{"id":10648,"date":"2010-11-15T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T17:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=10648"},"modified":"2010-11-15T12:00:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T17:00:38","slug":"canadian-school-board-wants-to-know-about-childrens-sexual-orientation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/canadian-school-board-wants-to-know-about-childrens-sexual-orientation\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian school board wants to know about children\u2019s sexual orientation"},"content":{"rendered":"

From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped: \u201cThe state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unless, it would seem, the \u201cnation\u201d means schoolchildren ages 12-17, and the \u201cstate\u201d is local school board bureaucrats and\/or the provincial Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (Ontario, Canada) plans to issue a survey<\/a> which asks, among other things, for children to disclose their gender (four choices) and sexual orientation (nine choices). Proponents claim the survey is voluntary, but rather than requiring parental permission for the survey to be administered, the onus is on parents to opt out in writing (by Nov. 19), if they do not wish their child to participate.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly the survey, which runs Nov. 22 – Dec.10, has sparked controversy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Some parents say the survey\u2014which also asks about students’ religion, their ethnic backgrounds, who they live with at home, and their parents’ employment [and educational] status\u2014is an invasion of privacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the survey is touted as being anonymous, each form is tagged with a code that can be traced back to the individual child, and, by extension, his or her family. Critics wonder what kind of inferences will be drawn, and who will have access to information that involves the cultural, religious, financial, and educational status of students\u2019 parents.<\/p>\n

The school board, predictably, claims that such delving into personal information is crucial, and ultimately for the students\u2019 own good, so that the school can offer better anti-bullying and anti-homophobia programming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For anyone wondering what the nine choices <\/em>are for sexual orientation, they are:<\/p>\n

Bisexual Gay (male); Heterosexual (straight); Lesbian (female); Queer Questioning; Transsexual; Two-spirited; Prefer not to disclose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOnly nine?\u201d I expect you are thinking; what about hermaphrodites, the androgynous, and necrophiliacs? As soon as I\u2019ve finished this I will be writing to the Minister of Education to report this discrimination.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me of an episode in Anthony Powell\u2019s great novel series, A Dance to the Music of Time. <\/em>Powell,\u00a0 a comic novelist second only to Evelyn Waugh, tells us of the demise of Pamela who hated her husband and had a necrophiliac lover \u2013 who couldn\u2019t perform, of course. In order to exact revenge on her husband, she committed suicide, leaving him with the anguish of both losing her for himself and to her lover.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the trouble with school boards today: their narrow little world of \u201cdiversity\u201d shows no imagination whatsoever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From here: A former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped: \u201cThe state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.\u201d Unless, it would seem, the \u201cnation\u201d means schoolchildren ages 12-17, and the \u201cstate\u201d is local school board … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[2167,2225,1404],"class_list":["post-10648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homosexuality","tag-homosexuality","tag-political-correctness","tag-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}