Amendments to Alberta’s Human Rights Legislation are a serious threat to the education system
May 26, 2009
Media Release | May 26, 2009
Edmonton – Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Alberta is extremely concerned about planned amendments to Alberta’s Human Rights Legislation which would give parents the right to opt their children out of school lessons deal with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.
“The right to pull children out of a classroom due to religious objections is fraught with potential problems and unintended consequences,” explains Cliff Erasmus, Executive Chair of Centre for Inquiry Alberta.
“The School Act already gives parents the ability to pull their children out of class for things such as sex education so there is absolutely no need to enshrine this into Human Rights Legislation.”
“Topics in science class—such as evolution or geology—could very well trigger religious objections, prompting a parent to shelter children from fundamental parts of the curriculum. But science is just the tip of the iceberg. History and literature would surely follow. Where would it end? Just imagine the list of issues one parent with extreme views could object to on religious grounds.”
By all accounts, the proposed opt-out provision is vague, poorly thought-out, and has the potential to be very difficult and costly for schools to administer. “Teachers will be forced to lower the education system to the lowest common denominator,” says Mike Gray, Communications Chair for Centre for Inquiry Alberta. “An entire school could be paralyzed by one fundamentalist parent submitting a human rights complaint: students cannot learn from teachers who are too afraid to teach.”
“The opt-out provision in Bill 44 is a very real threat to a child’s right to a quality education,” says Erasmus. “The government needs to understand that allowing the Human Rights Commission to police our teachers will paralyze our education system. Bill 44 will ultimately hurt our students, and must be stopped.”
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Cliff Erasmus
Executive Chair 403-836-4317 atheos_erasmus [at] netkaster.ca |
Mike Gray
Communications 403-827-2701 writemike [at] platinum.ca |
Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Alberta is part of a global federation committed to science, reason, free inquiry. CFI’s purpose is to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor. CFI is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that encourages evidence-based inquiry into science, pseudoscience, medicine and health, religion, ethics, secularism, and society. CFI is not affiliated with, nor does it promote, any political party or political ideology.