LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in BC schools is the focus of rallies, counter-rallies today

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Rallies and counter rallies are planned in Vancouver and Victoria this morning, focusing on LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in BC schools.

The group Culture Guard is protesting the “sexual orientations and gender identities” (SOGI) resource in classrooms, calling it “radical sex ed” and “propaganda from sex activists,” with demonstrations set for 11 a.m. outside the BC Teachers’ Federation headquarters in Vancouver and at the Provincial Legislature in Victoria.

Meanwhile, a prominent human rights activist says she will be part of planned counter protests.

“I think we are in 2018, not 1958, and we understand in Canada that the role off schools is to educate children not only in the three R’s but also on how to be good members of society,” says Morgane Oger, head of the Morgane Oger Foundation and vice president of the BC NDP.

“I am profoundly appalled and disgusted that there are still today people out there who think that somehow they should be able to get out of their civic duties to protect and respect the rights of others and that their children should not be required to get the same education in tolerance and inclusion that everybody else gets,” she tells NEWS 1130.

Oger calls the anti-SOGI protests “hateful and self righteous” discrimination against trans and gay children.

“They are essentially using moral panic — ‘Can someone please think about the children’ — to say that children are going to be harmed by knowing that in their classroom there kids who are like my kids. That’s the trope here. These people are advocating for keeping secret the existence of gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual and two-spirits children — or their parents or their families — because they think they have a supremist right to decide what their children know about in our society. That is despite the fact our country explicitly protects religion, gender identity and sexual orientations in exactly the same away.”

Culture Guard is organizing today’s anti-SOGI protests in solidarity with demonstrations planned in the United States and Australia.

They are also in response to a human rights complaint filed by the BCTF against Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld, accused of homophobic and transphobic comments.

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