Kinseys worldview of pan-sexuality and the legitimizing of all sexual orientations without any defined limits has been massive. Referring to Kinseys research, Dr. Mary Calderone, the founder of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) stated that professionals who study children have affirmed the strong sexuality of the newborn. 3

What puzzles me, both with Bill 18 and with the advocacies for adding sexual orientation themes to all curricula is that nobody is even suggesting a definition for sexual orientation. Back in 1981, the Canadian House of Commons and its committees voted seven times out of seven to keep the words sexual orientation out of the Canadian Charter because of the ambiguity of those words, and what would they include as well as what they would exclude. So, in a bill that is intended to make our schools both safe and inclusive, it should be a fair question to ask what types of sexual orientation would Bill 18 include, and what types of sexual orientation would it exclude? The text says that in includes all sexual orientations, which includes bisexuality, or multiple sexual partners as a part of the human identity and of fundamental human rights. Professor Donn Short lays out the confrontation as being between rights claims grounded in sexual orientation, on the one hand, and religion-based claims on the otherin short, taking on God. 4 I realize that individuals like Donn Short would see those of us who believe in a personal Creator as dinosaurs, and if this is the case, he is quite justified in his conclusion that Quite simply, freedom of religious expression needs to be a little less freeReligion-based claims must not be at the expense of the exclusion and oppression of sexual orientation claims. 5 In the name of fairness, however, I would respectfully suggest that this dichotomy between religion-based claims and rights claims grounded in sexual orientation is really a confrontation between two faiths, two belief assumptions, one on the premise that there is a personal Creator who designed us, and the other on the premise that there is no personal Creator, but that we are but the product of the impersonal forces of Nature which are believed to be a closed circle, and therefore challenge the faith assumption and premise that there is a personal God! Neither the view that human life has a supernatural origin, or the view that nature is a closed circle, and that everything has a natural cause, can be proven scientifically. Therefore, both views are based on a faith premise. I put it to you that the God that our founding fathers in Canada believed in was a Deity that respects human freewill, and does not force belief. An original Personality can explain freewill, something that science and natural law cannot explain. On this premise, the Canadian Bill of Rights (1960) states that the Parliament of Canada, affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions; Affirming also that men and institutions remain free only when freedom is founded upon respect for moral and spiritual values and the rule of law 6

Similarly, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) begins with those historic words, that whereas Canada was founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of God, and on that foundation identifies the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression 7 Honourable members of the Standing Committee that is considering Bill 18, I appeal to you that this founding principle of the Canadian nation laid the foundation for what is no doubt one of the greatest and freest nations in history, and yet that foundation is now being undermined by another foundation, a foundation that is based upon the sand of state-initiated rights, rather than on the alienable rights of a created and a transcendent order that was the vision of our founding fathers, and which elevated Canada to become one of the great democracies of the world. My understanding of a personal God is of One who loves all people whom He has created in His image as persons with freewill, and who wants to flow through human caregivers who meet the emotional needs of children, rather than sexualizing them at an early age, leaving them even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse whenever sexuality is not the servant to a true and a permanent love. It is the lack of a permanent love in our homes that drives children, at a younger and younger age, to seek sexual experience in order to try to find love, many times to end up more hurt, more confused, and more broken every time that trust is shattered. Love is a spiritual, eternal quality, and does not lend itself to coercive legislation that imposes a monogamous state belief over the consciences and hearts of citizens who want to respect the rights of others to believe differently. As far as I can see, Donn Short has no mechanism for the healing of emotional hurt other than state-issued law and top-down legislation. 8 This curbs the personal freedom of conscience, thought, belief, opinion and expression for all non-violent beliefs that disagree with his worldview. The state is a compulsory society, based on social contract, whereas all churches are voluntarily based on conviction. People of faith and of conscience are quite willing to pay taxes, and faithbased communities like Steinbach pay more than their fair share of taxes while being one of the most charitable communities in all of Canada. This community has hugely contributed to a stronger Manitoba, a stronger Canada. The Mennonites know what it is to be persecuted, and are a peaceful people who are not in favour of any kind of bullying, and should be allowed to practise their faith in peace. Never forget that faith and belief go far deeper into the human psyche than state and external legislation can ever do. Thank you for your time and your attention.

Teachers support adding sexual-orientation themes to all curricula, Nick Martin, The Winnipeg Free Press, May, 27, 2013, page 1.
2

Associate Professor Donn Short, Queering Schools, GSAs and the Law, pages 5, 10, http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/files/shorts-taking-on-god.pdf
3

Dr. Mary Calderone, founder of SIECUS (1964), quoted by Dr. Miriam Grossman, MD, July 16, 2013, http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/07/10408/
4

Associate Professor Donn Short, ibid., page 2. Associate Professor Donn Short, ibid., page 3. http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-12.3/page-1.html http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html Associate Professor Donn Short, ibid., page 9.