Hatred shown in Orlando is present in Manitoba

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/06/2016 (3410 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We are often told education is the key to solving the world’s biggest problems. If that’s true, why is it the education system is more often part of the problem, rather than the solution?

For an example, let’s examine the melodrama unfolding in the Hanover School Division in southeast Manitoba.

Hanover serves a region of the province that has not easily embraced change, to say the least. When the province introduced new anti-bullying legislation in 2013 that required high schools to host gay-straight alliance support groups, hundreds of people in the Hanover catchment area gathered to protest the law, arguing it violated the tenets of their faith. The HSD eventually agreed to accommodate GSAs but not without having to endure a tidal wave of criticism.

Perhaps out of a reluctance to stir up that hornet’s nest again, Hanover has found itself in turmoil over requests to update its sex education curriculum. An openly gay Grade 12 student and a woman in a same-sex relationship who has a child in a Hanover middle school program asked the division to include a discussion of homosexuality with students at a younger age. Currently, homosexuality and alternative sexual orientations are considered “sensitive” subjects and limited to high school. 

Hanover trustees denied the request, expressing some truly offensive sentiments in the process. One trustee based his decision to oppose the request on the fact he didn’t “agree with that lifestyle.” He said forcing a discussion of homosexuality on Hanover children was similar to the way the residential school system forced white culture on aboriginal children. 

Another trustee, who identified herself as a nurse, suggested broadening sex education curriculum would lead to an increase in cancer among students. Even the board chairman weighed in, asserting the board was not obligated to change curriculum “simply because somebody would like us to advance a personal agenda.”

It’s a sad and disillusioning story, to be sure. But then the shootings in Orlando, Fla., happened and the context for the Hanover story changed forever.

It appears Omar Mateen, the man who walked into the Pulse nightclub June 12 with two guns and started firing, suffered from a mashup of demons that included homophobia, religious extremism, political extremism and mental health. We may never really know what he was trying to accomplish, only what he accomplished: an atrocity against the LGBTTQ* community.

It is important to note that while it is among the worst attacks, it is not isolated. In a 2015 report on global discrimination against LGBTTQ* persons, the UN noted 76 countries retain laws that criminalize and harass LGBTTQ* people, including some that impose the death penalty for those involved in same-sex relationships.

Between 2008 and 2014, the UN documented 1,612 murders of LGBTTQ* persons across 62 countries. That is roughly equivalent to one killing every two days. In Brazil, there were 310 murders in 2012 alone “in which homophobia or transphobia was a motive.” This does not take into account the tens of thousands of documented incidents of harassment, bullying, and assault.

The horror of Orlando and the global epidemic of violence against LGBTTQ* people bring us full circle to the events in Hanover. When some Hanover students and their families who have suffered bullying and harassment ask the division to help boost tolerance by educating children about alternative sexual orientations, the school division has a solemn, moral imperative to act.

It should move quickly to start educating children at a younger age to accept and respect LGBTTQ* people with the comfort of knowing while it does not promote a lifestyle, it is the best possible way of ensuring tolerance trumps hate. It should also recognize any trustee’s personal opposition to any particular lifestyle is not relevant; the protection of vulnerable students is the only issue here.

Hanover trustees do not seem capable of accepting these fundamental truths about the world and the role they need to play in it. And that has certainly created a dilemma for Education Minister Ian Wishart.

The minister offered Hanover trustees sensitivity training. Wishart should be applauded for stepping in and making it indirectly clear the trustees need help. However, it’s not nearly enough.

It is beyond maddening that, as the world is witnessing one of the greatest single acts of hate-inspired violence in the last 50 years, the Hanover trustees cannot see the pressing, urgent need to use education to confront the ignorance at the very foundation of violence against LGBTTQ* people around the world.

Hanover trustees must accept the reality that the same hatred that played a role in the Orlando tragedy is present in their own backyard. And a request to protect vulnerable children through enhanced education is not “advancing a personal agenda.” Above all, they must be reminded it’s never too early to use education to combat hate and intolerance.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @danlett