Premier Dalton McGunity has led his govermnent to back away from the proposed sex ed curriculum for Ontario schools.  Good move.  But not enough – for now the curriculum is simply shelved awaiting some ambiguous consultation process.  The people advocating this radical agenda are stalled, but not stopped.  Below is my letter to Premier McGuinty submitted before the government’s reversal.

Mr. McGuinty,

I am not happy.  In fact, I’m quite angry.  I am the father of two children, one daughter just shy of three, and the other a year-old boy diagnosed with Down Syndrome. I am a competent father who is capable of raising my children and teaching them what is required about our values, beliefs, mores and ethics.  I expect and insist that people with different values and mores check theirs at the door around my children.  That is my right as a father, and so I demand that the school back off topics that interfere with my rights in that regard.

I’ve heard about the plans for the sex-ed curriculum that my children will be exposed to in our ‘public’ school system.  If this school system wishes to remain public, then it had better rethink this idea fast.  Not everyone shares these social left values.  They are an expression of a certain peculiar perspective on society – beliefs about God, values and mores – and for that reason, in the same way that we keep religion out of the classroom, we’ll be keeping these ideas out too.  The state is not a tool with which secular statists can engineer the kind of society they want.  The classroom is not a place where certain groups in society are free to advance their idiosyncratic values.  That is exactly what this program represents.

There are no circumstances under which anyone other than my wife and I will speak to my ten year old daughter about anal sex, masturbation, female lubrication or anything else of that sort. If those conversations happened between an adult and my child in any other venue I would call the police immediately. And that is exactly what I plan to do. Even in the case of a doctor, at 10, I would be in the room.

There are also no circumstances where anyone will be speaking to either of my eight year old children about homosexuality. Period. That is my right, and is non-negotiable. Get away from my kids. Your values are not mine. We can live together in peace, but you violate that peace when you shove your beliefs down my kid’s throats. Back off.

Ah, you might say, but these teachers are trained to present some approved curriculum.

I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a teacher with this responsibility. And I certainly do not trust some statist backroom educational committees that are saturated with agenda driven, politicized and polemical individuals. I’ve seen the academic side of this stuff; I recognize the blatant social-left engineering.  The provincial government should be protecting us from these people. The sexualization and consumerization of our children is a REAL societal problem with REAL consequences.  You are participating in that sexualization and are creating an unmanageable situation where individual teachers will have to navigate conversations with children of varying maturity levels about explicit sexual behaviours. How will you ensure that no teacher is using these conversations for other personal sexual purposes? What do you plan to say when that finally happens – when some ill-motivated individual takes advantage of the environment created by these classroom discussions?

I might add that, if I were an elementary school teacher, I’d quit before being put in a position where I had to breach these topics with young children. This is ripe for misunderstandings and miscommunications. If I were a teacher the idea that my career could be ruined because of the curriculum’s content would leave me in an untenable position: especially if I were a young male teacher. Do you not remember ever being afraid of a teacher? Do you have no recollection of the first male teacher you had?  How can children in the third or sixth grade possibly process this material well when dispensed in the varied and complicated context of the elementary school classroom?

Stepping away from the hypothetical, what are we supposed to do to care for my daughter if some male teacher is the one to initiate these conversations. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will call the police. Because short of a criminal investigation, there is no way for me as a father to know if a teacher’s use of the curriculum is appropriate.

And what on earth do you think happens in the schoolyard afterward? Well I’ll tell you. I remember, clearly, a young girl in our schoolyard being tormented by boys who wanted to check and see of her pubic hair had come in. They told her if they found any they wanted to pluck them. That was kids in grade seven, who were receiving sex ed, targeting a girl in grade six. I know kids say things, but you want to introduce that kind of experience to children even younger? In a classroom of thirty kids, it takes only one or two with lesser maturity to terrorize other children – and you are opening the door for them. This is stupidity, irresponsibility, and the fact that this is even being considered one more reason why I do not trust the public system with my children.

I hear you politicians talk about protecting our children – but you are feeding situations that do not belong in our schoolyards. As far as I’m concerned you and your government are now part of the problem. I will protect my children from you, and there are no circumstances where this left wing education system will access my children regarding their political social engineering agenda.

I am a product of public education in Ontario, and we bought our home close to a school here in Kanata. My mom stayed home during my younger years and volunteered at the school for trips, in the library, and with community programs like block parents and our community association. I say this to illustrate that I came from a home, and so we are crafting a home, that can be healthy and supportive in its contribution to our public school and community.

Unfortunately, each time this kind of thing arises, we recognize that the extreme left values of the public system seem further and further away from those of our home, and that the government has no intention of protecting or including us. Public education in Ontario today appears to be a selective education system sensitive only to the needs and agendas of liberal elitists and the far left. It fails to understand the real hope of a vibrant multiculturalism, and seems to have fallen into the secular left’s absolutely ridiculous and erroneous idea that they are somehow neutral. They are not. They represent another belief system taking control of the education of our children at the expense of the variety of values held by the vast majority of people from all kinds of background and beliefs who want these matters dealt with in the home.

This morning, my wife and I discussed our options. Where we are not of the means to afford private education, and where home schooling isn’t realistic for us, we sometimes feel stuck in the public system.  So I’ll need to find a solution that satisfies our needs.

What that means, as far as I can figure right now, is that I’ll have to present myself to the teacher each year where this material is part of the curriculum, and explain that s/he will not communicate this material to my child in any way. My child will not be a part of lefty social-engineering, nor be taught values, mores or beliefs by a secular or morally ambiguous institution. Our values and mores will be taught in our home and church. During those class times, other options for my child will be created. I’ll try to help the teacher understand where I’m coming from, but if they seem to have trouble understanding me, or seem insistent on the party line, then we’ll be having the school switch our child’s class. Better up your budget for administration.

Further, if there is anything that seems inappropriate to me, I will be calling the police. There will be interviews and an investigation into what has been said in the classroom. And if I feel that my child as been adversely affected in any way by sexualized discussions in the classroom or school-yard, I’ll be examining aggressive legal action against the teacher, school, and province.

Get away from my children.