Should religious schools receive public funding?

I woke up early this morning and made the error of reading an article on CBC. In the article, the CBC “Go Public” reporter tells the story of a former teacher of Surrey Christian School, who was “forced to resign” when the school indicated it would not renew her annual teaching contract because she was discovered to have been living with her boyfriend (in fact the school intended to employ her until the end of the academic year, but she chose to resign). This was a breach of the contract she had signed with the School. The reporter used a click-bait headline referring to “heterosexual marriage”, notwithstanding that the teacher was in a heterosexual relationship and LGBT rights were not involved in the story at all.

The following is a selection of the type of comment left by concerned CBC readers:

“It’s obviously time to stop funding religious schools that won’t abide by BC Human Rights laws.“

“(Religious schooling) amounts to child abuse.“

“Don’t create contracts that create Charter violations.” (There was a lot of Charter commentary from this one person who appears to be a pathological CBC commenter and Charter applier.)

Four main trends appeared in the comments that led me to believe the commenters had limited access to the law and logic generally. I can summarize my thoughts as follows:

1. Religious schools are not impacted by the Charter.
2. Religious schools have special exemptions under the Human Rights Code that allow them to “prefer” people who adhere to their religious views.
3. Religious schools should continue to receive public funding for the same reason that they were initially granted it, that is, to provide for the education of children;
4. Religious schools are an important and increasingly well-utilized alternative for parents who do not wish to have modern sexual ideas imprinted on their children at the early ages.

1. Opinion: Charter rights are engaged in a private contract

They are not. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms governs how the government deals with citizens. It does not govern how citizens (including private organizations) deal with each other. If the teacher had been arrested and put on trial, or kicked out of subsidized housing, her Charter rights would have been engaged. The Charter does not extend to private contracts. The School is private (even though it receives partial funding from the government) and the individual is private. Therefore, contrary to the repeated assertions of the commenters, the contract and the School’s behaviour not only do not breach the Charter, they have nothing to do with it at all.

2. Opinion: Human Rights are engaged and violated

They are not. Although religion, marital status, and gender orientation (not engaged here, although it somehow made it into the headline) are human rights protected under the BC Human Rights Code, there is a specific exemption for religious institutions that aren’t operated for profit:

“If a religious organization that is not operated for profit has as a primary purpose the promotion of the interests of an identifiable group characterized by religion, that organization must not be considered to be contravening this Code because it is granting a preference to members of the identifiable group.”

BC Human Rights Code, S. 41(1), edited for brevity

Surrey Christian is a religious organization that is not operated for profit. It has as a primary purpose the promotion of an identifiable group of protected persons (Christian families and children). It grants a preference to people who comply with the statement of its faith-based code of conduct. This preference was codified in its employment contract, which the teacher signed. When she breached the contract, the employer had the right not to re-engage her for another term.

3. Opinion: Religious schools should not receive government funding

The thrust of this kind of comment is that because Christian schools do not comply with the Charter or the Human Rights Code, they should not receive money from the government. Of course the threshold problem here is that the Charter does not apply and there is a specific exemption in the Human Rights Code: not being in violation of either, why should religious schools not receive government funding?

But this mentality is much more flawed and, I suggest, insidious. The reasoning requires that, in order to access the funds they require to operate, private non-profit institutions should have to compromise their religious practice (dare I say freedom?). Many commenters cited modern sensibilities to support this: mainstream secular ideas about marriage, faith, and family life should govern who gets government money. I must point out that sensibilities change regularly, and not always for the better (hello, anti-vaccine movement). If religious schools are to be cut off from government funding because some people disagree with their practices, I suggest the following institutions ought also to be put on the chopping block:

