Alberta Law Would Ban Homeschool Parents From Teaching Against Homosexuality

If you want to witness the eventual direction of “diversity” in America, you may want to take a long look at what is happening in Canada. Under the new Education Act poised for implementation in Alberta, Christian schools and homeschool parents would be prohibited, as part of their academic program, from teaching children that homosexuality is sinful.

Donna McColl, a spokesperson for the province’s Education Minister, Thomas Lukaszuk, confirmed to LifeSiteNews.com: “Whatever the nature of schooling — homeschool, private school, Catholic school — we do not tolerate disrespect for differences. You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life, you just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction.”

LifeSiteNews noted that Section 16 of the proposed new law reiterates the existing School Act’s requirement “that schools ‘reflect the diverse nature’ of Alberta in their curriculum, but it adds that they must also ‘honour and respect’ the controversial Alberta Human Rights Act that has been used to target Christians with traditional beliefs on homosexuality.” The Education Act stipulates that, in addition to public education facilities, the term “school” includes homeschool families as well as private schools.

In an interview with LifeSiteNews, McColl assured that Christian homeschool families could continue to teach biblical truths regarding homosexuality to their children, “as long as it’s not part of their academic program of studies and instructional materials. What they want to do about their ideology elsewhere, that’s their family business. But a fundamental nature of our society is to respect diversity.”

However, reported LifeSiteNews, when pressed about “what the precise distinction is between homeschoolers’ instruction and their family life, McColl said the question involved ‘real nuances’ and she would have to get back with specifics” — meaning, of course, that the law would most likely be a moving target homeschool families would find impossible to hit.

McColl emphasized in a later interview that respecting “diversity” meant that the government would not allow homeschool families and Christian schools to be involved in “hatemongering” with regards to homosexuality and other “alternative” lifestyles.

Kenneth Noster, a homeschooling father of six and director of the Alberta-based Wisdom Home Schooling, told LifeSiteNews that the upgraded Education Act would give the government “quite a long reach of the arm into the home.” He added that the measure’s Section 16 “essentially means that in order to run a school in the province you must be politically correct or you could risk being shut down.”

Alberta’s Human Rights Act has already been used to target others who have crossed the “diversity” threshold. In 2005, Catholic Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary was brought before a tribunal after sending a letter to his diocese faithful reinforcing the Church’s teaching against homosexuality. And in 2008 the Rev. Stephen Boissoin, a pastor in the community of Red Deer, was convicted of spewing “hate” after he wrote a letter to a local paper critical of homosexuality. (His conviction was later overturned by a higher Alberta court.)

Patty Marler of the Alberta Home Education Association wondered how Alberta’s Education Ministry plans on differentiating between family time and teaching time for homeschool families. “We educate our children all the time, and that’s just the way we live,” she said. “It’s a lifestyle. Making that distinction between the times when we’re homeschooling and when we’re just living is really hard to do. Throw in the fact that I do use the Bible as part of my curriculum and now I’m very blatantly going to be teaching stuff that will be against [the Human Rights Act].”

She told LifeSiteNews that the issue relates directly to how homeschool parents like herself teach their children about marriage and sexuality, since the Alberta Human Rights Act defines marriage as between two “persons” rather than between a man and a woman. “When I read Genesis and it talks about marriage being one man in union with one woman,” she noted, “I am very, very clearly opposing the human rights act that says it’s one person marrying another person.”

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a U.S.-based homeschool advocacy group, noted that Alberta’s new law would be “a first-of-its-kind attempt by a government to control what families teach in the area of values and beliefs in their own home. Allowing the government to exert this kind of power and influence could be very restrictive and permit extremely intrusive invasions of family privacy.”

Paul Faris of the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada (HSLDA-CA) warned that the law means that “all learning that goes on in the home, all material in the home, would essentially be subject to the Alberta Human Rights Act. The Ministry of Education is clearly signaling that they are in fact planning to violate the private conversations families have in their own homes.”

HSLDA noted that Alberta has more regulations governing homeschoolers than most other provinces, with extensive monitoring of homeschool families that includes two evaluations each year by local school officials.

