A knock-back for Canada's fundamentalists
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* Canada Canada's fundamentalist right wing and their conservative allies are focusing on a new target. In British Columbia, they are touring the smaller towns and suburbs agitating about the "queer threat to the family" They hoped to build support away from the eye of the media. But the left was waiting for them. Richard Banner This kind of strategy has allowed homophobic groups in the US to win control of a number of towns and school boards. Once in power, they have passed local laws to prevent lesbians and gays from teaching, and forbid all teachers from discussing homosexuality. In Canada, a group of activists from the religious right- wing, the "Citizen's Research Institute" (CRI) is having much less success.
Not because the fundamentalists don't know what they're doing. CRI executive director Kari Simpson has been touring the west coast province of British Columbia on a low-profile campaign to convince voters and school boards that tolerance to homosexuals means danger to kids. Another CRI director was elected to the Surrey school board as one of several conservative Christians, without declaring his CRI membership
In April of this year, CRI began distribution of 10,000 copies of a "Declaration of Family Rights," encouraging parents to pressure schools to reject materials that discuss or portray "the lifestyle of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered individuals as one which is normal, acceptable or must be tolerated." The Surrey school board banned three books from school libraries that portray same-sex couples as parents. A strong reaction
In spite of support for the bigots from some school board members and residents, queer students, teachers and their supporters have successfully countered her message with their own stories, and persuaded local boards to avoid a homophobic response. Some Surrey teachers and parents recently launched a court case against their school board, arguing that the board's intolerance amounts to discrimination.
An opinion poll commissioned by the BC Teacher's Federation suggested that almost 70% of adults believe that schools should promote acceptance of homosexuals. Editorials in the mainstream media have widely condemned CRI as a group that
Analysis with Attitude promotes intolerance.
The change in popular attitudes is also illustrated by the ease with which British
Columbia's social democratic NDP govern-
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VIEWPOINT ment recently introduced legislation extending family rights to same-sex couples. It met only token resistance in the provincial parliament. Several years ago a similar proposal in Canada's most populous province, Ontario generated a huge campaign of resistance, including some NDPers. The absent "moral majority"
The CRI's most dismal showing to date came on June 1, when it called on its supporters to gather in downtown Vancouver, "to stand together and send a strong message to the government that families will protect our children and our values." Less than 100 people showed up Robson Square, many of
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