Thou Shalt Not Be Gay: Public Funding for Private Schools

By Bruce Clark

Organized religion has always been the sworn enemy of education. An ignorant constituency is paramount to selling, among other ridiculous ideas, that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches every move you make.

Freedom of religion is protected under The Canadian Charter of Rights, giving individuals the right to believe what they want and express their opinions, no matter how idiotic they are.  Hate crime legislation keeps the bullies, who try to shield themselves with the charter while uttering threats and hurling invectives, in check.  These laws prohibit the incitement of hatred against any “identifiable group” distinguished by colour, race, religion ethnicity or sexual orientation.

So what happens when religious schools funded by the government incite hatred?  Well, it seems, not much.

In 1992, the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba ruled that the mandatory religious exercises that had been part of the public school system were an infringement of the Canadian Charter, thankfully putting an end to the daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer that made anyone who wasn’t a Christian more than a little uncomfortable.

There are dozens of independent schools operating in the province that are associated with various faiths and churches.   According to the website Our Kids Media, which bills itself as “the trusted source to help families find top private schools,” there are over 14,000 children attending private schools in Manitoba, and these schools receive up to 60% of the per pupil amount paid to public schools by the province. So tens of millions of taxpayer dollars go to fund independent schools, most of them faith-based.

Since they receive government money, independent schools are obligated to follow the Manitoba curriculum.  In order to teach religious courses they must be authorized by the province and follow the Educational Administration Act. The act has nothing to say about course content but limits religious instruction to 2 ½ hours a week and it “…shall be conducted by a clergyman, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader” (my italics). Charles Manson, David Koresh and the fraud of all frauds Benny Hinn would all qualify. These vague guidelines provide carte blanche for anyone who wants to open a school that teaches the moon is made of cheese, the world is flat or Celine Dion has something interesting to say.

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Springs Church, a non-denominational chain that has Manitoba locations in Winnipeg, Selkirk and Steinbach (plus one in Calgary) boasts a government-funded high school and elementary campus called Springs Christian Academy. Before the school year begins, students from kindergarten to twelfth grade are required to sign an honour contract, which is exactly what you think it is. Along with prohibiting activities that teenagers love to partake in such as drinking and having sex, students are required to abide by the church’s Statement of Faith (SOF) which outlines a hate-filled, hidebound belief system that also includes more innocuous doctrine like baptisms will be done “by immersion only.”  As A. Whitney Brown, comedian and Saturday Night Live alumnus would say, “…they hold you underwater long enough until you come around to their way of thinking.”

Like all fundamentalist institutions, what Springs Church is selling is absolute salvation packaged in outlandish claims and irrational nonsense, and their SOF provides guidance as well as violent threats to those who don’t take things seriously. Rule breakers face severe consequences. Sinners will bathe in a “literal lake of fire for eternity” and if you aren’t a “Christian,” by the church’s definition, you won’t be invited to the fiesta when Jesus returns “before the millennium” to reign over the world for a thousand years. I hate to be a party pooper but we’re well past the millennium and Jesus seems to be playing Godot.

The SOF isn’t all doom and gloom and actually offers a few fun perks. Promised to all church members is the power of “divine healing” whereby mere mortals can cure physical ills with “laying of hands.” A valuable magic trick given the wait times at Winnipeg emergency rooms. Not surprisingly, the church believes in “tithes and offerings.” It’s difficult to spread this kind of joy with no finances.

As disturbing as it is to learn that this nonsense is being used to threaten children into believing absolute rubbish at government-funded schools, what’s far more alarming is that Springs Church not only prohibits openly gay students from attending the school, according to the SOF they also advocate for their execution.

Under the rubric of Sexual Relationships in the SOF, sex is “only acceptable” between men and woman married to each other and man on man sex is an abomination.  To drive the homophobic message home, the SOF offers several Old Testament passages including Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”)

I spoke to the principal of the school, Darcy Bayne, who explained the gay ban by telling me that Springs Christian Academy is an “exclusive” school. She went on to absurdly justify the bigotry: “If you don’t want to learn French you don’t enroll in a French immersion school.”  When I pointed out that wanting to learn another language is a choice, she told me the church and the school believes and teaches that sexual orientation is also a choice.

Even if it was a choice, protection under the Canadian Charter is still guaranteed and it is still a criminal act to call homosexuals deviants as you advocate for their death.  The school’s “exclusive” position violates the Manitoba Schools’ mandate that reads, “To ensure that education practice and policy in Manitoba is guided by the principle of inclusion.”  One would be hard-pressed to find a more succinct example of polar opposite.

As far as their curriculum goes, the teaching of evolution is done because the school is legally mandated.  I’m guessing that teachers who are forced to present any rational, scientific evidence in the classroom with regard to evolution do so with a wink and a nod considering that Biblical instruction is also provided to “combat” (Ms. Bayne’s word) the sacrilege of empiricism.

