“Children will have to be taught about homosexual acts in health class”
By Hilary White
ST. PAUL/MINNEAPOLIS, November 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This week, Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary will give a talk to a group of Christian pastors in Eden Prairie Minnesota, on the ramifications of the Canadian redefinition of marriage. Henry spoke to a local reporter yesterday saying that the passage of the same-sex “marriage” law has triggered a social revolution in Canada.
In the last two years, Bishop Henry has endeared himself to family advocates in Canada as the only member of the Canadian Catholic hierarchy to be so outspoken in his opposition to the homosexual political agenda as to risk prosecution. His courage has attracted attention in the United States where laws legalizing same-sex unions are pending in many jurisdictions and the fight to preserve marriage is often being more agressively carried on by Christians, church leaders and others than it has been so far in “nice” Canada.
Henry’s comments appeared in the Minnesota Star Tribune, in which he said the legal alteration has created an oppressive atmosphere in Canada where public opposition to the homosexual legal juggernaut is outlawed and children are forcibly indoctrinated in the public schools.
Minnesota is currently facing a state proposal to preserve the traditional legal definition of marriage and is under siege from homosexual activists and their supporters who are using, says Henry, exactly the same rhetoric that worked to gain their ends in Canada.
He told Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Katherine Kersten that, as in Minnesota, voters in Canada were told that the change would not affect any existing marriages but would merely expand marriage to make it more fair and “inclusive.”
The change, he pointed out, means not that all marriages are treated equally, but that any preference for normal male/female marriage can be interpreted as unconstitutionally discriminatory, a “violation of human rights”.
“Canadians who believe in the historic definition of marriage, who believe that children need a mother and father, are now the legal equivalent of racists,” Henry said.
Henry said that the Canadian legal establishment is “combing through its laws and institutions to remove evidence of heterosexist discrimination.” References in law and government to the “wife,” “husband,” “mother,” “father,” are being eliminated across the board.
Among the hottest battlegrounds are Canadian schools, Henry says. “Children will have to be taught about homosexual acts in health class, as they now are about heterosexual acts.”
Such classes and curriculum material are in fact already in place, but until the passage of the law, parents could opt their children out. Henry said, “Books that promote same-sex marriage are being introduced in some elementary schools. In one action, complainants have demanded ‘positive queer role models’ across the whole curriculum. If parents complain, they’ll be branded as homophobes.”
The enforcers of the new Canadian morality are, says Henry, the Human Rights Tribunals, an extra-judicial “court” that does not recognize a requirement to follow established legal practices that make up due process. “The human rights tribunals have become like thought police.”
Henry himself has experienced this personally, “In Canada, you can now use the coercive powers of the state to silence opposition.”