'Public schools must mirror
diversity of community'
December 21, 2002
BY MARK HUME
AND JANICE TIBBETTS
 At a news conference yesterday, Mary Polack, chairwoman of the Surrey Scholl Board, expresses her disappointment in the court ruling. (photo by Chuck Stoody / The Canadian Press) |
VANCOUVER • The Surrey School Board will revisit its ban of three "same-sex" books after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled yesterday the decision to keep the material out of classrooms was unreasonable.
While the British Columbia Teachers Federation and the two teachers who brought the appeal forward were celebrating their legal victory, the school board was making plans to take another look at the books, which depict families in which both parents are either men or women.
"We're disappointed that the court didn't uphold the board decision in its entirety," said Mary Polack, chairwoman of the Surrey School Board. "But we are pleased they upheld the right of parents to be primary educators."
"We are pleased that the court has remanded the decision to the board, thus respecting our role as elected representatives of our community," she said.
To the teachers federation, however, the victory was complete - with lawyer Joe Arvay arguing it leaves no room for the school board to try to enact another ban.
"The Surrey School Board has absolutely no choice but to approve these books when they are brought before them," Mr. Arvay said. "I am completely and utterly thrilled with the result."
The battle began in 1997, when James Chamberlain, an openly gay kindergarten teacher, sought to have three books - Asha's Mums, One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads and Belinda's Bouquet - approved as learning resources. He was joined in the dispute by Murray Warren, a Coquitlam teacher.
The Surrey School Board refused to allow the material into local classrooms, setting off a running series of legal battles. The teachers won at the B.C. Supreme Court, but lost at the B.C. Court of Appeal, before the matter was finally referred to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Yesterday, the top court said a ban on books about gay and lesbian parents has no place in a public school system that claims to promote diversity and tolerance.
"Parental views, however important, cannot override the imperative placed upon the British Columbia public schools to mirror the diversity of the community and teach tolerance and understanding of difference," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the 7-2 ruling.
"The School Act's insistence on secularism and non-discrimination lies at the heart of this case," the court stated yesterday. Throughout the 35-page ruling, the Chief Justice repeatedly stressed the importance for a secular school board to avoid caving in to pressure from religious parents to the point of excluding the values of other members of the community.
The court also said the board departed from its own regulations, which require it to consider the relevance of books to curriculum objectives, and that it had applied the wrong criteria by failing to recognize that children at the K-1 level need to be able to discuss their family models.
The court majority avoided passing judgment on Mr. Chamberlain's argument that banning the books also violated the equality guarantees for gays and lesbians in the Charter of Rights.
But Justice Charles Gonthier, in a dissenting opinion, rejected the contention.
"The Charter does not demand that five- and six-year-olds be exposed to parents in same-sex relationships within a dimension of a school curriculum, especially when there is significant parental concern that these materials may be confusing for these young children," he wrote.
Justice Michel Bastarache also dissented, while justices Claire L'Heureux-Dube, Frank lacobucci, Jack Major, Louis Level, Ian Binnie and Louise Arbour sided with Chief Justice McLachlin.
The judgment, however, returns the decision of whether to approve the books back to the board, opening the way for a renewed debate in Surrey. Mrs. Polack said she could not predict what decision the board might make the next time.
The ban on the books drew 5,000 letters of support from parents and only 1,000 wrote to say they opposed the decision. The community is home to B.C.'s largest Sikh community, as well as as a large number of Catholics, Muslims, Hindus and evangelical Protestants.
Focus on the Family, an association that describes itself as "dedicated to the preservation of the home," noted members of the Surrey School Board have twice been re-elected since the issue arose.
"It is obvious that the parents of Surrey are unwavering in their support for the board's decision,"said Anna Marie White, policy manager for the association.
"Parents send their children to school to achieve academically in math, science and the language arts. They neither need nor want the classroom to be exploited as a platform to advance a particular ideological agenda."
"With this ruling, the Supreme Court has declared that regardless of significant parental concern, their children will be subject to an unwelcome and complex sexual issue."
But John Fisher, executive director of Egale Canada, a gay and lesbian rights organization, celebrated the decision.
"The court today has affirmed the right of children in same-sex parented families to see themselves and their families reflected in the school curriculum," he said.
"This is an unequivocal victory not only for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Canadians and their families, but for all Canadians, in that it affirms the right of children to a bias-free curriculum that teaches the values of equality, tolerance and respect for diversity that we as a society hold so dear."
National Post,
with files from Southam News
Between the covers: The books in dispute |
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Little Asha is sent home from school with a form requiring parental permission for a class trip. When the form comes back signed by two women, the teacher sends it back. A classroom discussion ensues about having two moms. Some kids say their parents believe having two moms is wrong. But Asha tells her classmates: "My mummies say we're a family because we live together and love each other." |
A child from a traditional family compares her parents to a child's whose two fathers are both blue. The book sets out to answer the simple question: How did the two blue dads get to be that way? "Did they go through the wash with a ball point pen? Or were they both blue since the young age of 10? Did they drink too much blueberry juice as young boys?" The answer is straightforward: "They are blue - because-well- because they are blue." |
This is a story about a girl who learns to accept that she is larger than her friends. Her two mothers remain in the background, occasionally providing advice to their daughter. Telling the story of a wise woman who put marigolds on a diet because she wanted the short, fat flowers to be tall and thin like the irises, a mother says the woman realizes "it was foolish to try to make all her flowers look the same." |