The work of thousands of scientists who have toiled for hundreds of years to unravel the very little we do know about the wonders of this world and our universe is mockingly dismissed out of hand.  The idea that Homo sapiens evolved from their primate ancestors on an earth that is hundreds of millions of years old is replaced with the much more believable idea that the human race began when the first man was fashioned from dirt by a supernatural being and the first woman was created from his rib bone about six-thousand years ago – give or take.  Scientific evidence, rational thinking and knowledge are trumped by ignorance and myth all on the taxpayers’ dime.

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One would hope that the literal interpretation of the Bible would be limited to the emotionally stunted, knowledge-phobic fraudulent empire builders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Sadly, it’s not true.

The Mennonite Bretheren Collegiate Institute, associated with its eponymous church, offers grades six through twelve at its newly renovated campus.  The church’s Confession of Faith is eerily similar to Springs Church’s Statement of Faith.  According to the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Bretheren Churches’ website, they also believe that those who don’t accept Jesus will burn in hell on judgment day, that God literally created the heavens and earth, that baptism should be done by immersion, and that sex is only for married men and women.  Their take on homosexuality is slightly different and just a little more sinister.

Under the heading, “Homosexuality: a firm yet compassionate response,” in their Faith and Life pamphlet, we get a detailed outline of the Church’s fanatical, homophobic opinions.  It is firm, but it’s anything but compassionate.  They call for homosexuals who can’t “overcome their orientation” to practice abstinence.  They also believe God can free persons from their “oppressive addiction.” This disparaging, simple-minded assessment on something as complex as human sexuality heralds their bigotry and fears with absolute clarity. They go on to label homosexuals as promiscuous deviants and actually proffer some pseudo-intellectual claim that homosexuality is a disease and the church “…encourages all homosexuals to give up their lifestyle and find healing in Christ.”

We can find even more empathy and compassion under the heading “When someone has AIDS.”  Answering the question “Is AIDS the judgment of God?” the Mennonites can’t pin AIDS on their murderous, spiteful Lord.

They reason that AIDS can’t be a judgment from God because “…not all homosexuals contract AIDS…”  and “…the lesbian population almost never gets it.”  So, if I’m following correctly, God wants to kill gays and lesbians but he has yet to come up with a specific enough plague?  And here I thought the arguments of literalists were always bereft of logic.

You have to look a little closer at the MBCI website to find the school’s take on it, but it’s there.   The Collegiate’s Statement of Faith contains the usual inanities and then addresses the very non-Christian act of discrimination with this directive:  “….Christians are to treat all people with dignity and respect, regardless of gender, race, nation, creed, or socio-economic status.” The glaring omission in this litany of human taxonomy is, not surprisingly, “sexual orientation.”

The principal of MBCI, Norbert Bargen, didn’t give me many details when I asked him if the Biblical stories, like the Adam and Eve myth, were taught as actual historic events.  He would only tell me repeatedly, “We teach the Bible.  Old and New Testament.”  A former MBCI teacher did tell me, however, that students have the option to forego learning about evolution in biology classes and instead write fantasy-based essays about their own fundamentalist beliefs.

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Of all the religions that receive government money, the Catholics can boast the highest number of schools.

I spoke with the director of St. Mary’s Catholic girls school, Sister Susan Wikeem, a seemingly intelligent woman who told me that they teach the Bible “contextually.”  They aren’t literalists but she did say that they must abide by the teachings and the doctrine of the Catholic Church.  And there’s the rub.

Like every other religion, the Catholic Church believes whole-heartedly that they are the sole owners of the truth and they’ve never been shy about their methods to protect that illusion.  Galileo was threatened with torture by the church and imprisoned for defending the Copernican theory of a heliocentric universe. Thomas More burned fellow Catholics at the stake for the crime of owning a Bible in English, lest they learn that the Pope might be making up some of this stuff on his own.

The Catholic Church is a patriarchal, misogynistic organization that has profited handsomely over the centuries.  As comedian and writer Tim Steeves says, “The Pope says the world is awash in corruption, greed and lost love.  And that’s just what he can see from his solid gold sofa.”

It’s impossible to forgive the Catholic Church and their schools for their continuing and unabashed bigoted and hypocritical doctrines, never mind the institutionalized, church-sanctioned rape of thousands of children and the protection of those monstrous perpetrators by church officials.

With that ignominious history of deviant sexual misconduct, you’d think the Catholics would stay out of matters involving sexuality, but the arrogance of those who think they have God on their side smothers any humility.

Last November, the Catholic school board in a small Ontario town passed a resolution to effectively ban gay clubs in publicly funded Catholic schools.  And it’s not just small-minded, insignificant officials who are in denial. Homosexuals are not welcome in the church and are considered evil sinners by this loving group who call themselves Christians. Given that gay couples often have dual incomes and no children, you’d think the Church would change their views and quickly pass the collection plate.

