I wish to respond to the contorted and hypocritical logic in Paul Henderson’s column in The Progress on Sept. 6, 2019, “Council takes a step in the wrong direction.”
• READ MORE: OPINION: Chilliwack city council made a regressive, terrible mistake
According to Henderson, the three of us on the school board who are not “progressive” (whatever that means) are “not supportive of young people” and have expressed “moral outrage” at “government approved anti-bullying materials used by teachers.”
Barry Neufeld, Heather Maahs and I are very supportive of young people in our district, and it was our concern over the experimental “resource” called SOGI123 that partly motivated us to run in the school board election. SOGI123 is less about “anti-bullying” than the indoctrination of gender-secure students with one aspect of transgender ideology that asserts if a person born a male says he is a female, then he is – and that he now must be called a she. This is not fact-based education. Gender dysphoria is a psychological condition, not a biological one.
• RELATED: New Chilliwack school board sworn in after divisive election
According to Henderson, “…if others asked for a crosswalk decorated with ‘baby feet, crosses, or anti-immigration,’ then obviously (according to Henderson) if they did “any city council with any self-respect could and should simply reject those messages of misogyny, narrow religious self-promotion, and racism.”
I wonder if it has ever occurred to Henderson that he contradicts himself when he expects city council to allow a minority group (LGBTQ) to paint their symbol on a city crosswalk, but then demands that “any city council with any self-respect” must reject any other group that wants to have their symbol painted on a crosswalk? Either Henderson wants to live in a democracy, or he doesn’t. Instead of derision, how about accepting the democratic process where five of the seven city council members decided that there are numerous valid reasons for rejecting the demands of one group (the LGBTQ) in Chilliwack?
Henderson’s unwarranted attack on the valid arguments of Councillor Knott, and his “moral outrage” against other groups that might want baby feet or crosses painted on crosswalks is hypocritical – and indeed laughable. Perhaps it is not city council, or Councillor Knott that should “wake up to reality” but Paul Henderson. We live in a democracy, and council has made a democratic decision in the right direction – by supporting Chilliwack traffic bylaws and affirming their political neutrality and commitment to all communities in our city.
Darrell Furgason
Chilliwack School Trustee