British Columbia Schools and The Law
Planet Out,
June 23, 2000
SUMMARY: British Columbia school board renews book ban battle.
Surrey Book Ban in Appeals Court In 1996, first grade teacher James Chamberlain applied
to the Vancouver-area Surrey School Board — controlling the largest school district
in British Columbia — to use three books in his classroom that depicted children of
gay and lesbian couples, and his request was denied. He and Murray Warren of Gay and
Lesbian Educators of British Columbia (GLE-BC), among others, challenged the ban, and in
January 1999 a provincial trial court struck it down, reasoning that the board had
violated the School Act by basing its decision on religious grounds. On June 21, hearings
began in the BC Court of Appeal as the conservative-dominated board insists on its right
to make the decision — as it has already insisted to the tune of $792,000 the
district can ill afford to spare from education concerns.
The three children’s books are Asha’s Mums, One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads,
Blue Dads and Belinda’s Bouquet (the last by the U.S. author of the oft-banned
Heather Has Two Mommies); none of the books has any sexual content. The BC Teachers’
Federation included the first two titles in the recommended book list of the resource
guide for kindergarten through Grade 7 it unveiled in March called "Moving Beyond
Silence: Addressing Homophobia in Elementary Schools." The Federation, which recently
adopted a position in support of establishing Gay Straight Alliance groups, spoke out
against the ban as the case went to court this week. Its president David Dhudnovsky
accused the board of imposing a "private religious agenda on the public school
system" and of wasting money on lawyers while cutting resources for special
education.
While religious issues were not raised in the courtroom,
GLE-BC’s Warren noted that Surrey School Board Chair Heather Stilwell was the
founding president of the Christian Heritage Party, whose agenda includes reinstating the
sodomy law and repealing the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Warren, an
elementary teacher in nearby Coquitlam, says he has used the same books in his own
classroom without the students experiencing any difficulties.
In addition, the school board recently slapped Chamberlain with a seven-week suspension
on allegations that he had publicly referred to a student as being gay — which even
though apparently no names were mentioned was taken as a reference to a 14-year-old
student in the district who was driven to suicide this year by the anti-gay harassment of
his peers. Warren alleges the disciplinary action was a "vendetta" against
Chamberlain by the board.
Representing the school board before the three-judge appeals panel, attorney John Dives
pointed out that none of the three books are on the list approved by the Ministry of
Education, and admitted that if they were, the decision would be out of the board’s
hands. (In fact the ministry has recently been discussing adding them to the list; on
learning of that, Surrey board chair Stilwell said the district would want to recoup the
money it’s spent defending the ban.) He also cited the provincial curriculum
guidelines on sex education — or "personal development" as it’s known
— as not referring to same-gender relationships until after Grade 7. Absent that
official guidance, he posed the situation as one of determining when children should be
taught the material and who should make that decision. He maintained that the decision was
best made by local boards as reflecting their own communities’ values, and claimed
the Surrey School Board had made its determination based on what was age-appropriate. He
called gay and lesbian families "sensitive issues" that were more sensitive the
younger the children involved.
Dives denied the decision had been made based on the acceptability of same-gender
couples, and said there would be no problem with a teacher responding to a student’s
question on the subject. The hearings will continue.
[Home] [World] [Canada]
