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Education

15 Dec 2017 What to Wear to a Worm Wedding: Highlights from BC’s SOGI Curriculum

Posted at 13:19h in Blog, Education, Sexuality 3 Comments
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By Tabitha Ewert, Articling Student The schools back in my hometown of Langley, BC, have a re-designed “SOGI” curriculum. For those unfamiliar with the term, SOGI is an acronym for “sexual orientation and gender identity”. While only announced this year, this curriculum has been years in the making. It started out as an anti-bullying campaign, but it teaches an unhealthy view of sexuality and gender. I want to explain and comment on the new curriculum, but before I do that I need to state four premises: Four Premises Education is not neutral. As the Ontario...

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05 Dec 2017 ARPA Presentation to Supreme Court of Canada on the TWU case

Posted at 08:10h in Education 0 Comments
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Chief justice, justices, I want to focus my argument this morning on section 15 of the Charter and its relationship to freedom of association as guaranteed by section 2(d). In oral argument yesterday, what is actually freedom of association has been unfairly or inaccurately described as discrimination. Whenever someone alleges discrimination, we must ask, “By what standard?” By what standard is the allegation of discrimination laid? That standard must be found in law. The law will tell us whether we are dealing with discrimination or association. The Ontario Court of Appeal erred here....

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30 Nov 2017 Press Release: ARPA Canada intervenes in TWU case this week

Posted at 13:42h in Education, Justice and Freedom, Sexuality 1 Comment
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For immediate release from the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada November 29, 2017 ARPA Canada intervenes in TWU case this week OTTAWA - On Thursday and Friday the Supreme Court of Canada will hear the Trinity Western University case. The law societies in British Columbia and Ontario refused to accept graduates from the Christian university’s proposed law school because of TWU’s Community Covenant, which requires students, among other things, to refrain from sexual intimacy outside of a heterosexual marriage. Trinity Western has asked the courts to overturn these decisions, arguing they violate the...

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28 Nov 2017 Ontario’s highest court: public education is not neutral

Posted at 12:37h in Blog, Education, Family 0 Comments
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By John Sikkema In an important ruling, a Christian father lost his religious freedom claim against the Hamilton School Board. But it’s not all bad news. The main reason for E.T.’s loss (the father’s name is redacted to his initials) was the breadth of his claim and lack of evidence to support it. He lost on the facts, not the law. E.T. wanted school staff to give him notice whenever “moral relativism”, “environmental worship”, “occultic principles”, “sex education”, or “portrayals of homosexual/bisexual conduct and relationships and/or transgenderism as natural, healthy or acceptable”...

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28 Nov 2017 Parental Rights affirmed in Ontario

Posted at 06:00h in Education, Family, Sexuality 0 Comments
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Derek Ross, Executive Director of Christian Legal Fellowship The Ontario Court of Appeal has released a decision in a case with major implications for parental rights in education. A father in Hamilton - referred to in court document only as "E-T" - had asked the Hamilton Public School Board for advance notification when certain subjects were to be taught at his children’s public school so that he could remove those kids from classes if the content conflicted with the family’s sincerely held religious beliefs. A lower court had turned down the request, and...

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28 Nov 2017 Parental Rights affirmed at the United Nations

Posted at 06:00h in Education, Family, Sexuality 0 Comments
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A surprise vote last week at the United Nations Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural issues. There are 174 countries represented on that committee, and grouping of countries primarily from Africa blocked a resolution affirming the rights of children to self-determination when it came to sexual and reproductive health issues, and also inserted language that insisted on the primacy of parental rights when it came to issues of sex education. Several member states reaffirmed their belief that parents must play a central role in education, with Singapore’s delegate stressing that...

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28 Nov 2017 LN Feature: TWU in the Supreme Court – Why this may be the most important case of the decade for Religious Freedom

Posted at 06:00h in Education, Justice and Freedom, Sexuality 0 Comments
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ARPA's Director of Law and Policy, André Schutten ARPA's Director of Law and Policy, André Schutten, is due to appear before the Supreme Court of Canada this week. ARPA has been granted intervener status in two Trinity Western University appeals regarding the establishment of a Law School in British Columbia. Oral arguments in the case begin on Thursday of this week. On the feature this week, an interview with André on the event of the hearing. ------------------ LN: So, two days from now, the Supreme Court of Canada starts its hearings on the...

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22 Nov 2017 Protect them All: a Christian case for eliminating lists of special identity groups in school policies

Posted at 15:43h in Education, Family, Sexuality 0 Comments
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Schools, whether private or public, should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to bullying and harassment. Such policies are aimed at protecting each and every student in the school. Provincial education ministries often recommend – or in some cases require – long lists of identifying characteristics to be included in these policies such as race, citizenship, disability, creed, sex, and even the modern concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. Christian schools, however, should not include these lists in their policies. While we agree that schools need to protect all students (including those who...

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21 Nov 2017 Can we consider our political action a success or a failure?

Posted at 06:00h in Education 0 Comments
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ARPA's Executive Director, Mark Penninga Bill 24 passed by a count of 42 in favour, and 23 opposed. (You can see a tally of the vote count here). The 42 who were in favour included 38 NDP members, along with some independents and others. But 16 NDP members, comprising almost a third of the governing NDP caucus, didn't show up for the vote.  ARPA Executive Director Mark Penninga says it's clear the EasyMails had an impact. "We don't know if (they) had a direct impact on whether NDP MLA's actually showed...

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21 Nov 2017 A legal challenge to the passage of Bill 24

Posted at 06:00h in Education 0 Comments
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Lawyer John Carpay for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms Bill 24, the "Act to Protect Gay Straight Alliances" in Alberta, passed third reading in the legislature last week. This is the Bill that would, among other things, make it illegal for schools to inform parents if their children had joined a so-called "Gay Straight Alliance" - a school club ostensibly set up to support gay students or those struggling with gender identity issues. Just hours before the final vote, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Reforms in Calgary announced that if the...

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