On September 13, 2011, Culture Guard president Kari Simpson attempted to file a complaint with the Vancouver Police Department, asking for an investigation into an apparent fraud being committed by “Out In Schools” (OIS). [Update: Click here to see how the complaint was rejected by the receiving officer!] OIS is an anti-bullying program being used by the school boards of Vancouver, Burnaby and other British Columbia cities and towns. While anti-bullying programs are noble and unfortunately necessary programs, OIS has proven to be seriously flawed.
The OIS workbook and website have Student Resource links in it that lead to websites with “adult content” – porn, that is. Since Culture Guard has exposed this fact, OIS has removed the offending link from its own website and is asking schools to remove the information from their workbooks, and at least one school board has announced that the web links are now being blocked by their school computers, all of which validates Culture Guard‘s initial claims.
Culture Guard further complains that children are being invited to venues outside of their schools where their own parents are banned and where games such as “Lesbian Debauchery” and “The Queeriodic Table” are played amid sexually explicit “art” and advertising for sexual products and services. Culture Guard believes this sexualization of children is wrong, is politically motivated, and has no place in a public school program.
While detractors have been quick to accuse Culture Guard of homophobia and gay-bashing, they are missing the point by a mile. Politics, fraud, and child endangerment are the problems here. The fact that gay activists are using these tactics is incidental. Queerty.com has very clearly identified the political agenda in an article at: http://www.queerty.com/can-we-please-just-start-admitting-that-we-do-actually-want-to-indoctrinate-kids-20110512/
Free speech is fully supported by Culture Guard, but apparently not by many of its detractors. Culture Guard does not judge adults on their behaviour behind closed doors, but it certainly objects to what some adults are doing to our children behind those doors. Culture Guard believes that political indoctrination does not have a place in public schools.
OIS needs to go back to the drawing board. This time, parents should be involved. Schools need effective anti-bullying programs, but not those that exclude all but one one special interest group and have built-in political agendas.
If you want to keep politics out of public school, please contact Christy Clark here: http://www.christyclark.ca/premierchristyclark/contact.php
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