Michael Donnelly, HSLDA’s director of international relations, said that Alberta’s “attempt to consolidate control over homeschools and private schools, in addition to public schools, is shocking. Religious or philosophical beliefs are some of the most fundamental reasons that parents choose to homeschool their children, yet [the Education Act] seeks to control which values homeschooling parents may teach their children.” He warned that a government “that can dictate the content of learning that occurs inside the home has eliminated freedom of education and thereby has gone a long ways down the road of totalitarianism….”

Such a totalitarian curve may not be that far down the road in America. Joel McDurmon of American Vision pointed out that ideas similar to those now poised for implementation in Alberta are being recommended by such national “authorities” as Tufts University professor — and leading atheist spokesman — Daniel C. Dennett, who has declared that America “should have a national curriculum on world religions that is compulsory for all school children, from grade school through high school, for the public schools, for the private schools, for the home-schooling.…”

According to McDurmon, Dennett has declared that “toxic” religions such as Christianity “survive by the enforced ignorance of their young.” He recommends that education bureaucrats give faith-motivated parents this directive: “You can home-school your kids, you can give them 30 hours a week of religious instruction, but you’ve also got to teach them what the people that are not of your faith believe, and you have to teach them about the history of all faiths in question, including your own.”

Dennett argues that “parents are stewards of their children. They don’t own them — you can’t own your children — You have a responsibility to the world, to the state, to them, to take care of them right. You may, if you like, teach them whatever creed you think is most important, but I say you have a responsibility to let them be informed about all the other creeds in the world, too.”

Such “creeds” would, no doubt, include a healthy dose of the “diversity” gospel that insists that those practicing and promoting homosexuality — and beyond — must be respected and embraced, and the “truths” they preach enforced in both pubic and private school setting.

Christian and pro-family leaders such as McDurmon warn that, as in Canada, such an educational and cultural philosophy is gaining momentum in America, and it will be just a matter of time before homeschool parents find themselves in a fight for their right to instill healthy values in their own children. source:

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AllOut calls for St Petersburg Governor not to sign ‘gay gag rule’ into law

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Nathan Simpson

Lawmakers in St. Petersburg have passed the ‘Gay Propaganda’ bill, so now Governor Georgy Poltavchenko has only 14 days to veto the bill. The LGBT activist group AllOut has released a superb video featuring music from Russia’s beloved gay composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, calling for the Governor to veto the bill and to keep our tourism dollars faraway.

From AllOut.org:

“…But at the same time, Russian leaders recently announced that they want to invest $11 billion dollars to build their international reputation and attract tourists from around the world. St. Petersburg, Russia’s cosmopolitan “window to the west” is key to that strategy.

But they can’t have it both ways – a thriving tourist economy can’t coexist with a new law that will muzzle artists, writers, musicians and regular citizens who live in – or visit – the city. “

You can help by sharing the video and signing AllOut’s petition, it won’t take but thirty seconds

Queer Landia

Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13 “Is everything detestable to these people?” by meredithancret

It’s been a while since I worked on this series. Even longer for those of you reading this on my personal blog (The Snark Who Hunts Back) as opposed to the articles on Queerlandia. (Yes, they are posted in both places. It’s relevant to both blogs).

Here is the review of the original documentary that this information comes from, for the most part.

And the first 3 sections  of verses. Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2,   Genesis 19:1-29.

I’m writing about both Leviticus verses in one post today. Each verse on it’s own would be terribly short and both have some similar issues.

“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

- Leviticus 18:22

“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

- Leviticus 20:13

Before we get to bogged down in analysis of this verse, I would like to mention that Leviticus 18 (in fact all of Leviticus) is a lot more complicated than a simple book of the Bible that tells a story like the Gospels, or Esther or Ruth (my two favorite books of the Bible, if you want to know). It is ritual and theological moral and legal code that was devised to govern the priest class (Levites) and the other tribes of Israel. The code was established by people interpreting theological ritual into rules for a society. I know of noserious Biblical scholar that refers to Leviticus as a book that was “inspired” by god.