The Catholic Church boasts that it is the biggest Christian faith and it seems they will do anything to try and grow their base. On a 2009 visit to Uganda, a poverty stricken country with the highest incidence of AIDS in the world, Herr Ratzinger spread the deadly lie that condoms will actually increase the chance of contracting AIDS. It’s pretty obvious that the Pope will say anything to maintain power even if it means putting the lives of other human beings at risk.

It would be nice if Catholic schools had the freedom to dismiss the Pope’s heinous distortion as the ravings of a mean, demented old man.  If the church had the option, they could ignore the Pope and explain away his inaccurate statements by likening him to the harmless drunken, xenophobic uncle who tells racist jokes at family picnics.

Alas, the schools must abide by the doctrine of the church and the Pope is, after all, infallible.  Schools must accept this as the word of God and remain tight-lipped even if they don’t agree with the Pope’s idiotic remarks.

Not standing up to these evil despots is exactly how fundamentalists gain so much power.  The claim that you’re simply following orders is cowardly, immoral and, as the Nazi criminals found out at Nuremberg, a pretty weak defense.

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Fundamentalists cannot actually believe that the entire Bible is the literal word of God. Otherwise, along with demeaning homosexuals and granting magical healing powers, they would be calling for the reinstitution of slavery. They cherry-pick the verses that suit their needs and ignore the ones that won’t fly in a modern society. In addition to slavery (Ephesians 6:5), the Bible condones rape (Judges 21:10-24) and murder (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 urges the killing of nonbelievers.)

Even the purchase of other people’s children is advocated (Leviticus 25:44-46; another heart-warming story from the Old Testament). Indeed the condoning of slavery is so ubiquitous in the Good Book that it’s impossible to have your manservant read you the Bible without coming across a passage promoting ownership of humans.

Church leaders and school officials understand that slavery and the buying and selling of children is anathema to the modern ethos. To call for their return and point to passages in the Bible for support would be ecumenical suicide. They also understand that there are still many ignorant individuals out there who aren’t acquainted with anyone from the non-heterosexual community, so they choose to vilify gays and lesbians by pointing to the homophobic verses in the Bible as God’s word.  (If there is a God and he did say those things, he’s an enormous asshole.)

So, how do government-funded schools get away with promoting the same ignorant, despicable doctrines we find in the despotically-ruled Iran and other parts of the world run by cretins like the Taliban?

Here Christians resort to a terrific bit of legerdemain and explain with no hint of irony that they “Love the sinner, but hate the sin.” This vile cliché is an insidious dehumanization that allows cowards to pass judgment while denying ownership of the statement’s sickening implication: “We love you even if you are a faggot.”

Gays and lesbians face enough discrimination.  Even today, there are still many people who adhere to a purblind belief that homosexuals are somehow subhuman. It’s hard enough for young gay and lesbian students to attend a school that doesn’t protect them from homophobic bullies without having to add teachers and school administrators to their list of people to avoid.

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The bigger question is why does the government continue to give tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to schools that teach bigotry and pre-Enlightenment views of science?  I asked Angela Jamieson, the provincial communication director, who explained in an email that,

The legislation and regulations do not address many issues relating to independent schools including restrictions related to sexual orientation. This does not mean there are no legal limitations.  The Human Rights Code addresses this type of issue.  The appropriate course of action would be for an interested party to appeal to the Commission, where a complaint can be filed if they wish.

The province chooses to keep a lid on the Pandora’s box that they fabricated in the first place when Ed Schreyer became the first non-WASP NDP premier of Manitoba by courting the francophone vote. After winning 28 of the 57 assembly seats in the 1969 election, Larry Desjardins, a French-Catholic conservative who pushed for government funding of Catholic schools to redress anti-francophone legislation, made a deal with Schreyer. With the understanding that Desjardins could continue his work on the government funding of Catholic schools, he played turncoat and offered parliamentary support to the NDP, giving Schreyer a majority government.

It was easier for politicians in the ’60s and ’70s to push for religious school funding.  Not only were more people church-going but questioning the Bible or church officials was considered far more impertinent than it is today.

Desjardins’ crusade to fund independent religious schools began half a century ago and it’s now time to eliminate funding for any organization pushing a religious agenda at the expense of the taxpayer and the truth.

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The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory.  Noah didn’t build an ark and load it up with two of every animal, especially without the use of power tools, and homosexuality is not evil.  What’s really evil is inculcating children with these lies.  They should not be taught in any schools, especially those that are government-funded.   You can believe whatever you like, but that doesn’t make it true, even if the Bible tells you so.

Those who teach barbaric, hate-filled lies should be charged criminally in accordance with the law, instead of being subsidized by the state.  No one is born an ignorant bigot; it is, after all, a deliberate lifestyle choice.