“Way to go, Alberta! Parents (and children) will be thanking you for generations to come. People need to wake up and realize that gays (and radical feminists) want total control, and have nothing but contempt for heterosexual parents.” — posting by “Average Canadian Mom” on CBC news story about the passing of Bill 44

Well, lucky us. The Government of Alberta has rushed to the defence of our individual liberties and “freely” passed legislation this week that will allow parents to pull their kids out of classes in which “controversial” topics will be discussed. A few MLAs and a whole lot of teachers, students, and constituents spoke against it, but at the end of the day the regimented lockstep of the Progressive Conservative caucus carried the day and young minds were protected from such allegedly controversial topics as the theory of evolution and the existence of homosexuals in Alberta.

I certainly have no problem with parents instilling in their children the values they see fit to espouse, though I always assumed parents would go ahead and do that anyway, whether there’s human rights legislation backing them up or not. Having grown up in a family with at least one sibling who professed as truth a number of not-logically-arrived-at views concerning the origins of life, the acceptability of sexual orientations other than hetero, and an anti-masturbation stance that was totally out of sync with my own, um, firmly held beliefs, I never worried that exposure to the differing viewpoints or the naturally occurring diversity of a classroom setting would shake any of those ideas loose. But I was ever hopeful.

Rather, that particular sibling had moral exemplars dotted through her daily life who upheld and reinforced her moral standards, enabling her to sail right into adult life without a titch of cognitive dissonance and impart those self-same values and beliefs to her own progeny. Somehow this process has taken place for generations without the weight of provincial legislation behind it.

Unfortunately, in a place where it’s seldom a political misstep to make gay people — and teachers, for that matter — eat shit, there’s plenty of capital to be gained by enshrining the need to protect impressionable minds from certain elements of society. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing in these parts, whether it’s knowing the full extent of environmental impacts from moneymaking activities in the oilpatch or letting it get around that people of the same sex can form a loving, committed couple and live in harmony with their community to the detriment of no one else.

So, with the provincial Tories logging a growing list of policy and public relations gaffes lately, decisive and well-publicized action was called for to assure the party’s base there was a firm hand on the tiller. Now, instead of parents being able to pull their kids out of the classroom to avoid discussion of topics they feel are better dealt with at home, the anxiety about the potential fallout from such instruction has been shifted onto educators.

ATA president Frank Bruseker has already said there needs to be a comprehensive review of curricula right across the board to flag issues that might fall afoul of Bill 44, but I bet what will really cause teachers to moisten their twills is the prospect of an unscheduled, organic classroom discussion prompted by, let’s say, the discovery of new dinosaur remains in southern Alberta or Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Oscars. What overworked teacher is going to entertain such discussion in his or her overstuffed classroom if it means going before a human rights tribunal?

But what really troubles me is the way that Bill 44 reinforces the beliefs of people like “Average Canadian Mom,” who think there’s some kind of homosexual-evolutionist-feminazi conspiracy afoot, and that this unholy axis of perverts, atheists, and human reproductive educators are actively fulminating against decent heterosexuals everywhere, lying in wait to turn their kids into queer, agnostic contraceptive-users at the first opportunity.

It’s laughable to think kids learn homosexuality in school — I pity the person who is as bad at being gay as I am at long division — but it’s downright depressing to think the fear and intolerance they absorb at home is now that much less likely to be checked by the potential for respectful discussion of differing viewpoints in the classroom.

Personally, I don’t think you can teach homosexuality or promiscuity or agnosticism. But you used to be able to teach people that they could agree to disagree.