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Whose children are they?

Many parents don’t realize the radical and harmful governance shift in “parent-child-State” relationships taking place over the past decade.

Here in Alberta, for example, successive governments have declared they know better than parents what is in their children’s sexuality and gender development best interest. Since 2015, Alberta Education has said its 733,000 students have the right to join so-called “Gay-Straight Alliance clubs,” as well as declare a sexual orientation or gender identity starting at age five, independent of parental knowledge and consent.

Harmful impacts

In Tom Blackwell’s January 5, 2023, National Post article “Some parents object as Canadian schools quietly aid students’ gender transition,” he showed where this can go: 

“When a student in a Calgary Grade 6 class came out as transgender this year, the teacher made one thing clear to the other pupils: they mustn’t let slip their classmate’s new gender identity to her parents. The couple was not yet aware of the change...It’s just one way the education system has become intimately involved in the transgender process, affecting an exponentially growing number of young Canadians. Schools accept name and pronoun preferences, provide gender-neutral washrooms and teach from a young age about gender identity. In some cases, they can even refer students directly to gender-treatment clinics.”

Parents have the right to know who is influencing their children’s sexual/gender development, where and when this is happening, and what their children are being told and doing while at school.

Parents should be alarmed that young children are encouraged by the State to make life-altering sexuality and gender “identity” decisions without the knowledge and consent of their parents. These children are at risk of jeopardizing their future by making declarations and associations they do not have the maturity to contemplate fully, nor understand the long-term ramifications.

Disenfranchising parents

In addition to secret Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club membership, the Alberta governance assault on the traditional family (parents and children) has the following legal/policy characteristics:

• Students starting from age five can change their name at school and wear whatever gender-expressive clothes they wish without their parents’ knowledge or approval
• All school staff is authorized to deceive parents regarding their son or daughter’s involvement in a GSA club and their self-identification declarations, thus sending the message to students that parents shouldn’t be trusted in sexuality and gender matters, the State knows best
• The GSA clubs are connected to an adult-run, unaccountable GSA Network which is further associated with activist agencies also not responsible to the State

Note that these laws have been affirmed by three successive governments: PC, NDP, and UCP.

Conclusion

We know that God gave us families to raise children, and charged children in the Fifth Commandment to obey their parents. It is vital that the State doesn’t undermine them. As Paul counsels in Ephesians 6:1-4:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may turn out well for you, and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

We need to be able to fulfill this call, so the State must be pushed back.

Carman Bradley is the founder of Parental Consent Alberta (ParentalConsentAlberta.ca) where our Alberta readers can find out more about what his group is trying to do – including a petition initiative – to protect children by empowering their parents.