• Income Assistance, insofar as it may be paid to individuals who hold unpopular opinions or beliefs;
• The University of British Columbia, which unlike Surrey Christian has had a litany of recorded decisions issued against it in BC’s Human Rights Tribunal for proven breaches of the Human Rights Code, including the province’s highest ever HRT damages award for exceptionally cruel conduct against a mentally disabled student;
• Abortion facilities, which terminate or are involved in terminating the lives of perfectly viable – if unloved – pre-born infants, contrary to the sensibilities of many Canadians;
• Agricultural subsidies to farmers that do not use organic methods;
• The Canada Summer Jobs program … oh wait;
• Pride Parade, to the extent that it renders inaccessible whole quadrants of the city for a week at a time, to the general inconvenience of motorists and residents, for celebrations directly relevant to only about 5% of the population;
• CBC, which permits a riot of vitriolic anti-religious slander to be posted on its government-funded pages and promotes such through the use of hot-button headlines irrelevant to the topic at hand.

(Note to reader: I do not actually support the withdrawal of public funding from Income Assistance, UBC, farmers, Canada Summer Jobs program, or Pride Parade. Please do not light my house on fire.)

4. Opinion: A religious education is irrelevant and even abusive

This was not necessarily the opinion of the journalist, but it was the stated position of many commenters. Basically, to educate your child in a religious school is to subject him or her to an obsolete indoctrination that will harm their mental health and career prospects, not to mention their views of consensual sexual relationships. Monotheistic religion is responsible for slavery, all major wars since AD 1, the whole political situation in the Middle East, bigotry, homophobia, global warming (OK not global warming, but someone actually did suggest a list containing those other things). Why indoctrinate the little ones to follow this hideous path?

Many parents have excellent reasons for sending their children to religious schools. Small class sizes, special community, and academic rigour are three compelling reasons that many non-religious people choose religious schools. Since 2016, there has been a major push factor on a religious basis: SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) 123. This curriculum is billed as an “anti-bullying” program, but is mainly aimed at promoting an LGBT-positive worldview from an early age. Teachers are encouraged to incorporate the SOGI 123 curriculum into every subject. They are not required to warn parents in advance about how, when, or what they will be teaching in this respect. This removes the parent’s control over their child’s education, in a way that is fundamental to what their families may believe. I think that not only Christian parents, but also observant Muslim, Jewish, and Sikh parents, as well as traditionally-minded parents of no faith, would be opposed to this curriculum.

Almost every Christian couple I know is sending their children to private Christian school because of the imposition of SOGI 123 on their family life. While it’s a shame that the withdrawal of Christian children will reduce the diversity of opinion and experience in public schools, I tend to agree with any parent who wants to retain the right to teach their children about sexuality in the manner and timing they deem best. This is not a job for the government, it is a delicate and intimate task for parents, one that involves discretion, sensitivity and a loving knowledge of their child’s capacity for understanding and resilience. No teacher could ever offer the depth of care and attention that many parents would employ to treat on this subject with their children.

Because public schools are being used as a vehicle for early indoctrination in the government’s special interests curriculum, those who disagree with the government’s view must have a viable and accessible alternative. That means that private schools, including religious schools, should receive government funding in spite of – and maybe because – they don’t teach the government’s platform. The schools that give families an alternative to SOGI 123 are the ones likely to have policies supporting traditional family values. At risk of sounding hyperbolic, this trade-off is essential to the functioning of democracy. It’s not really a question of money so much as the imposition of the government’s views on the population.

Religious schools should receive government funding in spite of – and maybe because – they don’t teach the government’s platform.

Do I think that LGBT kids should experience bullying or discrimination? Of course I don’t. Am I going to teach my children to respect the intrinsic and extrinsic rights, innate characteristics, and lawful choices of others? You bet I am. However, I do not accept that anyone should be made to teach their child anything but the “Three R’s”, or in any particular way, either by operation of some law imposing such on all schools everywhere as demanded by some of the commenters, or by operation of financial necessity because alternatives are not properly funded.

On the other hand, because religious schools do receive public funding, they are required to incorporate the SOGI 123 curriculum in their teaching. Many of them tend to do so with discretion and religious sensibility. So, one benefit of losing public funding would be the immediate loss of government control over religious schools’ curriculum.