Science vs. Religion
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Rene and Anna Chouinard, a humanist couple in Grimsby, Ontario, want to distribute an book on atheism among students in Niagara -- just like the Bible is already being distributed. The District School Board of Niagara has refused, but the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to hear their case.
Rene and Anna Chouinard have three children who attend school in Niagara and they've already been fighting for two years to have the books Just Pretend: A Free Thought Book for Children or Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheistdistributed among students in the fifth grade.
The School Board has been rejecting the books on the grounds that they contain "inappropriate" material. In principle, that can be a reasonable objection, but it has to be viewed in the larger context of years of distributing Bibles. What in those books is more "inappropriate" than the sex and violence in the Bible?
"If they allow Gideon Bibles in the schools, then why can't other groups distribute their material as well," he said on Tuesday. "This is not fair for people who may believe in other religions." ...
"This case involves important issues of (Human Rights) Code interpretation, and could have consequences for school boards, students and parents across Ontario," the tribunal said in its decision.
Source: CNews
I think that this will come out as an obvious case of discrimination against non-Christians. There's nothing in the books that the Chouinards want to distribute which comes anywhere close to the sex and violence in the Bible. There's no way that any school board would be able to defend this sort of policy with these books.
So it will be interesting to watch what happens and see when, exactly, the school board lawyers recognize that they don't have a case based on these arguments and start shifting gears so they can argue something else entirely.
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