Ontario, Canada has recently passed a bill, Bill 89 or the Supporting Children, Youth, and Families Act of 2017, which will now allow children to express their gender identity and religion as they please.
The bill specifically states that children’s services and judges have to consider a child’s “race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.”
In addition, the parents have to accept a child’s gender identity sexual orientation, and religion or risk losing the child.
And who introduced this bill? Michael Coteau, the Minister of Child and Family Services.
Coteau has explained further on the idea that the definition of parental abuse has been extended for the benefit of the child.
“When a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently. If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops.”
After this bill was passed however, Christians groups have expressed their outrage and stated that they feel they are being attacked.
The idea that Christians can’t raise their children, born with them, adopted, or fostered, to be Christian if the child doesn’t want to has insulted some groups.
In addition, I tried to look further in the story.
I first looked up some of the opposition and tried to see what their thoughts were in detail.
I came across this video of two guys talking about the bill and was immediately annoyed by them. Their over-top-delivery mixed in with their statements that if you generally don’t approve of LGBTQ people you could have your child taken away, made me want to roll my eyes.
The point of the bill is to make sure that children are growing up with loving and safe families, not to take away the children of people who don’t approve of LGBTQ lives.
That said, they did have some interesting comments that rang truth. For instance, they stated that this bill could specifically target Christian people.
At first, I again rolled my eyes, but they then cited Motion 103 which is an anti-Islamophobia bill. That bill could potentially negate Bill 89.
For instance, if Islamic parents state that an adopted child must convert to Islam, would they be violating Bill 89 or protected under Motion 103? In that situation, it may weigh closer to Bill 89, but there is the possibility of Islamic parents violating the bill but being protected under M-103.
There is no protection for Christian parents.
Also, I’ve noticed that nobody’s mentioning Judaism or any other religion. It seems just like the Black/Brown and White conversation going on with the potential new colors of the rainbow flag, this conversation around Bill 89 is primarily about Christianity and Islam.
In addition, people are saying that this passed bill is another step towards Totalitarianism.
The concept called atomization is particularly mentioned. It’s when the government finds a way to split up citizens. They no longer have ties to families or communities, and thus have nothing else but to rely to the government.
While it may be a bit of a stretch to say this bill is an atomization tactic or accidently resulting in it, it is interesting enough to mention.
That said, at its core Bill 89 is trying to protect children. The bill, and its creator/backer, are trying to ensure that children are free to express themselves in happy and healthy conditions.
In addition, its not like if you say one word that your child doesn’t like he’ll immediately be taken away from you. There will be steps and procedures to verify if the home is unsafe for the child.
If you want to research the bill by yourself, you can read it in its entirety here. (Warning: it is very long.)
Happy reading.
I don’t know how young is too
I don't know how young is too young for children to decide which religion they want to follow or which sexual gender they wish to live.. However it is never acceptable in my opinion to force religion down the throats of anyone including children or to suppress the sexual identity of anyone including children so this bill does have good merits but I don`t know enough about it to say what the downside is about Bill 89.. Don`t confuse Motion 103 which was passed in Parliament with actual federal laws because Motion 103 is not a law or Bill but a private members motion which was passed that has no legal implications so Bill 89 will remain in effect in Ontario as the law in Ontario only. So this "theory" that Motion 103 would interfere in any way with Bill 89 which is a provincial law when it comes to Muslims or any other religion is false.