This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly looks at the Alberta government's Bill 44 (and some social conservatives' embrace of it) and how defeat has been snatched from the jaws of victory in the campaign for freedom of speech and against Human Rights Commissions:
Just when it seemed that public demand and political will would finally result in a reining in of the province's much-maligned human rights regime, the Alberta government has fashioned a resurrection of almost Biblical proportions.
Through political incompetence and shameless pandering, new life has been bestowed on all that was rotten in Human Rights Land, and the mess has been compounded with a plan to drag education into this wretched realm.
The firestorm of criticism over Bill 44 would seem all-encompassing: the decisions to leave Section 3 -- the censorship clause -- and to enshrine a parental "opt-out" clause with regard to matters of sexuality or religion in education have left many alarmed.
However, some social conservatives--including Bishop Fred Henry and the Canada Family Action Coalition -- have taken a liking to the bill. Both the bishop and the CFAC are lamenting the survival of Section 3, but even the most flexible of political principles cannot straddle this divide. Bill 44 not only ensures the continued reign of the HRC censors, it further entrenches their legitimacy. Pro-Bill 44 "freespeechers" have indeed sold their souls.
And for what? Control over public education, it would seem. On these pages last week, Bishop Henry asked, "why should the faith of the atheist and agnostic be the only governing paradigm in public education?"
The bishop seems confused about the crucial distinction between "secular" and "atheist" -- yes, the public system is secular, as it should be. The bishop also overlooks the existence of an explicitly Catholic education system -- a rather strange thing for a man in his position to forget, I would think.
If parents are fearful of what sort of godless gobbledygook is to be rammed down the throats of their little lambs, then perhaps public schools are not the place for them. School choice exists in Alberta. But maybe that's the point--make the public system a little more religious and make the religious system a little less accountable to the public. The suggestion that the teaching of evolution could now be in the crosshairs would seem to confirm that suspicion.
The premier had stated that parents could pull their kids out of classes dealing with evolution, while other ministers claimed that Bill 44 dealt specifically with religion and therefore not evolution. True, evolution is science, not religion. However, perhaps someone could then explain why religious schools are so loath to teach it? Shouldn't the government demand that schools receiving public dollars adhere to the science curriculum?
If religious schools are free to "opt-out" on evolution, then why not religious parents, too? And once "advance notice" becomes too cumbersome, maybe avoidance will be a safer way of avoiding a date with the human rights commissars.
Through political incompetence and shameless pandering, new life has been bestowed on all that was rotten in Human Rights Land, and the mess has been compounded with a plan to drag education into this wretched realm.
The firestorm of criticism over Bill 44 would seem all-encompassing: the decisions to leave Section 3 -- the censorship clause -- and to enshrine a parental "opt-out" clause with regard to matters of sexuality or religion in education have left many alarmed.
However, some social conservatives--including Bishop Fred Henry and the Canada Family Action Coalition -- have taken a liking to the bill. Both the bishop and the CFAC are lamenting the survival of Section 3, but even the most flexible of political principles cannot straddle this divide. Bill 44 not only ensures the continued reign of the HRC censors, it further entrenches their legitimacy. Pro-Bill 44 "freespeechers" have indeed sold their souls.
And for what? Control over public education, it would seem. On these pages last week, Bishop Henry asked, "why should the faith of the atheist and agnostic be the only governing paradigm in public education?"
The bishop seems confused about the crucial distinction between "secular" and "atheist" -- yes, the public system is secular, as it should be. The bishop also overlooks the existence of an explicitly Catholic education system -- a rather strange thing for a man in his position to forget, I would think.
If parents are fearful of what sort of godless gobbledygook is to be rammed down the throats of their little lambs, then perhaps public schools are not the place for them. School choice exists in Alberta. But maybe that's the point--make the public system a little more religious and make the religious system a little less accountable to the public. The suggestion that the teaching of evolution could now be in the crosshairs would seem to confirm that suspicion.
The premier had stated that parents could pull their kids out of classes dealing with evolution, while other ministers claimed that Bill 44 dealt specifically with religion and therefore not evolution. True, evolution is science, not religion. However, perhaps someone could then explain why religious schools are so loath to teach it? Shouldn't the government demand that schools receiving public dollars adhere to the science curriculum?
If religious schools are free to "opt-out" on evolution, then why not religious parents, too? And once "advance notice" becomes too cumbersome, maybe avoidance will be a safer way of avoiding a date with the human rights commissars.
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