Now that we have that out of the way.

Let’s talk about the actual meaning of these verses.

First we hear from Reverend Gregory Dell and Dr. Amy Jill Levine on the purpose behind these two particular verses.

The purity codes, the holiness codes from which Leviticus 18 is taken had a very specific design. And that design was to help distinguish themselves from the other cultures and faiths around them.

- Reverend Gregory Dell

The text is interested in categories and everyone and everything fits into an appropriate category. The categories do not mix.

- Dr. Amy Jill Levine

Then of course there is the constant issue that we find with Leviticus.

All we ever hear about from religious fundamentalists is “homosexuality is an abomination – Leviticus 18:22″.

What they seem to forget, is that Leviticus was a code of conduct for a people group over 2,000 years ago and they had a lot of funky ideas about proper behavior and what was an “abomination”.

[I]f one in the church must insist on using Leviticus then it seems only appropriate for those members of the Christian church to look at other laws in Leviticus.

*

To pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws not to follow, at the very least we need to determine why are we choosing this law and not that law.

- Dr. Amy Jill Levine

In chapter 18 of Leviticus alone there are at least 19 prohibitions against different types of sexual relations.

That’s not to mention the incredible amount of truly odd things that are mentioned in the book (as well as the rest of the Old Testament) as being “abominations” and “detestable” outside of sex.*

One of the prohibitions mentioned specifically in the documentary is Leviticus 18:19.

“‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.”

When this is mentioned, Pastor David Ickes had this to say.

Okay, but still, how does that support homosexuality? All that does is tell me that we should start preaching against people sleeping with their wives on their cycle. That doesn’t give you any justification whatsoever.

Okay, so here is where I earn the name of my personal blog, because hoo-boy does this comment deserve a lot of snark.

Where do I start? (this could almost be a blog of it’s own).

First thing. He says “people sleeping with their wives”. People? Shouldn’t that be “men sleeping with their wives.”? For someone that is all about heterosexual marriage, he’s being very PC in his language.

Secondly, the point wasnot that the sheer number of silly prohibitions invalidated the one about homosexuality. (We’ll get to that later). The point was that you can’t run around preaching that homosexuality is an abomination and ignore all the other rules that you and your congregation are breaking without looking like a horribly hypocrite.

If there is one thing that I truly hate in this world, it’s a hypocrite. I don’t use the word ‘hate’ lightly.

Third. So why don’t you preach to men and tell them not to have sex with their wives during their period or the 7 days after it?
Try it. You’ll be laughed off the pulpit. People are happy to listen to prohibitions on otherpeople’s sex lives, but a pastor who starts telling people how and when to have sex with their spouse and you will be out of a parish really damn quick.
That’s the same reason why most churches, even the American Catholic church, barely even look askance at divorce anymore. Or remarriage after divorce. That second one, specifically, carries a penalty of death in the Bible.

Okay, now I’ll leave Ickes alone. He’s not all that bright it seems, but that isn’t the point of this post.

Here’s where the real issue of this verse becomes clear.

This verse isn’t, just like the rest of these verses, talking about homosexuality at all.

What Leviticus actually says is “A man shall not lie with a man, as a woman”. In other words ‘a man shall not treat another man, sexually, as if that other man were female.

- Dr. Amy Jill Levine

Greek homosexuality had the same concept. Men were not women, you could have sex with them, but you couldn’t treat them like a women. You could even have a relationship with another man (as women could with women, y’know…Sappho) but that man would not be another women. He was intrinsically going to be more than a women, based on that culture, and he would be more your equal.

Every woman in that time was the property of some man. A part of the way you claimed and made this property your own was the consummation of the marriage through intercourse. If you have sex with a virgin who isn’t properly betrothed to you, you have damaged another mane’s property.  So all of thsi is really just property law and according to the understanding of this law code a man cannot own another man like that.

- Reverend Dr. Fred Neidner

Guess what…you can’t own anyone that way in this country in this day and age. So does that make heterosexual marriage invalid as well?

*List compiled at Canyonwalker Connections by Kathy.