By Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, June 27, 2013
Bill 18 and ABCs
I've been thinking again about Bill 18, i.e., the Selinger government's proposed anti-bullying legislation for schools. I strongly favour anti-bullying legislation, but I still think Bill 18 is problematic—and needs revision.
I have three major concerns.
1. Bill 18 threatens to increase divisiveness and bullying.
Bill 18 makes it seem that a pro-LGBTQ political correctness is minimizing the importance of non-LGBTQ children. (LGBTQ = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer.)
According to Winnipeg Free Press ("Teachers, Province to meet," May 28, 2013), Manitoba's minister of education Nancy Allan said the following (to Manitoba teachers who want education curricula to reflect sexual orientation themes): "The most important thing for us right now is to have safe and caring school environments for LGBTQ youth." But, because Allan was referring to Bill 18, she should have said this: The most important thing right now is to have safe and caring school environments for ALL youth—especially those who are targeted by bullies.
Perhaps I am being unfair to the minister (after all, the minister was addressing sexual orientation issues). Yet, the fact remains that, as presently worded, Bill 18 explicitly addresses only a few groups which together constitute a small minority of bullied students. Bill 18 weakly attends to the huge majority of at-risk children who have the characteristics actually targeted by bullies: body shape, school grades, cultural background, language, religion, and income. (For substantiation, see the 2006 study by Yau and O'Reilly [p. 21] of 105,000 Toronto students.) Aren't these children important, too?
At this juncture, one might object that LGBTQ youth are, say, 5 times more likely to suicide than non-LGBTQ youth. In reply, we should note that, as serious as this suicide rate is, an at-least-as-serious question remains: What about the fact that the number of students who are not LGBTQ is much, much greater than 5 times the number of LGBTQ students? Aren't the many more non-LGBTQ youth who are prone to suicide important, too?
In other words, I agree with Don Hutchinson (a lawyer with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada), who raises the following concern: "In singling out some groups of students for special status, Bill 18 inherently creates a second class of students—those who are bullied for reasons other than the categories identified in the legislation. These measures are divisive rather than inclusive. The clubs mandated by Bill 18 do not reflect the needs of the substantial number of students who are most often bullied. This approach may in fact increase the frequency of bullying by isolating and segregating students—sending them to separate corners, as it were." ("EFC Releases Analysis Critical of Manitoba's Bullying Bill," May 1, 2013.)
2. Bill 18 threatens freedom of speech.
We should ask: What about those youth whose moral views are of a more traditional, conservative sort? Bill 18 threatens to mistreat these youth merely for expressing a view critical of, say, same-sex sexual practice. Isn't it also important for these youth to have a safe and caring school environment?
Bear with me as I clarify. On Bill 18's present wording, bullying occurs when someone's comments should be known to cause "distress" to another's "feelings." But this wording shuts down serious moral dialogue.
If a student (whether same-sex attracted or not, whether religious or not) respectfully argues that gay sex is morally wrong or unwise or unhealthy—and makes a strong case via public reason and evidence—then this student will undoubtedly distress the feelings of those who deeply disagree. The result is that Bill 18 turns our student into a bully, when in fact he/she isn't a bully.
Also, without even first hearing the student's argument, for our government to dismiss the merit of our student's argument is to beg the question, which is a logical fallacy. (To beg a question is to assume as proven that which is at issue, which is a violation of good reasoning.)
Surely, this is unfair. Surely, too, this will distress the feelings of our student. Thus, Bill 18 becomes guilty of bullying.
(And what about parents who express a conservative moral view? Do they become bullies—and get bullied—too? I suspect lawyers will have a grand time untangling this legal-logical mess—at taxpayers' expense!)
3. Bill 18's explicit requirement to allow students to form "gay-straight alliance" clubs, clubs that in some private schools will endorse behaviours that contradict the school's charter statement of moral or religious principles, threatens to undermine the exercise of religious freedom of those schools.
Clearly, via Bill 18 some religious schools will be legally forced by the state to allow on the school’s campus the flourishing of an organization that may promote what the school believes should not be promoted. Is this an encroachment by the state onto the religious freedom of its citizens, i.e., a violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms? (Enter: The lawyers.)
We must be careful to respect religious freedom rights while also respecting other fundamental human rights. But granting special legal favours to gay-straight alliance clubs may impinge on religious freedom and may, when coupled with the previous two concerns, fuel further divisiveness and bullying.
Here, for starters, are some divisive questions: What about granting special legal favours to other student clubs? What about granting special legal favours to alliance clubs for ex-gays or students with unwanted same-sex attractions?
Surely, Bill 18 is not a reasonable recipe for respecting rights.
What, then, should we do? I suggest assigning legal-requirement status to a more general, more inclusive student club—not a gay-straight alliance club, but an anti-bullying club.
If anti-bullying is our goal, and if we are interested in promoting an inclusive society that maximizes respect for fundamental human rights, wouldn't it be wise to establish a student organization wherein all vulnerable children are protected and stronger children are encouraged to protect and nurture the vulnerable, whether the vulnerable are gay, straight, tall, short, or whatever?
Anti-bullying clubs—ABCs—surely every school—Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Secular, Sikh, or whatever—could promote these. The Canadian Red Cross has a general anti-bullying program readily available for school use. Why not ask the Red Cross for aid?
In conclusion, I am 100 percent against bullying and I am 100 percent in favour of good anti-bullying legislation—that's why I think Bill 18 needs revision.
Bill 18 is supposed to be about stopping the bully. This means that the most important thing right now is not to use Bill 18 to promote LGBTQ political agenda in our schools. Rather, the most important thing right now is to use Bill 18 to promote a safe and caring school environment for all youth who are targeted by bullies.
All forms of bullying are wrong. Therefore, we should craft anti-bullying legislation that clearly protects not just some victims of bullying but all victims of bullying, without creating new victims.
(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, teaches philosophy at Providence University College.The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence. )