To the editor:
Re: “Chang defeated by Byng parent backlash,” May 30.
Cheryl Rossi and especially Allen Garr’s heavily biased and twisted reporting of a planned “parent's only” meeting hijacked by a few angry students at Lord Byng high school last week only served to increase the polarity between the two sides over what is in the best interests of our children’s mental and physical health and their safety and protection in school.
However, gender choice and social experimentation is not what a majority of parents want for their children from their public education system. These prescribed changes will not stop unwanted bullying in our schools and sadly may even feed it. It would appear that this highly controversial policy put together by the VSB Pride Advisory Committee was simply expecting a stamp of approval from our elected trustees.
How many parents were informed of this life-changing plan for their children? Is a freely elected PAC chair along with many anxious and concerned parents not to be given the opportunity to express their heart-felt concerns in a democratic and free society without being publicly and personally maligned for their volunteer efforts?
Sandra Harmel,
Vancouver
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To the editor:
Allen Garr’s digression on sexual matters is puzzling. Is it his reasoned opinion that opposition to same-sex marriage is to be equated with “homophobia?”
That phobia, like others, refers to irrational fear, but this clearly does not apply to an opposition that has been at pains to present a rational case against same-sex marriage.
Ed Derksen,
Vancouver
