We’ve seen it as more and more parents are fighting back against Pride flags flying above Catholic schools and administration buildings. What began as support for gay people in our society — who need our support, and love, just like everyone else — has gotten so far out of hand that we now have an alphabet soup of multiple genders (I lost count of how many long ago) that we must — MUST — recognize. While their tactics may be a bit over the top in some cases, these parents are fighting back against a movement, and an entrenched bureaucracy, that will never be happy with what gains they have made until they’ve gotten everything, no matter how ridiculous.
Now those who have pushed and pushed and got us to this point are not alone to blame. Cowardly politicians have lacked the courage to fight back against increasing steps to make the latest fashionable ideology seem normal, and have allowed things to reach the absurd place where we now find ourselves.
Which brings us to Blaine Higgs. The New Brunswick premier has bravely taken on the gender ideologists — particularly brave because society has given in so quickly to this idea of “fluidity” of gender that it is almost normal, and we have a hard time remembering when it wasn’t always this way. And brave because he has said he would be willing to fight an election over the issue.
And really, despite the media’s hue and cry against Higgs, how is his stand not recognized as basic common sense? And quite frankly, the argument can be made that Higgs hasn’t actually gone far enough.
Still, in the name of letting parents be the parents, Higgs has taken a stand. New Brunswick has updated its Policy 713, which sets standards for an inclusive environment in the province’s schools. The new policy removes the obligation of teachers to respect a child’s choice of name or pronoun in the classroom whether parents consent or not.
It will be parents, not teachers, not bureaucrats, who will have the final say on their own children. It is they who will guide their children’s future, not some faceless administrator, not some teacher who will have the child under their wing for 10 months a year, a few hours a day, only to pass them on to another for the next school year. No longer will schools be able to keep from parents information about their children on such a sensitive issue. Common sense, right?
The best part of all this? Higgs has the support of the people. A poll taken after the changes to Policy 713 shows that fully 57 per cent of Canadians agree that schools should have to tell parents when their child wants to change gender or pronouns. Only 18 per cent of respondents to the SecondStreet.org poll felt schools shouldn’t have to tell parents.
Of course, to our enlightened prime minister, this makes Higgs the epitome of the “far right.”
“Far-right political actors are trying to outdo themselves with the types of cruelty and isolation they can inflict on these already vulnerable people,” Justin Trudeau told a fawning Toronto (where else) crowd at an LGBT fundraiser. “Right now, trans kids in New Brunswick are being told they don’t have the right to be their true selves, they need to ask permission.”
The only thing missing from Trudeau’s lament was the “racist, misogynists” of the Atlantic province (perhaps even the “deplorables” from Hilary Clinton’s playbook? Look how that helped her).
Instead of showing his typical “mind is on vacation while his mouth is working overtime” sensibility, maybe the PM should consider the cruelty being inflicted on the children. They are vulnerable, yes. But what child isn’t? And those vulnerabilities are myriad, not limited to any one issue, but almost everything they face each day. They’re kids for God’s sake! They are just beginning to make their way in this world. Those who are best to help them? Their loving families, not some anonymous backroom person they will never know.
How did we let things get so out of hand? To the point, as in George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others? Easy. No one took a stand. Finally, it appears there are some who will.