The Vancouver Sun reports today that the provincial government of British Columbia has approved a settlement in a long-standing human rights commission complaint filed by a gay couple that will allow the couple to review public school curricula to ensure it properly reflects the positive contributions of gays to society over the course of history.

British Columbia is giving a same-sex couple an unprecedented role in a review of the provincial curriculum to ensure respectful teachings about sexual orientation from kindergarten to Grade 12. A six-page contract, signed by the Education Ministry and obtained by The Vancouver Sun, guarantees Peter and Murray Corren a significant voice in the revision of classroom lessons to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and the creation of a new social-justice course -- to include teachings about sexual orientation -- for Grade 12 students. The parties have agreed to seek mediation in the event of a dispute and have acknowledged the contract is legally binding. Many educators welcomed the agreement, saying it will make B.C. a North American leader in teaching respect for diversity. But most admitted they don't know what the changes might look like in practice.

Here's a hint, though.

Asked what he hopes the six-page contract will produce, (Murray) Corren replied: "Fair and appropriate reflection of non-heterosexual realities in the curriculum." Or, as he put it earlier in documents filed with the tribunal, he wants schools to teach: "Queer history and historical figures, the presence of positive queer role models -- past and present -- the contributions made by queers to various epochs, societies and civilizations and legal issues relating to (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) people, same-sex marriage and adoption."

I think there is a problem here. Certain other constituencies receive only lip service, if that. It is clear that the transgendered community, the bondage community, the leather fetishist community, and especially the polyamorous and non-gendered communities won't be granted adequate consideration under the settlement. It will be necessary to appoint additional curriculum overseers to ensure these groups - whose members also have made important contributions to history - are likewise given their due in the lessons taught to B.C's public school students. Otherwise they might also suffer human rights violations. Moreover, sexuality is hardly the only important diversity teachings criterion. Following the logic displayed in this settlement, coursework will also need community review to ensure it is appropriately inclusive and respectful to different racial and religious groups.

OK, I'm totally hosing you. What I really mean to say is that social indoctrination is best left to advocacy groups, religious institutions, and that quaint unit known as the family, rather than government. It is our conduct as individuals in the workplace, in the community, and among our friends and families - not our status as members of a particular racial, religious or sexual identity group - which earns us respect and appreciation. The B.C. scheme amounts to an insufferably condescending pander: "He's a credit to his sexual minority group."

In contradistinction to normal and decent people who do not approve of homosexuality due to religious convictions, there will always be a small sub-set of bigoted and hateful anti-gay or racist yobs who are a pox on society, no matter what statist gambits or private activist strategies are advanced against their ill antics. When these men (and they almost always are men) commit illegal acts of violence or harrassment, let them be put away for a good long time, preferably in a nice, comfy all-male cell block. But in a country that has already signalled its acceptance of gays through the legalization of gay marriage, it is hard to see the need for directed marketing in B.C. public school textbooks to highlight the accomplishments of gays unless in fact the gays advocating same quietly harbor deep self-doubts and straight supporters feel a need to accrue more "personal virtue" points.

That all this came to be more or less forced upon authorities due to a B.C. government "human rights" commission process cheapens the very concept of human rights. You care about human rights? Highlight or send help for the real victims of human rights offenses in Sudan's Darfur region, in Zimbabwe, Somalia, China, North Korea, or Cuba. Advocate for women's rights under Islam, for an end to "honor" killings and female genital mutilation. Support groups fighting the scourge of modern-day sexual slavery. And if you insist on connecting human rights and school textbooks, you really need to be talking to the Saudis, OK?

It's bad manners to have an identity crisis in public, and unconscionable for government to be the enabler.

TECHNORATI TAGS: GAY, CURRICULUM, TEXTBOOKS, BRITISH COLUMBIA, PETER CORREN, MURRAY CORREN