The homophobic and anti-SOGI (Sexual Indentification and Gender Identity) forces of hatred have emerged as a malevolent and troubling force in the 2018 civic election process across British Columbia.
On Sunday afternoon, former Vancouver School Board Chairperson and current Georgia Straight education columnist, Patti Bacchus, attempted to attend a public meeting of the Parent’s Heart reactionary activist group.
According to their own website, this is what those persons who are members of Parent’s Heart are fighting against, a policy that mandates …
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Schools must clearly define what are the appropriate criteria, words, actions and actions to prevent discrimination and nuisance. If there are any complaints based on sexual orientation or gender identity or gender, the school should ensure that policies and procedures are adopted. Strict, rapid and effective methods (must be implemented) to deal with incidences of discrimation. Negative behaviors, comments, manners, contacts, etc. are all classified as discrimination.
- The school council (sic) must educate all campus members (including staff, students, parents, guardians) to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or gender expression; the school council must support schools and faculty members to place positive opinions (ed. note. materials?) in the library. The Bureau of Education (ed. note. huh?) should support the appropriate activities that promote the expression of all sexual orientations and sexual orientations, and supply resources in this regard.
- The school council must support schools to join each subject with positive affirmative gender-diverse textbooks.
- The school council should set up an advisory committee that includes adults and students representing the gay community to enable them to play a consulting role in effectively implementing SOGI policies, including long-term training of faculty and staff, with the aim of supporting different sexual orientations and gender identity within the school district. The community promotes anti-gay fear and heterosexualism.
- School committees, management and staff must participate in on-the-job workshops on homosexuality, transgender people, lead by example, establish a relationship The respect and affirmation of the sex and transgender community.
- School committees, management and staff must use words that affirm all sexual orientation, without contempt and derogatory remarks.
- Schools, staff, and students must be challenged by parents, staff, or students who are biased in different sexual orientations and transgender communities.
In Vancouver, voters will have to confront the anti-SOGI forces not just of reactionary activist groups extant in Vancouver, but through the candidacy of former NPA School Board trustees, and current Coalition Party candidates for School Board, Ken Denike (a longtime Chairperson of the Vancouver School Board, and a retired UBC Professor Emeritus), and Sophia Woo.
In a phone interview with Straight reporter Carlito Pablo, community activist, former Vancouver False Creek provincial New Democratic Party candidate and current party vice-president, and a current independent candidate for Vancouver School Board, Morgane Oger, a transgender woman and parent of two school-age children, told The Straight …
“I’m mindful of the fact that Ken Denike and Sophia Woo, who both fought hard against SOGI policies are in the same party that … is led by mayoral candidate Wai Young, and Wai Young, when she was a member of the Conservative Party, she voted against extending explicit protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression.
She voted against Bill C-279 in Parliament, so I’m a little bit horrified that in Vancouver in 2018, we have at least three candidates who actively … participated in an effort to oppress, like, me and my family and my friends, you know, people in my community.
It’s really offensive to me that people who have done this are running as candidates in 2018 in Vancouver. I think it’s shameful.”
As you can see and hear in the video recorded by Ms. Bacchus on Sunday afternoon at Burnaby’s Bonsor Recreation Complex, even given that the meeting was a public meeting held in a public community centre — which by its very nature should mean that the meeting is open to all members of the public — Parent’s Heart organizers were having none of it, blocking Ms. Bacchus’ view of the meeting’s proceedings at every opportunity.
Lest you think that it is only at secretive public meetings in Burnaby, or through the candidacy for School Board of anti-SOGI activists Ken Denike and Sophia Woo that anti-SOGI activists are active in our community, VanRamblings would advise that you to put that notion out of your head.
On Sunday, September 16th at the Fairview Baptist Church — the lifelong family church for current Vancouver Non-Partisan Association candidate for City Council, Colleen Hardwick, midway through the service, when the pastor asked members of the congregation if there was anyone members wished to pray for, a half dozen anti-SOGI activists at the back of the church — not church members, present in the church for the first time — spoke up to ask that a prayer be said “against the forces of SOGI.”
Vaguely aware what SOGI stood for and cognizant that it had something to do with education, the pastor prayed only for our education system.
After the service, VanRamblings proceeded to the back of the church to speak with the anti-SOGI activists, to query them as to why they would ask that a prayer be said against British Columbia’s SOGI curriculum. The collective response: “SOGI is against God’s will,” to which VanRamblings replied, “Who says it is against God’s will? That is not what is taught in any church, synagogue or mosque I’ve ever attended, hatred for those who find themselves on the gender variation spectrum, who may be subject to bullying. God is supposed to be about acceptance and love, not hate.”
The church’s choir master, Dr. Susan Porter, Dean and Vice-Provost of UBC Graduate and Post Doctoral Studies (who was more articulate than VanRamblings could ever hope to be, and absolutely and utterly indignant at the mid-service interference of the non church member SOGI group), spoke with the pastor about SOGI, what the acronym stood for — and a programme & curricula the two of us support and endorse unreservedly — and our disgust at the unwarranted intervention of the anti-SOGI activists.
Even in 2018 in Vancouver, prejudice, stigma and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons resident in our communities remains an every day reality in our too often & regrettably fear-based city.
Next month, when you go to the polls, vote for the School Board trustee candidates who support diversity in our city, who not only support but have committed to working to ensure a public education system where every student is welcome and where every student will be made to feel safe.
Vote for OneCity Vancouver School Board candidates Carrie Bercic, Erica Jaaf and Jennifer Reddy, COPE’s Diana Day and Barb Parrot, the Green Party of Vancouver’s Janet Fraser, Estrellita Gonzalez & Lois Chan-Pedley, the Non-Partisan Association’s Christopher Richardson, and Vision Vancouver’s Aaron Leung, Erin Arnold and the extraordinary Allan Wong.
