Book banning silliness from Canada, eh

[Guest VanBCGuy]

This is lifted from the CBC website. Ontario gets in the news for gay marriage, British Columbia gets in the news for this:

 

VANCOUVER - The Surrey School Board has voted to continue its ban three books about families with same-sex parents, but says it's not because of their gay content.

 

The trustees now say they won't allow the books because of other reasons, including poor grammar and inconsistent spelling.

 

Six years ago, the school board had banned the three books – Belinda's Bouquet, Asha's Mums and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads – because they dealt with same-sex parents.

 

Late last year, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the board to review its decision and look at the books again, using the criteria they'd use to approve any other books.

 

"This story has problems with punctuation and grammar throughout. The spelling of 'favourite' is inconsistent, switching from the Canadian to the American," said board chair Mary Polak about Asha's Mums.

 

The board says the book, Belinda's Bouquet was rejected because it raised the subject of dieting. "The book would not have caused me concern if they stayed with the general theme of everyone being beautiful the way they are," said Polak.

 

The board said One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dad is unacceptable because it made fun of skin colors, and the Indo-Canadian community feels targeted by the portrayal of a "brown dad."

 

It also said the book dealt too much with sexual orientation for its intended audience of kindergarteners.

 

 

James Chamberlain, the teacher who first asked to use the books in his classroom in 1997, says the board's reasons are weak.

 

"The board is grasping at straws, dreaming up criteria six years after the fact.

 

"No other book in Surrey would pass this criteria. Next year I'll bring forth three books, heterosexual families, and I'd like to see if the board scrutinizes them as carefully as they scrutinize these three books," he said.

 

There's no word yet on whether the latest decision will spark another court challenge.

 

The school board maintains it's not against books involving homosexual parents and is now looking for books that depict gay parents that are appropriate for its kindergarten and Grade 1 classes.

 

- courtesy 2003 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

[Luv2play]

There are certain journalists and scribes who characterize British Columbia as California North or Lotus Land and while these names vaguely capture the essence of the place, they do not do full justice to the reality that is our "wet coast". BC is a province unlike any other in Canada. It has one fairly cosmopolitan city, Vancouver, a decidedly quaint and Englishy provincial capital city, Victoria, and a huge hinterland full of rednecks, Bible belters and weird sects, to say nothing of the aging 60's hippies and US draft dodgers happily raising pot in a strictly "cash" economy (second in size only to the forest industry).

 

Their governments are beyond comprehension, most of the living ex-premiers left office in disgrace or disgraced themselves afterwards. The current premier is a convicted drunk driver (last year in Hawaii), who has just proposed increasing the penalties for drunk driving (conveniently excluding himself). The governments alternate from extreme left to extreme right. This is a society, that if an individual, would be characterized as bipolar.

 

So it comes as no surprise that in 2003, when gays in the major population centres of Canada are getting married (I'm invited to a gay wedding in three weeks time in Montreal), some school board in BC is busy banning books on gay subjects. So what else is new!!

 

I am prepared to concede that British Columbia is a colourful place and nothing that happens there surprises me. I don't think I could live there, though, as I prefer to read of their shenanigans from a distance.

:7

[Guest fukamarine]

>There are certain journalists and scribes who characterize

>British Columbia as California North or Lotus Land and while

>these names vaguely capture the essence of the place, they do

>not do full justice to the reality that is our "wet coast".

 

Not nearly as wet as "they" would have you believe. Having been born in Toronto and lived in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg I can truly say that BC is a vastly superior place to live.

 

>BC is a province unlike any other in Canada. It has one fairly

>cosmopolitan city,Vancouver,

 

(fairly?) try very......... and while we on the subject, by saying "one", you are implying that the other provinces have several. Wrong! Tell me, how many does Ontario have........ ONE - Toronto, and how about Quebec? ONE..... Montreal. (I would hardly rate Quebec City as cosmopolitan!) So don't make it sound as the East has it cup overflowing with sophistication.

 

>a decidedly quaint and Englishy provincial capital city, Victoria,

 

And what's wrong with that?

 

>and a huge hinterland full of rednecks, Bible belters

 

You obviously have never lived in Manitoba!

 

>I don't think I could live there, though, as I prefer to read of >their shenanigans from a distance.

 

And a million "wet" coasters breath a collective sigh of relief.

 

And with an attitude such as your's it's no wonder we all hate those fuckin' Easteners. While your at it - how about taking a swipe at the Maritimes too?

 

 

fukamarine

[Luv2play]

I would never deny that British Columbia has its charms, nor other regions of Canada for that matter. What I was trying to convey was that BC has a weird schizophrenic quality that infuses its society. You did not address what lies behind the book-banning episode, which is not the first time in recent memory that this type of suppression has occurred there.

 

To understand what is going on today, you have to look at where we came from as a society. 50 years ago there was probably little to distinguish the various regions of Canada in terms of the values and mores of mainstream society. Then came massive post-war immigration from previously untapped sources (non-European) and the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. The immigrants flocked to Canada's cities and transformed them completely. In Quebec, the people threw off the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and never looked back.

 

As for society's tolerance of gays, no politician outside of Quebec would have dared decriminalize homosexuality in the late 60's; it took Pierre Trudeau to exercise the necessary leadership. You only have to look to the US to see how they have dealt with gay rights (in Vermont gays can marry and in Texas they throw you in jail for having gay sex in the privacy of your own bedroom). And it was Trudeau who pushed through the Charter of Rights which has provided the sorts of protections for gays that most gay Americans can only dream about.

 

That is exactly what would have happened in Canada if Quebec politicians had not pushed through our landmark legislation. You hear a lot of grumbling about how Quebec dominates the federal government (most of our prime ministers in the last 50 years have come from there) but in matters of gay rights, you can thank them for creating a very tolerant society in (most parts of) Canada. At least, that's the way I see it.;-)