Login / RegisterKari Simpson's human-rights complaint targets Vancouver school board "slurs"
The fight over the Vancouver school board’s antibullying policy, which saw two trustees censured earlier this year, has reached the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
In a complaint filed with the quasi-judicial body on April 18, social-conservative radio host Kari Simpson charged that the board is "promoting hatred and contempt" through initiatives that utilize "made-up words" like "homophobia, homophobe, homophobic, and heterosexism".
Simpson, president of the group Culture Guard, zeroed in on the Out in Schools program used by the district to provide information to students. She claimed it encourages people to mock Christians and others for their religious and cultural beliefs about homosexuality.
"It’s exchanging one form of bullying for another," Simpson told the Straight in a phone interview. "If our goal is to make everybody safe and welcome in the schools…then you can’t target people because of their religious beliefs or their common-sense beliefs. Because anyone that says, ‘Wait a minute, let’s look at the fact that there’s billions of dollars of costs associated with anal sex,’ for instance, right—because we know through all the disease statistics and all the rest of it that’s just common knowledge, that’s a fact—well, suddenly you’re homophobic, you’re all this and all that."
Simpson continued: "And it’s designed to shut down the conversation the same way kids that want to participate in things at school that, you know, somebody would yell at them, you know, ‘You’re a fag, you’re gay,’ all those kinds of things, right? So we have to get the name-calling out of the discussion on all levels. Everybody should be treated with respect. Everybody’s opinion has a value. You don’t have to adopt or accept it. But we need important civil discourse to start happening, and you can’t do that when you legitimize one form of slur and say another isn’t appropriate."
School board chair Patti Bacchus, named as the complaint’s respondent, noted that the terms Simpson referred to "have a clear definition and an application".
"If someone suggests that homophobia isn’t still an important issue in our society and our public schools, I’m not sure what she likes it to be called," Bacchus told the Straight in a phone interview. "But we’re not really in the business of making up new language. We’re using accepted…words that explain a fear of people who are homosexual."
Bacchus also lamented that, with the filing of such a complaint, tax dollars that could be used for public education may have to be allocated by the board for legal fees.
In January, NPA school trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo were censured by their fellow Vision Vancouver and COPE trustees for what Bacchus described at the time as "misrepresentation" in videotaped comments of the district’s antibullying policy.
Did you know the Caltholic church priests are the biggest offender of inchanging at young boys? What does that teach you about religion?
I know my young cousin didn't escape the hands of religion as the priest couldn't keep his hands out of little Jerry's pants.
if churchs stayed out of bedrooms
and left priests in them things would change for the better
and let human rights look after hatred
its their job
and leave the bedrooms to god,
he has eyes in the back of his head
and can see in the dark
Further, as males as encultured to fiddle with their penis from a young age, it seems rather ridiculous to then call out sexual abuse when they are 'just curious about their sexuality and their attraction to males'.
Wow, now wait for the faux outrage. Can't handle the truth when your own bigotry is exposed.
That woman needs to stop wasting my tax dollars with her bigotry. Here's the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of "homophobe": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophobe
I was at that meeting and she openly shouted at a teacher to 'keep [his] sex life out of the classroom' when he asked if he was supposed to honestly answer a student who questioned his orientation. Why such an obsession with intercourse, Kari? And the rest of the heterosexist (oops, another slur) opposition?
I apologise for all these slurs, i just can't seem to control my dirty little mouth. Must be all the disease-mongering i do with my homosexual sex and stuff.
I do not feel it was any more offensive than than Kari Simpson implying LGBT is a cost to the system because some of us happen to engage in anal sex. Straight sex has cost statistics too. I won't even start ranting about her ability to freely throw slurs such as "You’re a fag, you’re gay."
That being said, I am not quite sure if she is holding out an olive branch or a stick.
Having said that I will now get on MY box and repeat (this being twice) and rinse:
"Wow, all she needs now is a box.
Oh right, she already has one."
OTOH, get a life. 'Homophobe' is an insult (finally) but not remotely on the same level of venomousness as 'fag.' There is no analogous history of usage. Can you remember going to a school of mostly gay children where the straight minority were menaced by bullies who preceded their violence with chants of 'homophobe'?
Look, there is plenty of common ground here. I think we all agree that we want children to have as few obstacles to learning as is practicable, and one of the big things we can do as adults is to provide them with a civil environment. That's the lens with which to look at this issue. No bullying in school, period.
Disagreement about whether homosexuality is inherent or learned behavior? Debate over whether the Goddess exists? I say, fill your boots -- but civilly.
Perhaps aggressive bullying against children labelled by others as "homophobic" is a relatively new phenomenon, but lacking an "analogous history of usage" is not a reason to permit such bullying. Children become vulnerable when they are different. A child who has more traditional views of sexual morality is increasingly becoming a target for bullying and name calling. I know of children who have been singled out by their teacher for their views of sexual morality and others who live in fear because they spoke publicly of their deeply held beliefs regarding sexuality. No child should be bullied, regardless of the reason. Our pluralistic society demands that we find ways to treat each other in a respectful manner that recognizes the inherent dignity of each individual. School boards violate this obligation when they endorse and promote words such as "homophobia."
Cost-benefit analysis of sex has to include the benefit of low-cost old style procreation (unless you hold that we need to stop all births) and the costs of recreational sex whoever is doing it.
Unlike the LGTBQ-in-school lobby and despite their large numbers, the divorced, unwed mothers, adulterous, porn-users, polygamous, polyamorous, promiscuous, sex-work involved,etc have never tried to get their family structure or orientations or sexual beliefs & conduct formally represented to kids in school .
Diversity is a not limited to happily married restrained LGBT....
The issue boils down to what language and what sex ethics SCHOOL /Gov't people endorse. How about media, street, and door to door envangelism for all the various sex ethics out there - and not in schools?
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